"I've been looking over the papers you lent me, and I had a chat with Gorman before I came into this room. Gorman told me more of Davenport and long ago than I knew up to this. But I can make nothing of your old client, and am sure the apparition was the result of pure nervous relaxation."
"But, confound it, my dear O'Brien, can't you see extreme mental relaxation is what I am in dread of?"
"Well, then, I won't say that. I'll say it was pure or impure liquor, or liver, or anything you like. Of only one thing am I sure--namely, that there was more than a little between this Fahey and Davenport."
"That's my own impression too; but I can make nothing of these documents."
"It is not intended you should be able to make anything of them; and if I were you, now that the two men concerned in them are dead and done for, I'd bother no more about them."
"Get it out of your head for good and all, O'Brien, that I am troubling about the men. I am not; I am troubling about myself. I am afraid I am going to have something seriously wrong with my brain, and that's not a comfortable thing for a man who is not yet old to get into his mind."
"Well, I'm sure I don't know what to do. I have often heard it said that one of the best ways to adopt in a case of this kind is to bring the man face to face with the thing which causes him annoyance----"
"What! Bring me face to face with what I saw! I think, O'Brien, your brain is giving way before merely the story of my troubles."
"No, no; I mean to set you face to face with the scene of your adventure, and then when you perceive nothing unusual there, you will be less disturbed by the memory of your last visit than you are now. I myself am curious to look at the place once more. Will you drive over with me now, and put your mind at rest for ever?"
He spoke earnestly, considerately.