pluperfect fellow Somerled
was, to have interested himself in her behalf, and to have given her
such happiness as all her friends had thought her mad to dream of
through the dreary years.

Always, it seems, she believed that her husband, who disappeared
seventeen years ago, was alive, and only waiting for success to crown
his ambitions, before returning to her. Everybody else thought he had
drowned himself, because of some professional trouble. But Mrs. James's
faith has been the great romance of her life; and Barrie (or the little
woman herself, I don't know which) told Somerled the story the day they
left Carlisle in his car. Some details caught his attention, and made
him wonder if Mrs. James's instinct were not more right than other
people's reason.

When Somerled went to America as a boy, he travelled in the steerage. On
board the same ship was a man calling himself James Richard, a man of
something over thirty, in whom Somerled became interested. They made
friends, though they gave each other no intimate confidences; and James
Richard made one or two remarks which suggested that he had been a
doctor. Evidently he was a man of culture, interested in many things,
including chemistry and Scottish history. After landing in New York the
two met occasionally by appointment, and the older man spoke of an
invention which, if he could get the help of some millionaire to perfect
it, ought to make his fame and fortune, and revolutionize anaesthetics;
but Somerled had thought little of this at the time. So many men he met
in those days had queer fads by means of which they hoped to achieve
glory. Soon, even before he himself reached success, Somerled and James
Richard drifted apart. The rising artist forgot the ship-acquaintance
with whom, owing to the difference in their ages and interests, he had
never had more than casual acquaintance. It was not until he heard the
story of Mrs. James's husband, the clever doctor who loved Scottish
history and had invented a new anaesthetic just before disappearing
seventeen years ago, that he remembered his shipmate, James Richard.
Then he recalled his appearance; and the descriptions tallied. A scar on
the forehead was a distinguishing mark with the man supposed to have
drowned himself and the man who had travelled to America in the
steerage. Somerled cabled at once to New York, instructing a firm of
private detectives to trace James Richard, an Englishman, probably a
doctor, who had l