464 MAN OF SCIENCE. 



was to see the light, and her husband was working at it 

 with indomitable resolution. His activity had always 

 been high-strung, but there was now a feverish in- 

 tensity in his application which amazed and saddened 

 Mrs Miller. He had been on the whole a calm and 

 regular worker, had loved the morning air and devoted 

 the hours of night to slumber ; he now moved rest- 

 lessly about during the day, as if unable to concentrate 

 his thoughts, and only as the darkness fell aroused his 

 intellectual energies and compelled them to their task. 

 Night after night, in spite of entreaties, he commenced 

 his toil when the rest of the family retired to rest. 

 Through the long silent hours his tired and throbbing 

 brain was forced by his iron will to forge link after link 

 in the argument he was drawing out. Sometimes, when 

 Mrs Miller awoke in the morning, she heard, as she 

 thought, the servants beginning their work, but found 

 that it was her husband leaving his. The slightest 

 noise distressed him. That his nerves were in a state 

 of disorder Mrs Miller could not doubt, but the dread 

 which tormented her was that of apoplexy. Of insanity 

 she never thought until the appearance of other symp- 

 toms, but the vision of Hugh Miller struck down by 

 apoplexy and carried into the house constantly haunted 

 her. At night, before bidding him farewell, she would 

 linger, on one pretence or another, trying to find an op- 

 portunity to remonstrate against his vigils, but she saw that 

 he was nervously irritable, and she often feared to speak, 

 lest the evil she wished to abate might be aggravated. 



Although any one who was constantly and closely 

 with him could not but remark the change which had 

 taken place, his manner with friends who saw him in 

 occasional interviews remained unaltered. Perhaps a 

 deeper tone of earnestness mingled in the genial flow 



