really do fear. No mortal knows
it but myself, and I see it coming upon me with slow, but unconquerable
power. Oh, God--dreadful Spirit--spare me!"

Again they were silent, and again Marston resumed--

"Doctor Danvers, don't mistake me," he said, turning sharply, and fixing
his eyes with a strange expression upon his companion. "I dread nothing
human; I fear neither death, nor disgrace, nor eternity; I have no
secrets to keep--no exposures to apprehend; but I dread--I dread--"

He paused, scowled darkly, as if stung with pain, turned away, muttering
to himself, and gradually became much excited.

"I can't tell you now, sir, and I won't," he said, abruptly and fiercely,
and with a countenance darkened with a wild and appalling rage that was
wholly unaccountable. "I see you searching me with your eyes. Suspect
what you will, sir, you shan't inveigle me into admissions. Aye,
pry--whisper--stare--question, conjecture, sir--I suppose I must endure
the world's impertinence, but d----n me if I gratify it."

It would not be easy to describe Dr. Danvers' astonishment at this
unaccountable explosion of fury. He was resolved, however, to bear his
companion's violence with temper.

They rode on slowly for fully ten minutes in utter silence, except that
Marston occasionally muttered to himself, as it seemed, in excited
abstraction. Danvers had at first felt naturally offended at the violent
and insulting tone in which he had been so unexpectedly and unprovokedly
addressed; but this feeling of irritation was but transient, and some
fearful suspicions as to Marston's sanity flitted through his mind. In a
calmer and more dogged tone, his companion now addressed him:--

"There is little profit you see, doctor, in worrying me about your
religion," said Marston. "it is but sowing the wind, and reaping the
whirlwind; and, to say the truth, the longer you pursue it, the less I am
in the mood to listen. If ever you are cursed and persecuted as I have
been, you will understand how little tolerant of gratuitous vexations and
contradictions a man may become. We have squabbled over religion long
enough, and each holds his own faith still. Continue to sun yourself in
your happy delusions, and leave me untroubled to tread the way of my own
dark and cheerless destiny."

Thus saying, he made a sullen gesture of farewell, and spurring his
horse, crossed the broken fence at the roadside, and so, at a listless
pace, through gaps and by farm-roa