ailed them nor when he did not, and partly because he was a militant infidel.  He lost no opportunity to attack religion in all its forms; and his two daughters let no opportunity escape to show that they stood with their father, whom they adored, and who had brought them up with his heart.  It was Dr. Schulze’s furious unbelief, investing him with a certain suggestion of Satan-got intelligence, that attracted Saint X to him in serious illnesses—­somewhat as the Christian princes of mediaeval Europe tolerated and believed in the Jew physicians.  Saint X was only just reaching the stage at which it could listen to “higher criticism” without dread lest the talk should be interrupted by a bolt from “special Providence”; the fact that Schulze lived on, believing and talking as he did, could be explained only as miraculous and mysterious forbearance in which Satan must somehow have direct part.

“I didn’t expect to see you for many a year yet,” said Schulze, as Hiram, standing, faced him sitting at his desk.

The master workman grew still more pallid as he heard the thought that weighted him in secret thus put into words.  “I have never had a doctor before in my life,” said he.  “My prescription has been, when you feel badly stop eating and work harder.”

“Starve and sweat—­none better,” said Schulze.  “Well, why do you come here to-day?”

“This morning I lifted a rather heavy weight.  I’ve felt a kind of tiredness ever since, and a pain in the lower part of my back—­pretty bad.  I can’t understand it.”

“But I can—­that’s my business.  Take off your clothes and stretch yourself on this chair.  Call me when you’re ready.”

Schulze withdrew into what smelled like a laboratory.  Hiram could hear him rattling glass against glass and metal, could smell the fumes of uncorked bottles of acids.  When he called, Schulze reappeared, disposed instruments and tubes upon a table.  “I never ask my patients questions,” he said, as he began to examine Hiram’s chest.  “I lay ’em out here and go over ’em inch by inch.  I find all the weak spots, both those that are crying out and those worse ones that don’t.  I never ask a man what’s the matter; I tell him.  And my patients, and all the fools in this town, think I’m in league with the devil.  A doctor who finds out what’s the matter with a man Providence is trying to lay in the grave—­what can it be but the devil?”

He had reached his subject; as he worked he talked it—­religion, its folly, its silliness, its cruelty, its ignorance, its viciousness.  Hiram listened without hearing; he was absorbed in observing the diagnosis.  He knew nothing of medicine, but he did know good workmanship.  As the physician worked, his admiration and confidence grew.  He began to feel better—­not physically better, but that mental relief which a courageous man feels when the peril he is facing is stripped of the mystery that made it a terror.  After perhaps three quarters of an hour, Schulze withdrew to the laboratory, saying:  “That’s all.  You may dress.”