As Mr. Weiss tiptoed into the chamber, a woman—­the one who had spoken to me below—­rose from a chair by the bedside and quietly left the room by a second door.  My conductor halted, and looking fixedly at the figure in the bed, called out: 

“Philip!  Philip!  Here is the doctor come to see you.”

He paused for a moment or two, and, receiving no answer, said:  “He seems to be dozing as usual.  Will you go and see what you can make of him?”

I stepped forward to the bedside, leaving Mr. Weiss at the end of the room near the door by which we had entered, where he remained, slowly and noiselessly pacing backwards and forwards in the semi-obscurity.  By the light of the candle I saw an elderly man with good features and a refined, intelligent and even attractive face, but dreadfully emaciated, bloodless and sallow.  He lay quite motionless except for the scarcely perceptible rise and fall of his chest; his eyes were nearly closed, his features relaxed, and, though he was not actually asleep, he seemed to be in a dreamy, somnolent, lethargic state, as if under the influence of some narcotic.

I watched him for a minute or so, timing his slow breathing by my watch, and then suddenly and sharply addressed him by name; but the only response was a slight lifting of the eyelids, which, after a brief, drowsy glance at me, slowly subsided to their former position.

I now proceeded to make a physical examination.  First, I felt his pulse, grasping his wrist with intentional brusqueness in the hope of rousing him from his stupor.  The beats were slow, feeble and slightly irregular, giving clear evidence, if any were needed, of his generally lowered vitality.  I listened carefully to his heart, the sounds of which were very distinct through the thin walls of his emaciated chest, but found nothing abnormal beyond the feebleness and uncertainty of its action.  Then I turned my attention to his eyes, which I examined closely with the aid of the candle and my ophthalmoscope lens, raising the lids somewhat roughly so as to expose the whole of the irides.  He submitted without resistance to my rather ungentle handling of these sensitive structures, and showed no signs of discomfort even when I brought the candle-flame to within a couple of inches of his eyes.

But this extraordinary tolerance of light was easily explained by closer examination; for the pupils were contracted to such an extreme degree that only the very minutest point of black was visible at the centre of the grey iris.  Nor was this the only abnormal peculiarity of the sick man’s eyes.  As he lay on his back, the right iris sagged down slightly towards its centre, showing a distinctly concave surface; and, when I contrived to produce a slight but quick movement of the eyeball, a perceptible undulatory movement could be detected.  The patient had, in fact, what is known as a tremulous iris, a condition that is seen in cases where the crystalline lens has