“Smith seems to be rather a mystery at the village,” he remarked.  “That manner of his is causing talk.”  He laughed gently.  “White—­you know Ephraim White, the policeman—­he asked me what I knew about him.”

“Yes?” said Mary.  “Well, young Mr. Wylde asked me the same thing.  He was sure he had recognized him.”

“Ah!  And who was he supposed to be?”

Mary told him what Harry Wylde had said to her in the afternoon, not omitting the mention of the mutilated ear.  Dr. Pond heard it without disturbance, nodding thoughtfully as she spoke.

“Ye-es,” he said.  “It’s curious.  It would explain the delusions, you know.  Smith, bearing a marked resemblance to somebody who is dead—­a resemblance that even extends to a certain wound—­identifies himself with that person.  A rather dramatic position, isn’t it?  Still, I hope we are not going to have a police inquiry.  I shall certainly let Fish know that people are becoming suspicious.  What did young Wylde say the other man’s name was?”

“Woolley,” answered Mary.  “Then you will write to Professor Fish, father?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor; “He ought to know.  I’ll write to-night.”

“I think I would,” agreed Mary thoughtfully, and rose to get him writing materials.  But some inward function of her was uneasy; she felt as though she had failed the little man whose reliance was in her.  “You know I’m your friend,” she had said to him, and this reference to the Professor had not the flavor of full friendship.  The same compunction remained with her next morning, and made her specially gentle with Smith.  He had fallen back to his usual condition of vacuity and inertia; she had to rouse him to eat and drink when he sat at table with a face as void of life as a death-mask, and eyes empty and unseeing.  Dr. Pond had given up his attempts to make conversation with him, and saw him with a slight exasperation which he was sedulous to conceal, so that he was altogether dependent on Mary’s unfailing patience.

Professor Fish was not slow to reply to the letter.  A telegram from him arrived at lunch time, stating that he would come down next day, and asking that his train might be met.

“That means you’ll have to go again, Mary,” said Dr. Pond.  “I’ve an appointment at that very hour.”

Mary nodded, not displeased at having an opportunity of sounding the Professor before anybody else.  She saw that Smith had looked up at the mention of Fish’s name with some quickening of interest.  She smiled to him and helped him to salad.

The morning of the next day came in squally and wild, with starts of rain, a sharp interruption to the summer’s tranquillity.  Mary was rather troubled to dispose of Smith during her absence, but ensconced him at last in the room which was known as “the study,” an upper chamber where Dr. Pond kept his books and those other possessions which were not in frequent use.  Here was a window giving a view over the rain-blurred hedgerows, clear to the swell of the downs, and an arm-chair in which Smith could sit in peace and wear undisturbed his semblance of a man in a trance.  With some notion of leaving nothing undone, Mary routed out for him a bundle of old illustrated magazines, and left them on the unused writing-table at his side; he did not glance at them.