The nurse was getting worn out.  Kitty Fagan would have had the priest come to the house and sprinkle it with holy water.  The two women were beginning to get nervous themselves.  The Rev. Mr. Stoker said in confidence to Miss Silence, that there was reason to fear she might have been given over for a time to the buffetings of Satan, and that perhaps his (Mr. Stoker’s) personal attentions might be useful in that case.  And so it appeared that the “young doctor” was the only being left with whom she had any complete relations and absolute sympathy.  She had become so passive in his hands that it seemed as if her only healthy life was, as it were, transmitted through him, and that she depended on the transfer of his nervous power, as the plant upon the light for its essential living processes.

The two young men who had met in so unexpected a manner on board the ship Swordfish had been reasonably discreet in relating their adventures.  Myrtle Hazard may or may not have had the plan they attributed to her; however that was, they had looked rather foolish when they met, and had not thought it worth while to be very communicative about the matter when they returned.  It had at least given them a chance to become a little better acquainted with each other, and it was an opportunity which the elder and more artful of the two meant to turn to advantage.

Of all Myrtle’s few friends only one was in the habit of seeing her often during this period, namely, Olive Eveleth, a girl so quiet and sensible that she, if anybody, could be trusted with her.  But Myrtle’s whole character seemed to have changed, and Olive soon found that she was in some mystic way absorbed into another nature.  Except when the physician’s will was exerted upon her, she was drifting without any self-directing power, and then any one of those manifold impulses which would in some former ages have been counted as separate manifestations on the part of distinct demoniacal beings might take possession of her.  Olive did little, therefore, but visit Myrtle from time to time to learn if any change had occurred in her condition.  All this she reported to Cyprian, and all this was got out of him by Mr. William Murray Bradshaw.

That gentleman was far from being pleased with the look of things as they were represented.  What if the Doctor, who was after all in the prime of life and younger-looking than some who were born half a dozen years after him, should get a hold on this young woman,—­girl now, if you will, but in a very few years certain to come within possible, nay, not very improbable, matrimonial range of him?  That would be pleasant, wouldn’t it?  It had happened sometimes, as he knew, that these magnetizing tricks had led to infatuation on the part of the subjects of the wonderful influence.  So he concluded to be ill and consult the younger Dr. Hurlbut, and incidentally find out how the land lay.

The next question was, what to be ill with.  Some not ungentlemanly malady, not hereditary, not incurable, not requiring any obvious change in habits of life.  Dyspepsia would answer the purpose well enough:  so Mr. Murray Bradshaw picked up a medical book and read ten minutes or more for that complaint.  At the end of this time he was an accomplished dyspeptic; for lawyers half learn a thing quicker than the members of any other profession.