“the disorder is a strange one; not so much in itself nor as outwardly manifested, — in so far, at least as the symptoms have been laid open to my observation. Looking daily at you, my good sir, and watching the tokens of your aspect now for months gone by, I should deem you a man sore sick, it may be, yet not so sick but that an instructed and watchful physician might well hope to cure you.

But I know not what to say, the disease is what I seem to know, yet know it not.”

“You speak in riddles, learned sir,” said the pale minister, glancing aside out of the window.

“Then, to speak more plainly,” continued the physician, “and I crave pardon, sir, should it seem to require pardon, for this needful plainness