for days. Don't you think you could operate on Phoebe's father, put a
silver plate on his skull or lift whatever's pressing on his memory
bump? Don't you think you could undertake it, doctor? I know you are a
famous surgeon. Papa wrote that to me long ago, but I knew it before he
told me. I could tell just from seeing and being with you that you were
a great man."

The doctor laughed over these artless compliments.

"Are you a mind reader, Miss Billie?"

"But you will undertake it, doctor?" she urged.

"We must first catch our man, my child, and then have a look at him. A
good many things would have to be considered: whether he would consent
himself; whether he would be able to stand the shock of a serious
operation, and whether he may not have some disease an operation
wouldn't help; paralysis or softening of the brain."

"At any rate, you will undertake it?" cried Billie joyfully.

"Do you wish it so much?" he asked, watching her face as she guided the
car down the steep road.

"I do, I do! Think what it would mean to Phoebe to have this mystery
cleared; think what it would mean to him, too!"

"I was thinking of it," answered the doctor gravely. "That's just the
point. Suppose Phoebe's father would not thank me for bringing his past
back? Suppose, after all, he would be happier in this state than with
his memory restored. Do you realize that a man like that, a man of
education and refinement, I mean, must have had some very good reason
for hiding himself away in these mountains? That he may have been flying
from something?"

The enthusiasm died out of Billie's face.

"Oh, Dr. Hume," she began, "I hadn't thought of that. Indeed, I couldn't
connect anything of the sort with Phoebe and her father. They are not a
bit like that."

"You never can tell. The people who have given way to some wild impulse
that will cause them everlasting regret are not always bad people by any
means. His reasons for hiding himself and his wife in a cabin in these
mountains of course may have been entirely innocent; or he may have
hoped to find oblivion and forgetfulness up here out of the world. If I
give him back his memory, providing of course I can do it, I may give
him the very thing he is running away from."

"Don't you think he has been punished enough and that Phoebe ought to
have a chance?" argued Billie.

"Is there anything to prevent Phoebe's having a chance without knowing
her father's past?" asked the doctor.

"N