pers,
for he was one of the best-known of mental specialists.

When I explained that the object of my visit was to learn something of
the case of my friend Miss Tennison, he asked me to sit down and then
switched on a green-shaded reading-lamp and referred to a big book
upon his writing table. His consulting room was dull and dark, with
heavy Victorian furniture and a great bookcase filled with medical
works. In the chair in which I sat persons of all classes had sat
while he had examined and observed them, and afterwards given his
opinion to their friends.

"Ah! yes," he exclaimed, when at last he found the notes he had made
upon the case. "I saw the young lady on the twenty-eighth of November.
A most peculiar case--most peculiar! Leicester and Franklyn both saw
her, but they were just as much puzzled as myself."

And through his big round horn spectacles he continued reading to
himself the several pages of notes.

"Yes," he remarked at last. "I now recall all the facts. A very
curious case. The young lady disappeared from her friends, and was
found some days later wandering near Petersfield, in Hampshire, in an
exhausted condition. She could not account for her disappearance, or
the state in which she was. Her memory had completely gone, and she
has not, I believe, yet recovered it."

"No, she has not," I said. "But the reason I have ventured to call,
Sir Charles, is to hear your opinion on the case."

"My opinion!" he echoed. "What opinion can I hold when the effect is
so plain--loss of memory?"

"Ah! But how could such a state of mind be produced?" I asked.

"You ask me for the cause. That, my dear sir, I cannot say," was his
answer. "There are several causes which would produce a similar
effect. Probably it was some great shock. But of what nature we cannot
possibly discover unless she herself recovers her normal memory so far
as to be able to assist us. I see that I have noted how she constantly
repeats the words 'red, green and gold.' That combination of colours
has apparently impressed itself upon her mind to such an extent that
it has become an obsession. Often she will utter no other words than
those. She was seen by a number of eminent men, but nobody could
suggest any cause other than shock."

"Is it possible that some drug could have been administered to her?"

"Everything is possible," Sir Charles answered. "But I know of no drug
which would produce such effect. In brief, I confess that I have