"I see. Already he begins to revive. The medicine is a violent one, no
doubt, but for that very reason all the more efficacious. Suffering
supervenes, and in suffering lies the very crisis of the malady. But a
few more drops of this water. So! The reaction will be still more
violent presently, as you shall see. The sick man will groan and have
convulsions. Cold drops of sweat will exude from his temples. After
that, however, he will grow calmer, and the cure will be complete if God
help us."

The youth continued to magnetise the water.

"The sick man's greatest pain proceeds from the recollection of those
years when first you made the acquaintance of his recently deceased
daughter."

"What do you know, sir, of those years?" stammered Szephalmi, much
surprised.

"As much as a doctor ought to know whose business it is to cure the
hearts of his patients. He strongly opposed the marriage of the girl
with you. He was wrong in so doing. True affection when excluded from
the right road seeks out secret paths for itself. You discovered for
yourselves some such secret path."

"Sir!"

"Hush! The patient is groaning. The cure is operating. These secret
relations had consequences which could not be hidden. Your wife became
a mother before she was yet your wife. Pardon me, sir, but it is as a
doctor that I address you."

"How do you come to know all this?" faltered Szephalmi, in a scarcely
audible voice. "And when it was kept so secret too!" he thought to
himself. The same instant the old man made a violent effort to rise from
his bed and compel the speaker to be silent.

"It is having a strong effect, a very strong effect," said the youth,
feeling the sick man's pulse. "His pulse is beating ten strikes more a
minute than it did just now. Squire Hetfalusy," he resumed, "on hearing
these evil tidings flew into a violent temper; he was always a very
passionate man. He told his daughter that if she did not kill her child,
he himself would kill the pair of them. He would have married her to
someone else, to a rich man of high rank. This unlucky accident must be
kept secret. The girl was very miserable. Her brother stood forth in her
defence, and took her part against his own father, and his father cursed
him in consequence, expelled him from the house, and forbade him ever to
show his face there again. And the uninvited guest, the little suckling
who had no right to be born, also atoned for its fault; they said that
it was de