" said Innes.

"It would more than satisfy me," returned Harley. "But every man to his
own ambition. Well, there is no occasion to wait; you might as well get
along. But what's that you've got in your hand?"

"Well," replied Innes, laying a card upon the table, "I was just coming
in with it when you rang."

Paul Harley glanced at the card.

"Sir Charles Abingdon," he read aloud, staring reflectively at his
secretary. "That is the osteologist?"

"Yes," answered Innes, "but I fancy he has retired from practice."

"Ah," murmured Harley, "I wonder what he wants. I suppose I had better
see him, as I fancy that he and I met casually some years ago in India.
Ask him to come in, will you?"

Innes retiring, there presently entered a distinguished-looking, elderly
gentleman upon whose florid face rested an expression not unlike that of
embarrassment.

"Mr. Harley," he began, "I feel somewhat ill at ease in encroaching
upon your time, for I am by no means sure that my case comes within your
particular province."

"Sit down, Sir Charles," said Harley with quiet geniality. "Officially,
my working day is ended; but if nothing comes of your visit beyond a
chat it will have been very welcome. Calcutta, was it not, where we last
met?"

"It was," replied Sir Charles, placing his hat and cane upon the table
and sitting down rather wearily in a big leather armchair which Harley
had pushed forward. "If I presume upon so slight an acquaintance, I am
sorry, but I must confess that only the fact of having met you socially
encouraged me to make this visit."

He raised his eyes to Harley's face and gazed at him with that
peculiarly searching look which belongs to members of his profession;
but mingled with it was an expression of almost pathetic appeal, of
appeal for understanding, for sympathy of some kind.

"Go on, Sir Charles," said Harley. He pushed forward a box of cigars.
"Will you smoke?"

"Thanks, no," was the answer.

Sir Charles evidently was oppressed by some secret trouble, thus Harley
mused silently, as, taking out a tin of tobacco from a cabinet beside
him, he began in leisurely manner to load a briar. In this he desired
to convey that he treated the visit as that of a friend, and also,
since business was over, that Sir Charles might without scruple speak at
length and at leisure of whatever matters had brought him there.

"Very well, then," began the surgeon; "I am painfully conscious that
the facts which I am