wart, I had learned of their
meeting in the French hospital, and of the acquaintance which promised
to ripen--which evidently had ripened--into love.

I looked at her searchingly, and then I spoke, hardly able to get the
words out for the wild trembling of my whole body.

"Jack grieved?" I said. "Why! Jack is dead! We had the notice of his
death weeks ago from his friend, Paul Caillard."

I saw them all look at me as if frightened. Dr. Pettit reached me
first and put something under my nostrils which vitalized my wandering
senses. I straightened myself and cried out peremptorily.

"What is it, oh! what is it?"

I saw Katherine look at Dr. Pettit, as if for permission, and the
young physician's lips form the words, "Tell her."

"No, dear. Jack isn't dead," she said softly. "He was missing for some
time, and was brought into our hospital terribly wounded, but he is
very much alive now, and will be here in New York in two weeks."

I felt the pungent revivifier in Dr. Pettit's hand steal under my
nostrils again, but I pushed it aside and sat up.

"I am not at all faint," I said abruptly, and then to Katherine
Sonnot. "Please say that over again, slowly."

She repeated her words slowly. "I should have waited to come over with
him," she added, "for he is still quite weak, but Dr. Braithwaite
had to send some one over to attend to business for the hospital. He
selected me, and so I had to come on earlier."

So it was true, then, this miracle of miracles, this return of the
dead to life! Jack, the brother-cousin on whom I had depended all my
life, was still in the same world with me! Some of the terrible burden
I had been bearing since Dicky's disappearance slipped away from me.
If anyone in the world could solve the mystery of Dicky's actions, it
would be Jack Bickett.

Dr. Pettit's voice broke into my reverie. I saw that Lillian and
Katherine Sonnot were deep in conversation. The young physician and I
were far enough away from them so that there was no possibility of
his low tones being heard. He bent over my chair, and his eyes were
burning with a light that terrified me.

"Tell me," he commanded, "do you want your husband back again. Take
your time in answering. I must know."

There was something in his voice that compelled obedience. I leaned
back in my chair and shut my eyes, while I looked at the question he
had put me fairly and squarely.

The question seemed to echo in my ears. I was surprised at mysel