s temper had hardly been allowed time enough to subside to
its customary level.

"Very remarkable, I dare say," she answered, "to people who feel any
doubt of this pitiable lady of yours being mad. I feel no doubt--and,
thus far, I find your account of yourself, Julian, tiresome in the
extreme. Go on to the end. Did you lay your hand on Mercy Merrick?"

"No."

"Did you hear anything of her?"

"Nothing. Difficulties beset me on every side. The French ambulance
had shared in the disasters of France--it was broken up. The wounded
Frenchmen were prisoners somewhere in Germany, nobody knew where.
The French surgeon had been killed in action. His assistants were
scattered--most likely in hiding. I began to despair of making any
discovery, when accident threw in my way two Prussian soldiers who had
been in the French cottage. They confirmed what the German surgeon told
the consul, and what Horace himself told _me_--namely, that no nurse
in a black dress was to be seen in the place. If there had been such a
person, she would certainly (the Prussians inform me) have been found in
attendance on the injured Frenchmen. The cross of the Geneva Convention
would have been amply sufficient to protect her: no woman wearing that
badge of honor would have disgraced herself by abandoning the wounded
men before the Germans entered the place."

"In short," interposed Lady Janet, "there is no such person as Mercy
Merrick."

"I can draw no other conclusion," said Julian, "unless the English
doctor's idea is the right one. After hearing what I have just told you,
he thinks the woman herself is Mercy Merrick."

Lady Janet held up her hand as a sign that she had an objection to make
here.

"You and the doctor seem to have settled everything to your entire
satisfaction on both sides," she said. "But there is one difficulty that
you have neither of you accounted for yet."

"What is it, aunt?"

"You talk glibly enough, Julian, about this woman's mad assertion that
Grace is the missing nurse, and that she is Grace. But you have not
explained yet how the idea first got into her head; and, more than that,
how it is that she is acquainted with my name and address, and perfectly
familiar with Grace's papers and Grace's affairs. These things are a
puzzle to a person of my average intelligence. Can your clever friend,
the doctor, account for them?"

"Shall I tell you what he said when I saw him this morning?"

"Will it take long?"

"It wi