Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/390

 act the effect," I said to myself again, "or let the potion work?"

I sat thinking over the way in which I had studied, and of how confident I had grown in my remedy, even to having been ready to test it on myself, and I could not help resigning myself to the position.

"It is in the cause of science," I thought, "and I can watch the action in another better than I could in my own person. It is an accident. No: it is fate."

It would be impossible to describe my feelings then as I sat watching the wretched object before me. Try and picture them for yourselves. A medical man's position is always painful when he is in doubt as to the result of his remedies in a critical case; but then he is fortified by the feeling that he has done everything in accordance with the precedents set by the wisest of his profession. Then I was face to face with the knowledge that I was trying a desperate experiment, and my patient might be dying before my eyes; in fact, as he sank back with his eyes staring, I felt that he was dying, and I started up to try and get some remedy, but he checked me by his words.

"Ah, it's you!" he said feebly. "I thought he had come again. He haunts me; he haunts me. All these years now, and no rest."

Then his face grew very calm; and in a fit of wild desperation I determined to let matters take their course.

For what better opportunity could fate have thrown in my way than bringing me into connection with this miserable creature, half demented by delirium tremens, and whose life was not worth a twelve months' purchase?

"It is in the cause of science," I muttered; "and even if his wretched life is sacrificed, it may be for the benefit of thousands. I cannot stop now. I must go on."

It was as if my muttered words had roused him, for he suddenly caught my hand in his.

"Don't be hard on me, doctor; I was obliged to drink. I've fought against it till I've been nearly mad. You people talk, but you don't know—you don't know. I'm going to take your stuff now, though; and it will make me right, doctor?"

"Yes."

He looked round wildly, and with a strange air of apprehension.

"Did you ever see a ghost?" he whispered.

"Never," I said, for I was obliged to speak.

"I have—hundreds of times. He haunts me. It has been for years now, till I could bear it no longer. That's why I've come. If a man's in sound health he doesn't see ghosts, eh?"

"No," I said; "they are the offspring of a diseased imagination."

"Yes; diseased imagination, that's it. Shouldn't see him if I was well, eh?"

"No; it is all fancy."

"Yes, doctor, but it's so horribly real. He comes to me, and goes over it all again and again; and as he talks to me the whole scene in the gully comes back, with our fight."

He sank back as if exhausted, but I was soon able to convince myself that he was only sleeping calmly, and a gentle perspira-