which had left him under the compulsion of
the woman's mastery of him, returned at the professor's remark.

"I have been dead," said he, "since the twenty-seventh of June, 1896!"

Madame le Claire stared at him in unconcealed amazement. The professor
calmly dipped toast in his tea.

"So!" said he. "Fife years. Goot! Dis case vill estaplish some
important brinciples. Vill you be so kindt as to dell us te
saircumstances?"

"Oh, papa!" broke in the lady. "You must wait until after dinner. I
saw Mr. Amidon was weak and disturbed, and, I thought--hungry. So I
asked him to stay."

"I have eaten nothing but this," said Mr. Amidon, "since June
twenty-seventh, 1896----"

"So," said the professor calmly. "Dis vill brofe an important case."

"I saw the sign," said Amidon, "'All Mysteries Solved,' and I came
here----"

"De sign," said the professor, "iss our goncession to te spirit of
gommercialism, and te gompetitife system. It vas Clara's itea. But
some mysteries ve do not attempt. In te realm of te supliminal,
howefer, ve go up against almost any broposition. I am Cheneral
Superintendent of Supliminal Enchineering; Clara is te executant. I
make blance, and Clara does as she bleaces aboudt following dem. You
vill, at your gonfenience, dell us all you can of your case. I vill
analyze, glassify, and tiagnose; she vill unrafel."

It was late in the evening when the professor was through with his
diagnosis. He made copious notes of Amidon's story. Several times his
daughter called him away from some book in which he had lost himself
while on an excursion in search of parallel cases. At last he paused,
his face expressing the triumph of a naturalist at the discovery of a
new beetle.

"You are not in te least insane!" said he, with the air of telling
Florian something hard to believe; "ant you haf none of te stigmata of
techeneration. I vould say that you are not a griminal--not much of a
griminal anyhow, ant bropaply not at all!"

"Thank you! Oh, thank you!" fervently exclaimed Amidon.

"It iss a case," went on the professor, "of dual pairsonality. For
fife years you haf bropaply been absent from Hazelhurst. You haf been
someveres!"

"Where, where?" cried Amidon.

"Do not fear," said Madame le Claire, laying her hand on his arm. "If
it is a case of dual personality, we shall soon find out all about it.
You have mysteriously disappeared. Many men do. There was Lieutenant
Rogers, of the navy;