for a doctor. A good one. I have a friend who is
a neurologist. I shall call him."

He disappeared toward the telephone.

Not once in the half-hour preceding the specialist's arrival did the
girl stir. She lay upon the big double bed like a lovely corpse,
unmoving save for the slight rise and fall of her breasts as she
breathed.

The neurologist examined her with keen interest.

"A remarkable case!" he declared. "Her pulse and respiration have slowed
to the point where they are scarcely apparent."

Professor Duchard nodded slowly.

"But what does it mean?" exploded Mark, beside him, his handsome young
face pale and haggard. "Why can't you revive her?"

The doctor frowned, pinched his chin thoughtfully.

"A remarkable case!" he repeated slowly. "To be frank about it, I can't
find the slightest clue as to what's wrong. She seems in a perfect state
of health. Organically I can detect no possible cause for this coma. Yet
she doesn't respond to any resuscitatory measures."

"But there must be something--"

The specialist shot Mark a disapproving glance. Without a word he opened
his bag, taking from it a smaller case of instruments. He selected a
long, slender dissecting needle. Plunged its point into a bottle of
disinfectant.

"Watch me!" he commanded.

Turning to the bed, he plunged the needle an eighth of an inch into the
unconscious girl's breast!

Mark's eyes went wide with horror. He started forward. Found himself
halted by Professor Duchard's hand.

"You asked a question, Mark!" the white-haired scientist rapped. "The
doctor merely is giving you his answer. Look at her!"

Elaine had not stirred! If anything, she lay even more still than
before, not a muscle so much as quivering. Her eyes were closed, her
face calm, her golden hair halo-like about her head.

The neurologist bared her thigh. Again plunged in the needle.

She did not move.

A dozen times the physician pricked her, moving over the white surface
of her body from one nerve center to another. At last he straightened.

* * * * *

"You see?" he demanded grimly. "Anaesthesia is complete. She feels
nothing."

Mark's eyes were horror-stricken. He was breathing hard.

"What does it mean, doctor?" he choked. "What's happened to her?"

The medical man motioned him closer.

"Touch her!" he ordered.

Half-afraid, Mark bent forward. He rested his trembling fingers against
the girl's breast. The next instant