dimly to see his drift. "I will give it up, from this moment," I
answered.

"If the same consequences follow, which followed last June," said Ezra
Jennings--"if you suffer once more as you suffered then, from sleepless
nights, we shall have gained our first step. We shall have put you
back again into something assimilating to your nervous condition on the
birthday night. If we can next revive, or nearly revive, the domestic
circumstances which surrounded you; and if we can occupy your mind
again with the various questions concerning the Diamond which formerly
agitated it, we shall have replaced you, as nearly as possible in the
same position, physically and morally, in which the opium found you last
year. In that case we may fairly hope that a repetition of the dose
will lead, in a greater or lesser degree, to a repetition of the result.
There is my proposal, expressed in a few hasty words. You shall now see
what reasons I have to justify me in making it."

He turned to one of the books at his side, and opened it at a place
marked by a small slip of paper.

"Don't suppose that I am going to weary you with a lecture on
physiology," he said. "I think myself bound to prove, in justice to both
of us, that I am not asking you to try this experiment in deference
to any theory of my own devising. Admitted principles, and recognised
authorities, justify me in the view that I take. Give me five minutes of
your attention; and I will undertake to show you that Science sanctions
my proposal, fanciful as it may seem. Here, in the first place, is the
physiological principle on which I am acting, stated by no less a person
than Dr. Carpenter. Read it for yourself."

He handed me the slip of paper which had marked the place in the book.
It contained a few lines of writing, as follows:--

"There seems much ground for the belief, that every sensory impression
which has once been recognised by the perceptive consciousness, is
registered (so to speak) in the brain, and may be reproduced at some
subsequent time, although there may be no consciousness of its existence
in the mind during the whole intermediate period." "Is that plain, so
far?" asked Ezra Jennings.

"Perfectly plain."

He pushed the open book across the table to me, and pointed to a
passage, marked by pencil lines.

"Now," he said, "read that account of a case, which has--as I believe--a
direct bearing on your own position, and on the experiment which I am
tempting