“Yes, I understand sufficiently now to manage.  You put him in my charge, then go home, and I’ll visit you as soon as I can.”

“One word more, Doctor.  As far as you think best, enjoin reticence on Jackson.  If the sight of Helen restores Nichol, as I believe it will, little need ever be said about his present condition.  Jackson would not dare to disobey a physician’s injunction.”

“Don’t you dare disobey them, either.  I’ll manage him too.  Come.”

Nichol had slept a good deal during the latter part of his journey, and now was inclined to wakefulness—­a tendency much increased by his habit of waiting on hospital patients at night.  In the eager and curious Jackson he had a companion to his mind, who stimulated in him a certain child-like vanity.

“Hello, Ma’tine,” he said, “ye’re gittin’ tired o’ me, I reckon, ye’re off so much.  I don’t keer.  This yere Jackson’s a lively cuss, en I ’low we’ll chin till mawnin’.”

“Yes, Nichol, Mr. Jackson is a good friend of yours; and here is another man who is more than a friend.  You remember what the surgeon at the hospital said to you?”

“I reckon,” replied Nichol, anxiously.  “Hain’t I minded yer tetotally?”

“Yes, you have done very well indeed—­remarkably well, since you knew I was not a doctor.  Now this man is a doctor—­the doctor I was to bring you to.  You won’t have to mind me any more, but you must mind this man, Dr. Barnes, in all respects, just as you did the doctors in the hospitals.  As long as you obey him carefully he will be very good to you.”

“Oh, I’ll mind, Doctor,” said Nichol, rising and assuming the respectful attitude of a hospital nurse.  “We uns wuz soon larned that’t wuzn’t healthy to go agin the doctor.  When I wuz Yankee Blank, ‘fo’ I got ter be cap’n, I forgot ter give a Johnny a doze o’ med’cine, en I’m doggoned ef the doctor didn’t mek me tek it myse’f.  Gee wiz! sech a time ez I had!  Hain’t give the doctors no trouble sence.”

“All right, Captain Nichol,” said Dr. Barnes, quietly, “I understand my duties, and I see that you understand yours.  As you say, doctors must be obeyed, and I already see that you won’t make me or yourself any trouble.  Good-night, Hobart, I’m in charge now.”

“Good-night, Doctor.  Mr. Jackson, I’m sure you will carry out Dr. Barnes’ wishes implicitly.”

“Yer’d better, Jackson,” said Nichol, giving him a wink.  “A doctor kin give yer high ole jinks ef ye’re not keerful.”

Martine now obeyed the instinct often so powerful in the human breast as well as in dumb animals, and sought the covert, the refuge of his home, caring little whether he was to live or die.  When he saw the lighted windows of Mr. Kemble’s residence, he moaned as if in physical pain.  A sudden and immeasurable longing to see, to speak with Helen once before she was again irrevocably committed to Nichol, possessed him.  He even went to her gate to carry