c syringe
penetrate the skin of his forearm. She merely admired the graceful, deft
movements of the long and slender fingers.

Nevertheless, the girl could hardly fail to note the change that came
almost immediately over the man. Now he became again his usual self,
with little, if any, trace of nervousness, with the manner that was
affable and sympathetic.

It was a half hour later when Ethel, ever alert, noticed a fisherman's
boat laboring clumsily down the Sound. In years agone, it had been
equipped with a sail, but now it chugged away industriously under the
energy of a wheezing gasoline engine. There were several persons
aboard--three men, two women and a baby in arms. During her first glance
at the ungainly-looking boat, the beat of the engine ceased, and it was
evident from the actions of the man who busied himself with the
machinery that the motor had balked. As the launch drew nearer, the girl
saw that those in the broken-down craft were in a state of
consternation, with their attention centered on the child. She cried out
in wonder to the Doctor.

"What in the world can be the matter in that boat? It must have
something to do with the baby."

Garnet answered without hesitation.

"Yes, Miss Ethel, I've been watching, and there is certainly something
seriously wrong. I'll go close enough to hail them."

The men in the fishing boat began to wave their hats as distress
signals, and the Doctor nodded and raised his hand as a signal that he
was coming.

When the launch came within hailing distance, one of the men shouted out
an explanation. The propeller had become entangled in a piece of
floating net, and so rendered useless. The party came from the
Tournequin Bay section, where an epidemic of diphtheria was raging. This
baby had not improved under the "granny" treatment of the neighborhood,
in which there were no doctors. In consequence, it was now being taken
to Beaufort to receive the antitoxin--that new remedy for which such
miracles were claimed. Even as the man was speaking, the baby was seized
with a fit of strangling that brought it almost to the point of death.

Came a transformation scene. Here was no longer Garnet, the crazed drug
fiend. In his stead was revealed the man and the physician--he who in
times of distress and suffering had always given his services to the
best of his ability. In this moment the old instinct rose dominant. He
called to them in a loud clear voice.

"I am a physician.