that firmness and penetration required to combat Mr. Tremlett's vagaries, or the judicious incredulity to defeat his inventive cunning and turn a deaf ear to his ready untruthfulness. At the same time it is always a delicate task for a medical man to object to the removal of a patient, and cannot be done without urgent reason. My time was already more occupied with Mr. Tremlett than was convenient; and I felt that I was not doing justice to the others under my care. Therefore, all things considered, I transferred him without regret, though not wholly without anxiety.

CHAPTER VIII.

CONSCIENCE AND CASUISTRY.

MORE than two years passed away, and having no intelligence of either doctor or patient, I concluded that all was going on as before. I had had very little spare time, and being just then much less frequently in town, I had nearly lost sight of the Carnegies. One day, happening, quite accidentally, to take up a newspaper, I observed that an inquiry by authority was to be made on the state of mind of Lawrence Christopher Tremlett, Esq., an alleged lunatic, and that much interest was excited as to the result, considerable property being at stake.

On the same night Dr. Brandling called upon me in a very perturbed state of mind, and verified the truth of the newspaper statement, adding that he was summoned to give evidence, and that nothing had so disturbed him during a life

of fifty years. In fact, the bare idea of appearing in a court of justice completely upset him. He had the most exaggerated ideas of the power of counsel, the obstinacy of juries, the severity of judges, and some very curious articles of faith concerning the natural malignity of lawyers; their diabolical ingenuity in making a witness contradict himself, together with their propensity to browbeat and perplex generally all adverse parties.

Whether his opinions were formed from any unhappy passages in his own experience, I cannot say, but the prospect before him weighed like an incubus. I believe, if he had been summoned to appear in the torture room of the Inquisition, he could hardly have felt more apprehension. With a conscientious desire to speak the truth, he so thoroughly distrusted his own capacity for ascertaining what it was, that he appeared for ever uncertain and faltering in all he said and did. He declared that he already anticipated a public vote of censure, and a possible indictment for perjury.

They will ask me to swear that Tremlett is insane," he said.

"Well, swear it if you think he is," was my reply. "I suppose you did, and do."

"Oh, yes; but to swear positively that he is insane! how can I know that? How can I be so certain of the state of another man's mind that I can take oath as to its condition ?”

"But he was insane, to the best of your judgment?"

"Then swear he was, to the best of

ment."

your judg

"I might do that certainly. Yes, I think I will. But if they ask me for my reasons?"

66

Well, give them, Dr. Brandling. Of course you have them ?"

"I would rather not; they would be entirely unintelligible to an unprofessional audience," he said, deprecatingly.

“But, my dear sir, that won't help you: you will have to give them, probably."

"I always endeavour to bear on my mind the

possibility that I am wrong," he proceeded; "and if I am so, as respects the insanity of Mr. Tremlett, it follows that my reasons will be equally incorrect."

I was really losing patience.

"My dear Dr. Brandling, this will never do; if you are always putting your motives and your words under a moral microscope in this fashion, you will end by losing your head entirely in the witness-box. You are as certain of the truth of your opinion as you can be of anything, or I suppose you would not have consented to keep Mr. Tremlett under restraint. Have you any proof satisfactory to yourself that you exist, and that you are yourself, and no one else? None, surely, except your own consciousness, and the evidence of your senses: let the same simple mode serve to guide you in this matter.”

He was silenced, but not convinced.

"How did he seem while he was with you?" I asked.

"Oh, he was a very troublesome charge, I assure you. No money should induce me to