"Hah!" said the doctor, rising, and laying his hand upon the young man's shoulder. "You seem overwrought, and--"

The stranger started back at the touch, and was about to spring up, a cry of fear escaping his lips; and his slouched hat fell off, showing his wet brow, with the tangled hair clinging to it in a matted mass.

"I thought--" he gasped. "Ah, doctor, it is you!"

"Yes, sir; sit down and let's see. You seem quite exhausted."

"Don't you know me, doctor?"

"Know you? Good heavens!" cried the doctor in astonishment. "Mark Heath?"

"Mark Heath," said the visitor, sinking back with a groan.

"We thought you must be dead," said the doctor.

"You thought I must be dead," said the young man, passing his hand over his brow, and speaking in a strange and laboured way. "Yes, and I thought I must be dead--a dozen times over. I'm half dead now. What's that?"

He almost yelled the last words as he started to his feet again, his eyes wild, his right hand clinched, and his left thrust into the breast, as if in search of a weapon.

"I heard nothing," said the doctor. "Sit down."

"Some one in the street trying to get in."

"No, no, no. Sit down, my dear boy. Come, come: what's the matter?"

"Are you sure you cannot hear any one?"

"Quite, and even if I could, no one could get in without I opened the door."

"Hah!" ejaculated the young man, sinking down; "brandy! for God's sake, brandy!"

The doctor looked at him, hesitated, and ended by laying his hand upon his visitor's pulse, as he sat gazing strangely at the door.

If the doctor's soft touch had been that of white-hot iron the effect could not have been greater, for with a smothered shriek the young man sprang from his chair and stood at bay by the door.

"Why, Mark Heath, my good fellow, this will not do," said the doctor blandly. "There, there, come and sit down. I was only feeling your pulse."

A faint smile came over the young man's face, and he walked back to his chair.

"I thought it was one of those fiends," he said, with a shudder.

The doctor coupled the admission with the mention of the brandy, but he was not satisfied as to the symptoms, though, seeing his visitor's exhaustion, he went to his closet and took out a spirit decanter, with tumblers, poured a little into one glass, and was about to add water to it from the little bright kettle singing on the hob, when the young man snatched at the glass, and tossed off the brandy at a gulp; but even as he was in the act of setting down the glass, he started and stared wildly round towards the door.

"Hist!" he whispered.

"Pooh! there is nothing, my dear sir," said the doctor: "why, any one would think you were being hunted by the police."

"Hunted? Yes," cried the young man thrusting the glass from him, and leaning across and seizing the doctor's wrist, "hunted--always hunted; but there were no police, doctor; why were they not near to protect me?"

"Ah, yes," said the doctor, to humour his patient, as with keen interest he watched every change in his mien. "They are generally absent when wanted. So you have been hunted, eh?"

"Hunted! Yes; like some miserable hare by the hounds. They are on my scent now. Night and day, doctor, night and day, till they have nearly driven me mad."

"Mad? Nonsense! Your brain is as sound as mine."

"Yes, now; but they will drive me mad. Night and day, I tell you--night and day, I have not dared to sleep," continued the young man wildly; "no, I have not dared to sleep, for fear that I should not wake again."

"Indeed, Heath! And who hunted you?"

"Fiends--demons in human form. I have been so that I could not sleep for fear of them. They have always been on my track--on the road through the desert, across the mountains, at the port, on shipboard; they appeared again here in England, at the docks, at the hotel, in the streets; hunted, I tell you, till I have seemed to be hunted to death."

"Be calm, my dear boy, be calm. Come, you must have sleep."

"Sleep? Yes, if I could only sleep; but no, I could not--I could not-- only drink, doctor, drink; and it has never made me drunk, only keep me up--help me to escape from the devils."

"Ah, you have drunk a good deal, then?"

"Yes; brandy--brandy. It has been my only friend and support, doctor.

I dared not go to an hotel; I was afraid to trust a bank; I had no friend to whom I could go; and I swore I would trust myself till I could get here safe in England."

"Where you are safe now."

"No, not yet, for they are tracking me. I got to Liverpool yesterday, and tried to throw them off; but they followed me to the hotel, and I dared trust no one there. They might have said I was mad, and claimed me; said I was a thief--a dozen things to get me into their hands."

"Be calm, Heath, be calm."

"Calm? How can a hunted man be calm with the jaws--the wet, hungry jaws--of the hounds on his heels--while he feels that in a moment they may spring upon him and rend him? Oh, doctor, doctor, you never were a hunted man."

"No, no," said the doctor blandly; "but we must master ourselves when we feel that excitement leading us astray."

"Ay, and I have mastered myself till I can do no more," cried the young man wildly; "I escaped from Liverpool."

"Escaped?"

"Yes, and managed to get to the train, as I thought, unseen; but at the first stopping station I saw the demons pass my carriage and look in.

They had changed their dress, and disguised themselves, but I knew them at once, and that my attempts were vain. It was growing dark when we reached London, and when they took the tickets I waited till the train went on again, and then leaped for my life."

"You leaped from the train?"

"Yes. I wonder I did not when it was at full speed, faraway in the country."

"Hah!" ejaculated the doctor.

"I leaped from the train; but they were watching me, and they followed down the embankment and into a maze of little streets in North London yonder, where the fog and snow bewildered me; but I kept on all the evening, fearing to ask help of the police, dreading to go to an hotel for dinner. The dread, the want of sleep, have made me nearly mad. I did not know where to go, and at last, after struggling wildly to escape, I knew that my brain was going, that before long the dogs would drag me down. Then in my despair I thought of you."

"And came here?"

"Yes, for sanctuary, doctor. Save me from these devils--save me from myself. Doctor, is this to be the end of it all? I am alone--helpless: they may be listening even now. Doctor, for God's sake save me; I can do no more!"