er
seen on her metallic face.

For many minutes I sat on the edge of the bed, looking down at the child
that I had grown to love, as a foolish old doctor sometimes will. Then I
bent and kissed her cool, white forehead.

"She is out of danger," said I softly.

"Oh, yes," said Miss Peters. "She will get well. You have saved her."

She moved her angular shoulders as she adjusted her belt, she strode
noiselessly across the room and moved the shade on the lamp. The light
now shone so that the blue wall, with its ethereal depths, had turned
rosy as with the light of dawn.

"Suppose, Miss Peters--" said I, after staring at it a moment, "suppose
that you were called upon for one guess about this wall and its effect
upon this child."

She wheeled about and stared at me.

"I've thought of that," she said.

"What's behind that wall?" she mused as if to herself. "As between
something and somebody, it is not a thing, but a person. A person has
been there--perhaps some one overcoming evil or winning some victory
over disease."

"Well," said I, seeing that she was hesitating, "go on."

"I can't exactly go on," she said. "I don't want you to take me for a
fool. Only, don't you suppose that you and I, ourselves, must throw out
some influence that is not seen with the eyes or heard with the ears?
Don't we affect every one near us with our good and evil? Don't we
affect the people who live above and below in apartments, or to the
right and left in houses? Doesn't strength or weakness come through wood
and iron and stone? Didn't it come through this wall, Doctor?"

"My dear Miss Peters," said I, shrugging my shoulders, "how can I say?
I can only tell you that you have just finished the longest, the most
human, and, on the whole, in the best sense, the most scientific
observation I have ever known you to make."

CHAPTER II

"WHY CARE?"

There is the tale, all told. Many may want to ask me my theories. I have
none. My story, except as to form, is like the data I keep in every case
which comes before my notice--it is a somewhat incomplete and
matter-of-fact section out of human life. Like poor MacMechem I try to
keep my mind open. I simply offer a narrative of the sequence of events.

One thing only troubles me. Did Margaret Murchie lie when she said Mrs.
Estabrook was the daughter of Cranch? or when she said that she was the
daughter of Judge Colfax? And