’I remember reading a book entitled “Obscure Diseases of the Brain.”  It contained some interesting data on the subject of hallucinations.’

‘Possibly.’

’Now, candidly, would you recommend me to place myself in the hands of a mental pathologist?’

‘I don’t think that you’re insane, if that’s what you mean.’

’No?—­That is good hearing.  Of all diseases insanity is the most to be dreaded.—­Well, Atherton, I’m keeping you.  The truth is that, insane or not, I am very far from well.  I think I must give myself a holiday.’

He moved towards his hat and umbrella.

‘There is something else which you must do.’

‘What is that?’

’You must resign your pretensions to Miss Lindon’s hand.

’My dear Atherton, if my health is really failing me, I shall resign everything,—­everything!’

He repeated his own word with a little movement of his hands which was pathetic.

’Understand me, Lessingham.  What else you do is no affair of mine.  I am concerned only with Miss Lindon.  You must give me your definite promise, before you leave this room, to terminate your engagement with her before to-night.’

His back was towards me.

’There will come a time when your conscience will prick you because of your treatment of me; when you will realise that I am the most unfortunate of men.’

’I realise that now.  It is because I realise it that I am so desirous that the shadow of your evil fortune shall not fall upon an innocent girl.’

He turned.

’Atherton, what is your actual position with reference to Marjorie Lindon?’

‘She regards me as a brother.’

’And do you regard her as a sister?  Are your sentiments towards her purely fraternal?’

‘You know that I love her.’

‘And do you suppose that my removal will clear the path for you?’

’I suppose nothing of the kind.  You may believe me or not, but my one desire is for her happiness, and surely, if you love her, that is your desire too.’

‘That is so.’  He paused.  An expression of sadness stole over his face of which I had not thought it capable.  ’That is so to an extent of which you do not dream.  No man likes to have his hand forced, especially by one whom he regards—­may I say it?—­as a possible rival But I will tell you this much.  If the blight which has fallen on my life is likely to continue, I would not wish,—­ God forbid that I should wish to join her fate with mine,—­not for all that the world could offer me.’

He stopped.  And I was still.  Presently he continued.

’When I was younger I was subject to a—­similar delusion.  But it vanished,—­I saw no trace of it for years,—­I thought that I had done with it for good.  Recently, however, it has returned,—­as you have witnessed.  I shall institute inquiries into the cause of its reappearance; if it seems likely to be irremovable, or even if it bids fair to be prolonged, I shall not only, as you phrase it, withdraw my pretensions to Miss Linden’s hand, but to all my other ambitions.  In the interim, as regards Miss Lindon I shall be careful to hold myself on the footing of a mere acquaintance.’