ry of triumph, "Eureka! Eureka!"

"And what have you found, my dear?" said the doctor.

Lurida was flushed and panting with the excitement of her new discovery.

"I do believe that I have found the secret of our strange visitor's dread
of all human intercourse!"

The seasoned practitioner was not easily thrown off his balance.

"Wait a minute and get your breath," said the doctor. "Are you not a
little overstating his peculiarity? It is not quite so bad as that. He
keeps a man to serve him, he was civil with the people at the Old Tavern,
he was affable enough, I understand, with the young fellow he pulled out
of the water, or rescued somehow,--I don't believe be avoids the whole
human race. He does not look as if he hated them, so far as I have
remarked his expression. I passed a few words with him when his man was
ailing, and found him polite enough. No, I don't believe it is much more
than an extreme case of shyness, connected, perhaps, with some congenital
or other personal repugnance to which has been given the name of an
antipathy."

Lurida could hardly keep still while the doctor was speaking. When he
finished, she began the account of her discovery:

"I do certainly believe I have found an account of his case in an Italian
medical journal of about fourteen years ago. I met with a reference
which led me to look over a file of the Giornale degli Ospitali lying
among the old pamphlets in the medical section of the Library. I have
made a translation of it, which you must read and then tell me if you do
not agree with me in my conclusion."

"Tell me what your conclusion is, and I will read your paper and see for
myself whether I think the evidence justifies the conviction you seem to
have reached."

Lurida's large eyes showed their whole rounds like the two halves of a
map of the world, as she said,

"I believe that Maurice Kirkwood is suffering from the effects of the
bite of a TARANTULA!"

The doctor drew a long breath. He remembered in a vague sort of way the
stories which used to be told of the terrible Apulian spider, but he had
consigned them to the limbo of medical fable where so many fictions have
clothed themselves with a local habitation and a name. He looked into the
round eyes and wide pupils a little anxiously, as if he feared that she
was in a state of undue excitement, but, true to his professional
training, he waited for another symptom, if indeed her mind was in any
measure off its balanc