d in discovering the paralytic whom he sought. The medical
interest which had at first been aroused by the case appeared to have
died away; and it was only after some time spent in interviewing
officials that he at last found the man, Daniel McGair. A parish
apothecary had him in charge. The apothecary was a coarse good-natured
fellow, one of that class of ignorant men upon whose brains the dregs of
a refined agnosticism have settled down in the form of arrogant
assumption. He had enough knowledge of the external matters of science
to know, upon receiving Skelton's card, that he was receiving a visitor
of distinction. 'Yes, sir,' he said, leading the way out of the
dispensary, 'I'll exhibit the case. I don't know that there's much
that's remarkable about it. Of course, to us who take an interest in
science, all these things are interesting in their way.'

It was quite clear he did not know in what way the most special interest
accrued to this case.

'No sir, he ain't in the Union; he saved, and bought his cottage before
his stroke, so that's where he is. He ain't got no kith or kin, as far
as we know.'

It was bright noonday when they walked through the narrow streets of
mean houses, passing among the numerous children which swarm in such
localities. The sun was shining, the children were shouting, the women
were gossiping at their doors, when the apothecary stopped at a low
one-roomed cottage, the home of Daniel McGair. He opened the door with a
key and went in, as though the house were empty.

It was a plain bare room; there was no curtain on the window and the sun
shone in. There was a smouldering fire in the grate, a bookshelf on one
side, still holding its dusty and unused volumes; there was an
arm-chair--was that the chair in which he had sat to see his love-gifts
trampled down, in which he had received that mysterious stroke from the
unseen enemy? There was also a table in the room, and a chest, and, in
the corner, a pallet-bed, upon which lay the withered body of a man.
That was all, except some prints that hung upon the wall, dusty and
lifeless-looking. Such changes do years of disuse make in dwellings
which, when inhabited, have been replete with human interest. Even yet
there was abundant indication that the room had once been the abode of
one who put much of his own personality into his surroundings. The chair
and the chest were carved with a rude device--the Devil grappling with
the Son of God. The prin