"You shall do this, Mr. Blake," he answered. "You shall steal the

Diamond, unconsciously, for the second time, in the presence of

witnesses whose testimony is beyond dispute."

I started to my feet. I tried to speak. I could only look at him.

"I believe it CAN be done," he went on. "And it shall be done--if you

will only help me. Try to compose yourself--sit down, and hear what I

have to say to you. You have resumed the habit of smoking; I have seen

that for myself. How long have you resumed it."

"For nearly a year."

"Do you smoke more or less than you did?"

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"More."

"Will you give up the habit again? Suddenly, mind!--as you gave it up

before."

I began dimly to see his drift. "I will give it up, from this moment," I

answered.

"If the same consequences follow, which followed last June," said Ezra

Jennings--"if you suffer once more as you suffered then, from sleepless

nights, we shall have gained our first step. We shall have put you

back again into something assimilating to your nervous condition on the

birthday night. If we can next revive, or nearly revive, the domestic

circumstances which surrounded you; and if we can occupy your mind

again with the various questions concerning the Diamond which formerly

agitated it, we shall have replaced you, as nearly as possible in the

same position, physically and morally, in which the opium found you last

year. In that case we may fairly hope that a repetition of the dose

will lead, in a greater or lesser degree, to a repetition of the result.

There is my proposal, expressed in a few hasty words. You shall now see

what reasons I have to justify me in making it."

He turned to one of the books at his side, and opened it at a place

marked by a small slip of paper.

"Don't suppose that I am going to weary you with a lecture on

physiology," he said. "I think myself bound to prove, in justice to both

of us, that I am not asking you to try this experiment in deference

to any theory of my own devising. Admitted principles, and recognised

authorities, justify me in the view that I take. Give me five minutes of

your attention; and I will undertake to show you that Science sanctions

my proposal, fanciful as it may seem. Here, in the first place, is the

physiological principle on which I am acting, stated by no less a person

than Dr. Carpenter. Read it for yourself."




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