bed lay a motionless figure, with closed eyes and hands
folded across his breast, a motionless, helpless bit of earth, worse off
indeed than other bits of earth, because it had the consciousness of
existence.

The stranger approached the bed, seized one of the cold bony hands,
tested the pulse and laid his hand on the invalid's forehead. It might
have been a corpse that lay there. The eyes did not open, the blood
scarce seemed to flow through the veins, the respiration was hardly
perceptible.

"He lies like that all day long," said Szephalmi to the stranger.

The youth took his rings from his hands, asked for a glass of water, and
drew the tips of his fingers first round the rim of the glass and then
along the eyeballs and the temples of the old man in a downward
direction.

Szephalmi stood beside him with a dubious expression. The young man at
once observed it.

"You, sir, are also a sufferer," said he; "my method can cure you also."

Szephalmi smiled bitterly--galvanised corpses may smile in the same
way.

"The balm that is to cure me does not exist," said he.

"My method does not depend on material substances. You shall see. In an
hour's time you shall have actual experience of my treatment. Your cases
are very much alike."

"How so?"

"They are due to the same cause. The hidden seat of the evil in both
your cases is the mind, both of you are suffering from terrible
bereavements, you have lost your wife and two children, the old man his
daughter and two grandchildren."

The sick old man drew a long and deep sigh at these words, but his eyes
still remained closed. Szephalmi sat down on a chair beside him, hid his
face in his hands, and fell a weeping.

The young unknown continued to draw his fingers softly round the rim of
the glass, producing a ghostly sort of low wailing sound.

"The water will become magnetic before long," said he, "and then we
shall see."

"Yet," pursued he, "there is an even more evil malady than the sorrow of
bereavement, and that is--remorse. You are both troubled by the bitter
memories of an irrevocable past. You did not always love your children,
your grandchildren, as you do now that they are both dead--and this is
the greatest affliction of all."

At these words the sick Hetfalusy opened his eyes and gazed at the
speaker in astonishment.

Szephalmi stammered sorrowfully:

"Oh, sir! why do you torture us with these words? They make the poor old
man's heart bleed."