Wilmot shuddered and made a convulsive effort to break the handcuffs.  He struggled with them in desperate silence for nearly a minute.

“I might break them,” said Blizzard, “but you can’t.  Try to be as reasonable as you can.  Miss Ferris is in no immediate danger.  I am going to let her go, if you and I can agree.”

“What do you want me to agree to?”

“I’ve had it in mind for a long time.  It was why I relieved you of money cares, and sent you West.  I wished to put you in a state of perfect health before trying an experiment of the utmost interest and value to science.  Only your consent is now wanting.  Upon that consent depends Miss Ferris’s fate.  Refuse and I leave your lover heart to imagine what that fate may be.  She is absolutely in my power—­absolutely.  Do you know her writing?”

He smiled a little and held before Wilmot’s eyes a sheet of note-paper.

“She has just written it,” he said, “of her own free will.”

Wilmot read:  “I will marry you, as soon as I know that Wilmot Allen is out of your power and safe in life and limb.”

A sort of ecstasy, half anguish and half delight, thrilled through Wilmot.  The writing was unmistakably Barbara’s—­and she was ready to make that sacrifice for him!

“She sha’n’t do that,” he said, “so help me God.  What must I do—­to save her?”

“Young man,” said the legless man, “you must give me your legs.”

Wilmot was at first bewildered.

“My legs?”

“They are to be grafted on my poor old stumps,” said Blizzard.  “You won’t die.  You’ll just be as I am now.  And I—­I,” his eyes shone with an unholy light, “shall be as you are now—­a biped—­a real man—­a giant of a man.  You are going to consent?”

“How do I know that you will let Miss Ferris go?”

“You shall have news of her freedom and safety in her own writing.”

“When I have that assurance,” said Wilmot, “I will consent to anything. 
Any decent man would give his life for a woman—­why not his legs?  Is Dr.
Ferris to operate?”

“He will be the chief of three surgeons.”

“But he won’t cut off my legs.  We’re old friends.  He—­”

“Won’t know you in that beard.  I have told him that you are a murderer whom I have saved from the chair.  That in gratitude for this and for the further services of smuggling you out of the country and giving you a large sum of money—­not forgetting the crying interests of science—­you have consented to give me your legs.  He will ask you if you consent to have your legs cut off, and you will nod your head without speaking—­then when my old stumps have been prepared—­you will be put under an anaesthetic—­”

“First I must know that Miss Ferris is safe.”

“Give me your word of honor that when you know that she is—­you will consent.”

“I don’t know what you have to do with honor,” said Wilmot, “but I give my word.”