Now I can wait." The attendant came to tell me, so I ran down at once to have a look at him.

He was still in the strait waistcoat and in the padded room, but the suffused look had gone from his face, and his eyes had something of their old pleading.

I might almost say, cringing, softness.

I was satisfied with his present condition, and directed him to be relieved.
The attendants hesitated, but finally carried out my wishes without protest.
It was a strange thing that the patient had humour enough to see their distrust, for, coming close to me, he said in a whisper, all the while looking furtively at them, "They think I could hurt you! Fancy me hurting you! The fools!" It was soothing, somehow, to the feelings to find myself disassociated even in the mind of this poor madman from the others, but all the same I do not follow his thought.

Am I to take it that I have anything in common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together.