ously mad--it was a case (not to use technical language) of
deficient intelligence, tending sometimes toward acts of unreasoning
mischief and petty theft, but never approaching to acts of downright
violence. My friend was especially interested in the lad--won his
confidence and affection by acts of kindness--and so improved his bodily
health as to justify some hope of also improving the state of his mind,
when a misfortune occurred which has altered the whole prospect. The
poor creature has fallen ill of a fever, and the fever has developed to
typhus. So far, there has been little to interest you--I am coming to
a remarkable event at last. At the stage of the fever when delirium
usually occurs in patients of sound mind, this crazy French boy has
become perfectly sane and reasonable!"

I looked at him, when he made this amazing assertion, with a momentary
doubt of his being in earnest. Doctor Wybrow understood me.

"Just what I thought, too, when I first heard it!" he said. "My friend
was neither offended nor surprised. After inviting me to go to his
house, and judge for myself, he referred me to a similar case, publicly
cited in the 'Cornhill Magazine,' for the month of April, 1879, in an
article entitled 'Bodily Illness as a Mental Stimulant.' The article is
published anonymously; but the character of the periodical in which
it appears is a sufficient guarantee of the trustworthiness of the
statement. I was so far influenced by the testimony thus cited, that I
drove to Sandsworth and examined the case myself."

"Did the examination satisfy you?"

"Thoroughly. When I saw him last night, the poor boy was as sane as I
am. There is, however, a complication in this instance, which is not
mentioned in the case related in print. The boy appears to have entirely
forgotten every event in his past life, reckoning from the time when the
bodily illness brought with it the strange mental recovery which I have
mentioned to you."

This was a disappointment. I had begun to hope for some coming result,
obtained by the lad's confession.

"Is it quite correct to call him sane, when his memory is gone?" I
ventured to ask.

"In this case there is no necessity to enter into the question," the
doctor answered. "The boy's lapse of memory refers, as I told you, to
his past life--that is to say, his life when his intellect was deranged.
During the extraordinary interval of sanity that has now declared
itself, he is putting his mental po