you?" said one of them, in a voice that was somewhat
rigid with pain. "I think you had better be told first what has
happened."

Then, with her bleak face looking unmeaningly out of the window, she
continued, in an even and mechanical voice:

"I had better state everything that occurred just as it occurred. This
morning I was clearing away the breakfast things, my sisters were both
somewhat unwell, and had not come down. My brother had just gone out
of the room, I believe, to fetch a book. He came back again, however,
without it, and stood for some time staring at the empty grate. I said,
'Were you looking for anything I could get?' He did not answer, but
this constantly happens, as he is often very abstracted. I repeated my
question, and still he did not answer. Sometimes he is so wrapped up
in his studies that nothing but a touch on the shoulder would make him
aware of one's presence, so I came round the table towards him. I really
do not know how to describe the sensation which I then had. It seems
simply silly, but at the moment it seemed something enormous, upsetting
one's brain. The fact is, James was standing on one leg."

Grant smiled slowly and rubbed his hands with a kind of care.

"Standing on one leg?" I repeated.

"Yes," replied the dead voice of the woman without an inflection to
suggest that she felt the fantasticality of her statement. "He was
standing on the left leg and the right drawn up at a sharp angle, the
toe pointing downwards. I asked him if his leg hurt him. His only
answer was to shoot the leg straight at right angles to the other, as
if pointing to the other with his toe to the wall. He was still looking
quite gravely at the fireplace.

"'James, what is the matter?' I cried, for I was thoroughly frightened.
James gave three kicks in the air with the right leg, flung up the
other, gave three kicks in the air with it also and spun round like a
teetotum the other way. 'Are you mad?' I cried. 'Why don't you answer
me?' He had come to a standstill facing me, and was looking at me as he
always does, with his lifted eyebrows and great spectacled eyes. When
I had spoken he remained a second or two motionless, and then his only
reply was to lift his left foot slowly from the floor and describe
circles with it in the air. I rushed to the door and shouted for
Christina. I will not dwell on the dreadful hours that followed. All
three of us talked to him, implored him to speak to us with appeals tha