-- On , fool , to your own destruction ! '' He made way for Jervase Helwyse , who immediately ascended the staircase , but on the first landing-place was arrested by the firm grasp of a hand upon his shoulder . Looking fiercely up with a madman 's impulse to struggle with and rend asunder his opponent , he found himself powerless beneath a calm , stern eye which possessed the mysterious property of quelling frenzy at its height . The person whom he had now encountered was the physician , Dr. Clarke , the duties of whose sad profession had led him to the province-house , where he was an infrequent guest in more prosperous times . `` Young man , what is your purpose ? '' demanded he . `` I seek the Lady Eleanore , '' answered Jervase Helwyse , submissively . `` All have fled from her , '' said the physician . `` Why do you seek her now ? I tell you , youth , her nurse fell death-stricken on the threshold of that fatal chamber . Know ye not that never came such a curse to our shores as this lovely Lady Eleanore , that her breath has filled the air with poison , that she has shaken pestilence and death upon the land from the folds of her accursed mantle ? '' `` Let me look upon her , '' rejoined the mad youth , more wildly . `` Let me behold her in her awful beauty , clad in the regal garments of the pestilence . She and Death sit on a throne together ; let me kneel down before them . '' `` Poor youth ! '' said Dr. Clarke , and , moved by a deep sense of human weakness , a smile of caustic humor curled his lip even then . `` Wilt thou still worship the destroyer and surround her image with fantasies the more magnificent the more evil she has wrought ? Thus man doth ever to his tyrants . Approach , then . Madness , as I have noted , has that good efficacy that it will guard you from contagion , and perhaps its own cure may be found in yonder chamber . ''
Ascending another flight of stairs , he threw open a door and signed to Jervase XXXXX that he should enter .
Clarke Dr. Eleanore Helwyse efficacy landing-place pestilence profession province-house sense