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ere the usual letters from old patients, prospective patients, people who had wonderful remedies and had been cruelly snubbed by the medical profession. He glanced through them casually, but with an absentmindedness which did not escape his housekeeper when she came in. Mrs. Burns was determined to tell him something, so determined, that as soon as she entered, he felt it coming. He knew that was why she came. The bluff of asking him if he got his telephone messages was too simple. Mrs. Burns was a sad looking woman, with a tired voice. It was not that Mrs. Burns was tired or sad, but in that part of the East from which she had come, all the better people spoke in weary voices of ladylike weakness. "Well, Mrs. Burns," the doctor said, "what has happened today?" He knew he was going to get it anyway--so he might as well ask for it. "George Steadman was in an awful state about the young fellow who came out from the city to see Pearl Watson. He got lost in the storm, and stayed three days at Paines, and then Pearl came over and took him home with her. Some say the Government sent him about the piece in the paper, and some say he's her beau. I don't know. Mrs. Crocks saw Pearl when she brought him in, and she could get nothing out of her. He's at the hotel still, though nobody seems to know what his business is." "O well," laughed the doctor, "we'll just have to watch him. Don't leave washings on the line, and lock our doors--he can't scare us." Mrs. Burns afterwards told Mrs. Crocks that "Doctor Clay can be very light at times, and it seems hardly the thing, considering his profession." Mrs. Burns could never quite forgive herself for leaving so early that night, and almost lost her religion, because no still small voice prompted her to stay. Just as she left the office, the young man, the mysterious stranger, came to the door, and Mrs. Burns knew there was no use going back through the drug store and listening at the door. The doctor had heavy curtains at each door in his office, and had a way of leaving the key in the door, that cut off the last hope. So she went home in great heaviness of spirit. P.J. Neelands presented his card, and was given a leather chair beside the fire. He asked the doctor if he might smoke, and was given permission. "I am going to talk to you in confidence, Doctor Clay," he said, nervously. "I guess you're used to that." The doctor nodded encouragingly: "That's what doctors
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