"Both legs?"

"No, only one."

"Suddenly?"

"This morning."

"Hum."

The doctor pouted his lips, and drew his finger
and thumb down the line of his chin. "Can you
account for it?" he asked briskly.

"No."

A trace of sternness came into the large brown
eyes.

"I need not point out to you that unless the most
absolute frankness----"

The patient sprang from his chair. "So help me
God!" he cried, "I have nothing in my life with which
to reproach myself. Do you think that I would be
such a fool as to come here and tell you lies. Once
for all, I have nothing to regret." He was a
pitiful, half-tragic and half-grotesque figure, as he
stood with one trouser leg rolled to the knee, and
that ever present horror still lurking in his eyes.