his eyes with great frankness of manner. "You see there
is a tiny drop of the stuff left. The doctor I am working with has
reason to believe the mixture may not be quite the same he is
accustomed to using."

She had prepared her speech carefully, but now she trembled within for
fear it had not sounded plausible. However, the blond young man took
the instrument and turned it about, examining it casually enough.

"Ah, yes, I understand. We do not ourselves make these analyses,
mademoiselle, but we can of course have it done for you."

"How long will it take?"

He shrugged his shoulders expressively.

"That I cannot tell you, but I will try to get it for you soon as
possible. What is your address?"

She told him, being careful to give her own name, not the doctor's.
Then she thought that it might not be wise to have the report sent to
the house at all. One never knew.

"If you can give me some idea of when it will be done, I will call for
it myself."

"Shall we say, then, five o'clock to-morrow afternoon, mademoiselle?
Although, of course, I cannot promise."

With a sigh of relief to have this particular ordeal safely over, she
walked out of the shop door--and straight into the arms of Captain
Holliday! She pulled herself up abruptly, almost speechless with
astonishment.

"Why--you!" was all she could ejaculate.

The sudden encounter with him, when she had confidently believed him
miles away, took the wind out of her sails, upsetting her calculations
completely. She continued to stare at him so stupidly that she could
see he was beginning to wonder what was the matter. His car,
travel-stained and looking as though it had seen hard service, stood
close to the curb. He had been in the act of entering a tobacconist's
next door to the chemist's shop.

"I'm not quite a ghost," he informed her with a short laugh, "although
I admit I feel rather like one."

He paused uncertainly, rubbing his hand over a day's growth of beard.

"But I--we--thought you'd gone to South America," she blurted out, then
was sorry she had said it. "That is, we saw it in the Paris paper."

"Not yet; my boat sails in a few days. As a matter of fact"--here he
shifted his gaze and glanced about in every direction except at her--"I
felt I ought to come back here for the funeral, even though it made a
bit of a rush. Old friend of the family and all that."

"Funeral!"

She could not keep her amazement out of her voice.

"Bu