Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/255

Rh her?" He stopped to listen. I heard nothing out of the common, though it seemed he did. "That's her laughter!" He broke into discordant merriment. "I play the part of Echo. She has me, body, soul, and spirit; and she thinks it such a jest!"

He spoke as men do in fevers. I could see that there were some about us who set him down as mad. There were those who jeered, as fools will at the sight of a man's anguish, when, in the abandonment of his shame, he trails his soul in the dust. I had seen persons in his case before. He was not mad, as yet, but on the border line, where men fight with demons. He had been drinking, to drive them back; but they had come the more, threatening, on every hand, to shut him in for ever. He knew what it was they threatened. It was the anguish of the knowledge which caused the sweat to stand in beads upon his brow.

The railway officials, I fancy, took it to be a case of incipient delirium tremens. A person in authority addressed himself to me.

"Are you a friend of this gentleman's, sir?"

"I know him well."

"Are you willing to undertake the charge of him? You see he's not in a fit state to go about alone."

"I'll take charge of him."