: "why, any one
would think you were being hunted by the police."

"Hunted? Yes," cried the young man thrusting the glass from him, and
leaning across and seizing the doctor's wrist, "hunted--always hunted;
but there were no police, doctor; why were they not near to protect me?"

"Ah, yes," said the doctor, to humour his patient, as with keen interest
he watched every change in his mien. "They are generally absent when
wanted. So you have been hunted, eh?"

"Hunted! Yes; like some miserable hare by the hounds. They are on my
scent now. Night and day, doctor, night and day, till they have nearly
driven me mad."

"Mad? Nonsense! Your brain is as sound as mine."

"Yes, now; but they will drive me mad. Night and day, I tell you--night
and day, I have not dared to sleep," continued the young man wildly;
"no, I have not dared to sleep, for fear that I should not wake again."

"Indeed, Heath! And who hunted you?"

"Fiends--demons in human form. I have been so that I could not sleep
for fear of them. They have always been on my track--on the road
through the desert, across the mountains, at the port, on shipboard;
they appeared again here in England, at the docks, at the hotel, in the
streets; hunted, I tell you, till I have seemed to be hunted to death."

"Be calm, my dear boy, be calm. Come, you must have sleep."

"Sleep? Yes, if I could only sleep; but no, I could not--I could not--
only drink, doctor, drink; and it has never made me drunk, only keep me
up--help me to escape from the devils."

"Ah, you have drunk a good deal, then?"

"Yes; brandy--brandy. It has been my only friend and support, doctor.
I dared not go to an hotel; I was afraid to trust a bank; I had no
friend to whom I could go; and I swore I would trust myself till I could
get here safe in England."

"Where you are safe now."

"No, not yet, for they are tracking me. I got to Liverpool yesterday,
and tried to throw them off; but they followed me to the hotel, and I
dared trust no one there. They might have said I was mad, and claimed
me; said I was a thief--a dozen things to get me into their hands."

"Be calm, Heath, be calm."

"Calm? How can a hunted man be calm with the jaws--the wet, hungry
jaws--of the hounds on his heels--while he feels that in a moment they
may spring upon him and rend him? Oh, doctor, doctor, you never were a
hunted man."

"No, no," said the doctor blandly; "but we must master ourselves when we
f