“You look,” said Mr. Armstrong, “like the portrait which hangs in the chamber where you slept.  It is,” he continued, unheeding the warning looks of Faith, “the portrait of my father, and was taken a short time before he was seized with what was called a fit of insanity, and which was said to have hastened his death.

“How is it possible, dear father, you can say so?” said Faith, anxious to prevent an impression she was afraid might be made on Holden’s mind.

“I do not mean,” continued Armstrong, with a singular persistency, “that Mr. Holden’s features resemble the portrait very much; but there is something which belongs to the two in common.  Strange that I never thought of it before!”

Holden during the conversation had sat with drooping lids, and a sad and grieved expression, and now, as he raised his eyes, he said, mournfully—­

“Thou meanest, James, that I, too, am insane.  May Heaven grant that neither thou nor thine may experience the sorrow of so great a calamity.”

Faith was inexpressibly shocked.  Had any one else spoken thus, with a knowledge of Holden’s character, she would have considered him unfeeling to the last degree, but she knew her father’s considerateness and delicacy too well to ascribe it to any other cause than to a wandering of thought, which had of late rapidly increased, and excited in her mind an alarm which she trembled to give shape to.  Before she could interpose, Armstrong again spoke—­

“Insane!” he said.  “What is it to be insane?  It is to have faculties exalted beyond the comprehension of the multitude; to soar above the grovelling world.  Their eyes are too weak to bear the glory, and, because they are blind, they think others cannot see.  The fools declared my father was insane.  They say the same of you, Holden, and, the next thing, I shall be insane, I suppose.  Ha, ha!”

Holden himself was startled.  He muttered something indistinctly before he answered—­

“May the world never say that of thee, dear James!”

“Why not?” inquired Armstrong, eagerly.  “Alas! you consider me unworthy to be admitted to the noble band of misunderstood and persecuted men?  True, true!  I know it to be true.  My earthly instincts fetter me to earth.  Of the earth, I am earthy.  But what shall prevent my standing afar off, to admire them?  What a foolish world is this!  Were not the prophets and apostles denounced as insane men?  I have it, I have it,” he added, after a pause, “inspiration is insanity.”

Holden looked inquiringly at Faith, whose countenance evinced great distress; then, turning to Armstrong, he said—­

“Thou art not well, James.  Perhaps, like me, thou hast passed a disturbed night?”

“I have, of late been unable to sleep as well as formerly,” said Armstrong.  “There is a pain here,” he added, touching his forehead, “which keeps me awake.”

“Thou needest exercise.  Thou dost confine thyself too much.  Go more into the open air, to drink in the health that flows down from the pure sky.”