But my
capital ran out, and my practice, never anything to boast of,
fell to nothing. I succeeded in getting a place as an assistant
to a man at Chester. We sold up, and started on the journey.'
He paused, looking at Yule in a strange way.
'What happened then?'
'You probably don't remember a railway accident that took place
near Crewe in that year--it was 1869? I and my wife and child
were alone in a carriage that was splintered. One moment I was
talking with them, in fairly good spirits, and my wife was
laughing at something I had said; the next, there were two
crushed, bleeding bodies at my feet. I had a broken arm, that was
all. Well, they were killed on the instant; they didn't suffer.
That has been my one consolation.'
Yule kept the silence of sympathy.
'I was in a lunatic asylum for more than a year after that,'
continued the man. 'Unhappily, I didn't lose my senses at the
moment; it took two or three weeks to bring me to that pass. But
I recovered, and there has been no return of the disease. Don't
suppose that I am still of unsound mind.
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