. "Old Masey has told you something of his strange condition,
has he not?"

"Yes, he has told me something," I answered, "and he says you know all
about it."

Dr. Garden looked very grave. "I don't know all about it. I only know
what happens when he comes into the presence of a looking-glass. But as
to the circumstances which have led to his being haunted in the strangest
fashion that I ever heard of, I know no more of them than you do."

"Haunted?" I repeated. "And in the strangest fashion that you ever heard
of?"

Dr. Garden smiled at my eagerness, seemed to be collecting his thoughts,
and presently went on:

"I made the acquaintance of Mr. Oswald Strange in a curious way. It was
on board of an Italian steamer, bound from Civita Vecchia to Marseilles.
We had been travelling all night. In the morning I was shaving myself in
the cabin, when suddenly this man came behind me, glanced for a moment
into the small mirror before which I was standing, and then, without a
word of warning, tore it from the nail, and dashed it to pieces at my
feet. His face was at first livid with passion--it seemed to me rather
the passion of fear than of anger--but it changed after a moment, and he
seemed ashamed of what he had done. Well," continued the doctor,
relapsing for a moment into a smile, "of course I was in a devil of a
rage. I was operating on my under-jaw, and the start the thing gave me
caused me to cut myself. Besides, altogether it seemed an outrageous and
insolent thing, and I gave it to poor Strange in a style of language
which I am sorry to think of now, but which, I hope, was excusable at the
time. As to the offender himself, his confusion and regret, now that his
passion was at an end, disarmed me. He sent for the steward, and paid
most liberally for the damage done to the steam-boat property, explaining
to him, and to some other passengers who were present in the cabin, that
what had happened had been accidental. For me, however, he had another
explanation. Perhaps he felt that I must know it to have been no
accident--perhaps he really wished to confide in some one. At all
events, he owned to me that what he had done was done under the influence
of an uncontrollable impulse--a seizure which took him, he said, at
times--something like a fit. He begged my pardon, and entreated that I
would endeavour to disassociate him personally from this action, of which
he was heartily ashamed. Then he attempted a s