"Although I'll confess frankly that things
haven't been going just right, and I'm not sorry to have you back and in
charge of the case. Muriel made the acquaintance of a typhus bug--the
Lord knows how--and, although I succeeded in getting the best of the
fever fairly quickly, thanks to the able assistance of that nurse whom
you swear by ..."

"Miss Merriman?"

"Yes, she's a wonder, isn't she? Well, as I said, we took care of the
fever, all right; but the cerebral affection has been more persistent,
and she hasn't convalesced as you would expect in a twelve-year-old
child. She seems to be laboring under a sort of nervous depression, not
so much physical as mental ... in fact, a psychos. It's common enough in
older people, of course; but hanged if I ever saw anything just like it
in a perfectly normal, and naturally happy child."

"H-m-m-m. What are the symptoms?"

"Psychological, all of them. She mopes; seems to take no healthy
interest in anything, and, as a result, has no appetite; bursts out
crying over the most trivial things--such as the chance of you're being
blown up by a submarine on the way home--and frequently for no cause at
all. Of course I packed the family off to the shore, as soon as she was
able to be moved, in the belief that the change of scene and the sea air
would effect a cure, but it hasn't. I can't find a thing wrong with her,
physically, nor could Morse. I took him down on my own hook, in
consultation, one day. It's a rather unusual case of purely
psychological depression, and in my opinion all she needs is ..."

"A generous dose of Smiles," interrupted Donald.

"By thunder, you've struck it," cried Philip, as he gave the arm of his
chair a resounding thump. "What an ass I've been not to have thought of
that before, particularly as she has been so constantly in my thoughts.
It's another case of a thing being too close to one for him to see it."

Donald stiffened suddenly. He held the match, with which he was about to
light a cigar, poised in mid-air until the flame reached his fingers,
and then blew it out, unused.

"In fact, it was about her, Don, that I was so anxious to see you," the
other went on. His own nervousness made him unconscious of the effect
which his words had produced on Donald. "Of course, she's practically of
legal age now; but I know that she still regards you as her guardian and
that in a sense you stand _in loco parentis_ toward her. Certainly she
regards your word as