rch to the root of his being, and to
draw the soul out of him. He had a flying thought--"Can it be a woman,
after all, in this strange shape?" and he knew no more ... till he woke
in the hospital bed.

That was the patient's story.

"Just look over your property here," said the doctor. "Have you lost
anything?"

The young man turned over his watch and the contents of his purse, and
answered that he had lost nothing.

"Strange--strange!" said Lefevre--"very strange! And the card--of course
the stranger must have put it in your pocket."

"Which would seem to imply," said the young man, "that _he_ knows
something of the hospital."

"Well," said Lefevre, "we must see what can be done to clear the mystery
up."

"Some of those newspaper-men have been here," said the house-physician,
when they had left the ward, "and they will be sure to call again before
the day is out. Shall I tell them anything of this?"

"Certainly," said Lefevre. "Publicity may help us to discover this
amazing stranger."

"Do you quite believe the story?" asked the house-physician.

"I don't disbelieve it."

"But what did the stranger do to put him in that condition, which seems
something more than hypnotism?"

"Ah," said Lefevre, "I don't yet understand it; but there are forces in
Nature which few can comprehend, and which only one here and there can
control and use."

Chapter III.

"M. Dolaro."

Next day men talked, newspaper in hand, at the breakfast-table, in the
early trains, omnibuses, and tramcars, of the singular railway outrage.
It was clear its purpose was not robbery. What, then, did it mean?
Some--probably most--declared it was very plain what it meant; while
others,--the few,--after much argument, confessed themselves quite
mystified.

The police, too, were not idle. They made inquiries and took notes here
and there. They discovered that the five o'clock train made but two
pauses on its journey to London--at Croydon and at Clapham Junction. At
neither of those places could a man in a fur coat be heard of as having
descended from the train; and yet it was manifest that he did not arrive
at Grosvenor Road, where tickets were taken. After persistent and wider
inquiries, however, at Clapham Junction (which was the most likely point
of departure), a cabman was found who remembered having taken up a
fare--a gentleman in a fur coat--about the hour indicated. He
particularly remarked the gentleman, because he looked odd