was sleeping off the past night's excitement
on one of my friend's sofas. A suspicion
had occurred to me, as soon as I was alone
in my bedroom, which made me resolve that
Holliday and the stranger whose life he
had saved should not meet again, if I
could prevent it. I have already alluded to
certain reports, or scandals, which I knew
of, relating to the early life of Arthur's
father. While I was thinking, in my bed, of
what had passed at the Inn—of the change
in the student's pulse when he heard the
name of Holliday; of the resemblance of
expression that I had discovered between his
face and Arthur's; of the emphasis he had
laid on those three words, "my own brother;"
and of his incomprehensible acknowledgment
of his own illegitimacy—while I was thinking
of these things, the reports I have
mentioned suddenly flew into my mind, and
linked themselves fast to the chain of my
previous reflections. Something within me
whispered, "It is best that those two young
men should not meet again." I felt it before
I slept; I felt it when I woke; and I went
as I told you, alone to the Inn the next
morning.

I had missed my only opportunity of
seeing my nameless patient again. He had
been gone nearly an hour when I inquired
for him.

I have now told you everything that I
know for certain, in relation to the man
whom I brought back to life in the double-
bedded room of the Inn at Doncaster. What
I have next to add is matter for inference
and surmise, and is not, strictly speaking,
matter of fact.

I have to tell you, first, that the medical
student turned out to be strangely and
unaccountably right in assuming it as more than
probable that Arthur Holliday would marry
the young lady who had given him the
water-colour drawing of the landscape. That
marriage took place a little more than a
year after the events occurred which I have
just been relating. The young couple came
to live in the neighbourhood in which I was
then established in practice. I was present
at the wedding, and was rather surprised
to find that Arthur was singularly reserved
with me, both before and after his marriage
on the subject of the young lady's prior
engagement. He only referred to it once
when we were alone, merely telling me, on
that occasion, that his wife had done all that
honour and duty required of her in the
matter, and that the engagement had been
broken off with the full approval of her
parents. I never heard more from him than
this. For three years he and his wife lived
together happily. At the expiration of that
time, the symptoms of a serious illness first
declared themselves in Mrs. Arthur Holliday.
It turned out to be a long, lingering, hopeless
malady. I attended her throughout. We
had been great friends when she was well,
and we became more attached to each other
than ever when she was ill. I had many
long and interesting conversations with her
in the intervals when she suffered least. The
result of one of those conversations I may
briefly relate, leaving you to draw any
inferences from it that you please.

The interview to which I refer, occurred
shortly before her death. I called one evening,
as usual, and found her alone, with a
look in her eyes which told me that she had
been crying. She only informed me at first,
that she had been depressed in spirits; but,
by little and little, she became more
communicative, and confessed to me that she had
been looking over some old letters, which
had been addressed to her, before she had
seen Arthur, by a man to whom she had
been engaged to be married. I asked her
how the engagement came to be broken off.
She replied that it had not been broken off,
but that it had died out in a very mysterious
way. The person to whom she was engaged—
her first love, she called him—was very
poor, and there was no immediate prospect
of their being married. He followed my
profession, and went abroad to study.
They had corresponded regularly, until the time
when, as she believed, he had returned to
England. From that period she heard no
more of him. He was of a fretful, sensitive
temperament; and she feared that she might
have inadvertently done or said something
that offended him. However that might be,
he had never written to her again; and, after
waiting a year, she had married Arthur. I
asked when the first estrangement had begun,
and found that the time at which she ceased
to hear anything of her first lover exactly
corresponded with the time at which I had
been called in to my mysterious patient at
The Two Robins Inn.

A fortnight after that conversation, she
died. In course of time, Arthur married
again. Of late years, he has lived principally
in London, and I have seen little or
nothing of him.

I have many years to pass over before I
can approach to anything like a conclusion
of this fragmentary narrative. And even when
that later period is reached, the little that
I have to say will not occupy your attention
for more than a few minutes. Between
six and seven years ago, the gentleman
to whom I introduced you in this room,
came to me, with good professional
recommendations, to fill the position of my assistant.
We met, not like strangers, but like
friends—the only difference between us being,
that I was very much surprised to see him,
and that he did not appear to be at all
surprised to see me. If he was my son, or my
brother I believe he could not be fonder of
me than he is; but he has never volunteered
any confidences since he has been here, on the
subject of his past life. I saw something that