e then
went on to refer to the fact that one of the known effects of the
galvanic battery as medically applied, is to destroy and dissolve morbid
tissues, while leaving healthy ones unimpaired. Given then a patient, who
by excessive indulgence of any particular train of thought, had brought
the group of fibres which were the physical seat of such thoughts into a
diseased condition, Dr. Gustav Heidenhoff had invented a mode of applying
the galvanic battery so as to destroy the diseased corpuscles, and thus
annihilate the class of morbid ideas involved beyond the possibility of
recollection, and entirely without affecting other parts of the brain or
other classes of ideas. The doctor saw patients Tuesdays and Saturdays at
his office, 79 ---- Street.

Madeline was not crazy, thought Henry, as still standing under the hall
lamp he closed the article, but Dr. Heidenhoff certainly was. Never had
such a sad sense of the misery of her condition been borne in upon him,
as when he reflected that it had been able to make such a farrago of
nonsense seem actually creditable to her. Overcome with poignant
sympathy, and in serious perplexity how best he could deal with her
excited condition, he slipped out of the house and walked for an hour
about the streets. Returning, he knocked again at the door of her
parlour.

"Have you read it?" she asked, eagerly, as she opened it.

"Yes, I've read it. I did not mean to send you such trash. The man must
be either an escaped lunatic or has tried his hand at a hoax. It is a
tissue of absurdity."

He spoke bluntly, almost harshly, because he was in terror at the thought
that she might be allowing herself to be deluded by this wild and
baseless fancy, but he looked away as he spoke. He could not bear to see
the effect of his words.

"It is not absurd," she cried, clasping his arm convulsively with both
hands so that she hurt him, and looking fiercely at him out of hot,
fevered eyes. "It is the most reasonable thing in the world. It must be
true. There can be no mistake. God would not let me be so deceived. He is
not so cruel. Don't tell me anything else."

She was in such a hysterical condition that he saw he must be very
gentle.

"But, Madeline, you will admit that if he is not the greatest of all
discoverers, he must be a dangerous quack. His process might kill you or
make you insane. It must be very perilous."

"If I knew there were a hundred chances that it would kill me to one that