aming, fumbled for his
eyeglasses, adjusted them, and peered closely into her face.

"Bless my soul," he smiled, "our pretty Dr. Hollis!"

"I--I did not suppose you would remember me," she said, rosy with
pleasure.

"Remember you? Surely, surely." He made her a quaint, old-fashioned bow,
turned, and peeped across the walk at Carden. And Carden, looking
straight into his face, did not know the old man, who turned to Dr.
Hollis again with many mysterious nods of his doddering head.

"You're watching him, too, are you?" he chuckled, leaning toward her.

"Watching whom, Dr. Atwood?" she asked surprised.

"Hush, child! I thought you had noticed that unfortunate and afflicted
young man opposite."

Dr. Hollis looked curiously at Carden, then at the old gentleman with
gray whiskers.

"Please sit down, Dr. Atwood, and tell me," she murmured. "I have
noticed nothing in particular about the young man on the bench there."
And she moved to give him room; and the young man opposite stared at
them both as though bereft of reason.

"A heavy book for small hands, my child," said the old gentleman in his
quaintly garrulous fashion, peering with dimmed eyes at the volume in
her lap.

She smiled, looking around at him.

"My, my!" he said, tremblingly raising his eyeglasses to scan the title
on the page; "Dr. Lamour's famous works! Are _you_ studying Lamour,
child?"

"Yes," she said with that charming inflection youth reserves for age.

"Astonishing!" he murmured. "The coincidence is more than remarkable. A
physician! And studying Lamour's Disease! Incredible!"

"Is there anything strange in that, Dr. Atwood?" she smiled.

"Strange!" He lowered his voice, peering across at Carden. "Strange,
did you say? Look across the path at that poor young man sitting there!"

"Yes," she said, perplexed, "I see him."

"_What_ do you see?" whispered the old gentleman in a shakily portentous
voice. "Here you sit reading about what others have seen; now what do
_you_ see?"

"Why, only a man--rather young--"

"No _symptoms_?"

"Symptoms? Of what?"

The old gentleman folded his withered hands over his cane. "My child,"
he said, "for a year I have had that unfortunate young man under secret
observation. He was not aware of it; it never entered his mind that I
could be observing _him_ with minutest attention. He may have supposed
there was nothing the matter with him. He was in error. I have studied
him carefully. Look closer! _Are_