“What is that?” he asked Mrs. Blakeley, finally.

“I don’t know,” she replied, slowly.  “We’ve all noticed it.  It came just after the sleep began.”

“You have no idea what could have caused it?”

“Both Virginia and Cynthia have been going to a face specialist,” she admitted, “to have their skins treated for freckles.  After the treatment they wore masks which were supposed to have some effect on the skin.  I don’t know.  Could it be that?”

Kennedy looked sharply at Cynthia’s face.  There was no red mark over her nose.  But there were certainly no freckles on either of the girls’ faces now, either.

“Oh, mother,” remonstrated Cynthia, “it couldn’t be anything Doctor Chapelle did.”

“Doctor Chapelle?” repeated Kennedy.

“Yes, Dr. Carl Chapelle,” replied Mrs. Blakeley.  “Perhaps you have heard of him.  He is quite well known, has a beauty-parlor on Fifth Avenue.  He—­”

“It’s ridiculous,” cut in Cynthia, sharply.  “Why, my face was worse than Virgie’s.  Car—­He said it would take longer.”

I had been watching Cynthia, but it needed only to have heard her to see that Doctor Chapelle was something more than a beauty specialist to her.

Kennedy glanced thoughtfully from the clear skin of Cynthia to the red mark on Virginia.  Though he said nothing, I could see that his mind was on it.  I had heard of the beauty doctors who promise to give one a skin as soft and clear as a baby’s—­and often, by their inexpert use of lotions and chemicals, succeed in ruining the skin and disfiguring the patient for life.  Could this be a case of that sort?  Yet how explain the apparent success with Cynthia?

The elder sister, however, was plainly vexed at the mention of the beauty doctor’s name at all, and she showed it.  Kennedy made a mental note of the matter, but refrained from saying any more about it.

“I suppose there is no objection to my seeing Doctor Haynes?” asked Kennedy, rising and changing the subject.

“None whatever,” returned Mrs. Blakeley.  “If there’s anything you or he can do to bring Virginia out of this—­anything safe—­I want it done,” she emphasized.

Cynthia was silent as we left.  Evidently she had not expected Doctor Chapelle’s name to be brought into the case.

We were lucky in finding Doctor Haynes at home, although it was not the regular time for his office hours.  Kennedy introduced himself as a friend of the Blakeleys who had been asked to see that I made no blunders in writing the story for the Star.  Doctor Haynes did not question the explanation.

He was a man well on toward the sixties, with that magnetic quality that inspires the confidence so necessary for a doctor.  Far from wealthy, he had attained a high place in the profession.

As Kennedy finished his version of our mission, Doctor Haynes shook his head with a deep sigh.

“You can understand how I feel toward the Blakeleys,” he remarked, at length.  “I should consider it unethical to give an interview under any circumstances—­much more so under the present.”