hen from the tobacco jar he loaded his pipe,
but his manner remained abstracted. Yet he was not thinking of the
phantom piper but of Mlle. Dorian.

Until he had met this bewilderingly pretty woman he had thought that
his heart was for evermore proof against the glances of bright eyes.
Mademoiselle had disillusioned him. She was the most fragrantly lovely
creature he had ever met, and never for one waking moment since her
first visit, had he succeeded in driving her bewitching image from
his mind. He had tried to laugh at his own folly, then had grown angry
with himself, but finally had settled down to a dismayed acceptance
of a wild infatuation.

He had no idea who Mlle. Dorian was; he did not even know her exact
nationality, but he strongly suspected there was a strain of Eastern
blood in her veins. Although she was quite young, apparently little
more than twenty years of age, she dressed like a woman of unlimited
means, and although all her visits had been at night he had had
glimpses of the big car which had aroused Mrs. M'Gregor's displeasure.

Yes--so ran his musings, as, pipe in mouth, he rested his chin in his
hands and stared grimly into the fire--she had always come at night
and always alone. He had supposed her to be a Frenchwoman, but an
unmarried French girl of good family does not make late calls, even
upon a medical man, unattended. Had he perchance unwittingly made
himself a party to the escapade of some unruly member of a noble
family? From the first he had shrewdly suspected the ailments of Mlle.
Dorian to be imaginary--Mlle. Dorian? It was an odd name.

"I shall be imagining she is a disguised princess if I wonder about
her any more!" he muttered angrily.

Detecting himself in the act of heaving a weary sigh, he coughed in
self-reproval and reached into a pigeon-hole for the MS. of his
unfinished paper on "Snake Poisons and Their Antidotes." By chance he
pulled out the brief account, written the same morning, of his uncanny
experience during the night. He read it through reflectively.

It was incomplete. A certain mental haziness which he had noted upon
awakening had in some way obscured the facts. His memory of the dream
had been imperfect. Even now, whilst recognizing that some feature of
the experience was missing from his written account, he could not
identify the omission. But one memory arose starkly before him--that
of the cowled man who had stood behind the curtains. It had power to
chil