“Your doctor!” she repeated, appalled.

“Yes, certainly.  Why not?”

“Don’t do that!  Please don’t do that!  I—­why I discovered this case.  I beg you most earnestly to let me observe it.  You don’t understand the importance of it!  You don’t begin to dream of the rarity of this case!  How much it means to me!”

He flushed up.  “Do you intend to intimate that I am afflicted with some sort of rare and s-s-trange d-d-disease?” he stammered.

“I dare not pronounce upon it too confidently,” she said with enthusiasm; “I have not yet absolutely determined the nature of the disease.  But, oh, I am beginning to hope—­”

“Then I am diseased!” he faltered.  “I’ve got something anyhow; is that it?  Only you are not yet perfectly sure what it is called!  Is that the truth, Miss Hollis?”

“How can I answer positively until I have had time to observe these symptoms?  It requires time to be certain.  I do not wish to alarm you, but it is my duty to say to you that you should immediately place yourself under medical observation.”

“You think that?”

“I do; I am convinced of it.  Please understand me; I do not pronounce upon these visible symptoms; I do not express an unqualified opinion; but I could be in a position to do so if you consent to place yourself under my observations and care.  For these suspicious symptoms are not only very plainly apparent to me, but were even noted by that old gentleman whom you may perhaps have observed conversing with me.”

“Yes, I saw him.  Who is he?”

“Dr. Austin Atwood,” said the girl solemnly.

“Oh!  And you say he also observed something queer about me?  What did he see?  Are there spots on me?  Am I turning any remarkable color?  Am I—­” And in the very midst of his genuine alarm he suddenly remembered the make-up box and what the Tracer of Lost Persons had done to his eyes.  Was that it?  Where was the Tracer, anyway?  He had promised to appear.  And then Carden recollected the gray wig and whiskers that the Tracer had waved at him from the cupboard, bidding him note them well. Could that beaming, benignant, tottering old gentleman have been the Tracer of Lost Persons himself?  And the same instant Carden was sure of it, spite of the miraculous change in the man.

Then logic came to his aid; and, deducing with care and patience, an earnest conviction grew within him that the dark circles under his eyes and the tottering old gentleman resembling Dr. Austin Atwood had a great deal to do with this dreadful disease which Dr. Hollis desired to study.

He looked at the charming girl beside him, and she looked back at him very sweetly, very earnestly, awaiting his decision.

For a moment he realized that she had really scared him, and in the reaction of relief an overwhelming desire to laugh seized him.  He managed to suppress it, to compose himself.  Then he remembered the Tracer’s admonition to acquiesce in everything, do what he was told to do, not to run away, and to pay his court at the first decent opportunity.