“The brain,” said Lefevre, “seems quite sound,—­perfectly passive, you see, but active in its passivity.  You can leave us, nurse,” said he; then, turning to the house-physician, he continued:  “I am convinced this is such a peculiar case as I have often imagined, but have never seen.  This nervous-muscular suspension is complicated with some exhaustive influence.  I want your assistance, and I ask for it like this, because it is necessary for my purpose that you should give it freely, and without reserve; I am going to try the electrode.”

This was a simple machine contrived by Lefevre, on the model of the electric cylinder of Du Bois-Reymond, and worked on the theory that the electricity stored in the human body can be driven out by the human will along a prepared channel into another human body.

“I understand,” said the assistant promptly.  He apprehended his chief’s meaning more fully than the reader can; for he was deeply interested and fairly skilled in that strange annex of modern medical science which his chief called psycho-dynamics, and which old-fashioned practitioners decline to recognise.

“Get me the machine and the insulating sheet,” said Lefevre.

While his assistant was gone on his errand, Lefevre with his right hand gently stroked along the main lines of nerve and muscle in the upper part of his patient’s body; and it was strange to note how the features and limbs lost a certain constriction and rigidity which it was manifest they had had only by their disappearance.  When the house-physician returned, the sheet (a preparation of spun-glass invented by Lefevre) was drawn under the patient, and the machine, with its vessels of chemical mixture and its conducting wires, was placed close to the bed.  The handles attached to the wires were put into the patient’s hands.

“Now,” said Lefevre, “this is a trying experiment.  Give me your hand—­your left; you know how to do; yes, the other hand on the machine, with the fingers touching the chemicals.  When you feel strength—­virtue, so to say—­going out of you, don’t be alarmed:  let it go; use no effort of the will to keep it back, or we shall probably fail.”

“I understand,” repeated the assistant.

Then, holding his hand,—­closely, but not so as to constrain the muscles,—­Lefevre put his own left on the machine according to the direction he had given his assistant,—­with his fingers, that is, dipping into the chemicals from plates in the bottom of which the wires conducted to the patient’s hands.  A shiver ran through the frame of both Lefevre and his companion, a convulsive shudder passed upon the unconscious body, and—­a strange cry rang out upon the silence of the ward, and Lefevre withdrew his hands.  He and the house-physician looked at each other pale and shaken.  The nurse came running at the cry.  Lefevre looked out beyond the screen to reassure her, and saw in the dim red reflection of the firelight a sight which struck him gruesomely, used though he was to hospital sights; all about the ward pale scared figures were sitting up in bed, like corpses suddenly raised from the dead.  He bent over his patient, who presently opened his eyes and stared at him.