| CHAPTER I. | THE SICK MAN |
| CHAPTER II. | THE NEW FACES |
| CHAPTER III. | THE MOONLIGHT MEETING |
| CHAPTER IV. | THE BEECHEN STICK |
| CHAPTER V. | THE NEWS FROM NARRABEE |
| CHAPTER VI. | THE LIME-KILN |
| CHAPTER VII. | THE MATERIALS IN THE DEFENSE |
| CHAPTER VIII. | THE CONFESSION |
| CHAPTER IX. | THE ADVERTISEMENT |
| CHAPTER X. | THE SHERIFF AND THE GOVERNOR |
| CHAPTER XI. | THE PEBBLE AND THE WINDOW |
| CHAPTER XII. | THE END OF IT |
“HEART all right,” said the doctor. “Lungs all right. No organic disease that I can discover. Philip Lefrank, don’t alarm yourself. You are not going to die yet. The disease you are suffering from is—overwork. The remedy in your case is—rest.”
So the doctor spoke, in my chambers in the Temple (London); having been sent for to see me about half an hour after I had alarmed my clerk by fainting at my desk. I have no wish to intrude myself needlessly on the reader’s attention; but it may be necessary to add, in the way of explanation, that I am a “junior” barrister in good practice. I come from the channel Island of Jersey. The French spelling of my name (Lefranc) was Anglicized generations since—in the days when the letter “k” was still used in England at the end of words which now terminate in “c.” We hold our heads high, nevertheless, as a Jersey family. It is to this day a trial to my father to hear his son described as a member of the English bar.
“Rest!” I repeated, when my medical adviser had done. “My good friend, are you aware that it is term-time? The courts are sitting. Look at the briefs waiting for me on that table! Rest means ruin in my case.”
“And work,” added the doctor, quietly, “means death.”
I started. He was not trying to frighten me: he was plainly in earnest.
“It is merely a question of time,” he went on. “You have a fine constitution; you are a young man; but you cannot deliberately overwork your brain, and derange your nervous system, much longer. Go away at once. If you are a good sailor, take a sea-voyage. The ocean air is the best of all air t