oke about his eyes, the doctor continued with a smile, and in his
most childish accents: "Of course, Monsieur, you cannot understand what
I am saying to you, and I must beg your pardon for it. To-morrow you
will receive a letter which will explain it all to you, but, first of
all, it was necessary that I should let you have a good, a careful look
at my eyes, my eyes, which are myself, my only and true self, as you
will see."

With these words, and with a polite bow, the doctor went out, leaving
Monsieur de Vargnes extremely surprised, and a prey to this doubt, as
he said to himself:

"Is he merely a madman? The fierce expression, and the criminal depths
of his looks are perhaps caused merely by the extraordinary contrast
between his fierce looks and his pale eyes."

And absorbed by these thoughts, Monsieur de Vargnes unfortunately
allowed several minutes to elapse, and then he thought to himself
suddenly:

"No, I am not the sport of any hallucination, and this is no case of an
optical phenomenon. This man is evidently some terrible criminal, and I
have altogether failed in my duty in not arresting him myself at once,
illegally, even at the risk of my life."

The judge ran downstairs in pursuit of the doctor but it was too late;
he had disappeared. In the afternoon, he called on Madame Frogere, to
ask her whether she could tell him anything about the matter. She,
however, did not know the negro doctor in the least, and was even able
to assure him that he was a fictitious personage, for, as she was well
acquainted with the upper classes in Hayti, she knew that the Academy
of Medicine at Port-au-Prince had no doctor of that name among its
members. As Monsieur de Vargnes persisted, and gave descriptions of the
doctor, especially mentioning his extraordinary eyes, Madame Frogere
began to laugh and said:

"You have certainly had to do with a hoaxer, my dear monsieur. The eyes
which you have described are certainly those of a white man, and the
individual must have been painted."

On thinking it over, Monsieur de Vargnes remembered that the doctor had
nothing of the negro about him, but his black skin, his woolly hair and
beard, and his way of speaking, which was easily imitated, but nothing
of the negro, not even the characteristic, undulating walk. Perhaps,
after all, he was only a practical joker, and during the whole day,
Monsieur de Vargnes took refuge in that view, which rather wounded his
dignity as a man of co