e story of your kidnapping. Owing partly to your condition at
that time and partly to a certain dread of my own, I only gave you a
part of the story. I promised to tell the rest later. That time has now
arrived. I have waited for a moment when I should feel that you had lost
confidence in me, for the moment when I should know that you no longer
trusted me. I delayed because I hated to confess my weakness. I wished
to appear before you still as a strong man. And let me assure you that
you are not in any slightest danger from me. It is true, I am a nervous
wreck. And yet, at this moment, my mind is clear. I realize that the
time has come for me to make my confession to you. In the hope that it
will render your judgment of me less harsh, I shall tell you my whole
story. It begins back in the days when I was taking my course in the
medical school."

Ethel was amazed over the change that had so abruptly taken place in the
man. It seemed indeed that he had recovered, at least in some measure,
his accustomed poise. He appeared less afflicted with nervousness in
this new eagerness to talk. She returned to her chair and again seated
herself. There she sat in rapt attention as she listened to the weird
narrative of a great man's folly and degradation. As the tale unfolded,
the girl's heart was like a lute swept by chords and dissonances of
emotion. She was thrilled to horror, moved to strange sympathy; by turns
fearful and sympathetic.

"I believe," the Doctor went on, "that I was a more than ordinarily
hard-working student. Night after night I burned the midnight oil. I was
ambitious to forge ahead. I was eager to finish my course and to begin
the practice of the profession that I so deeply loved. I was possessed
by a feeling that I had been created for this calling. I believed that I
was destined to obtain eminence in my chosen career.

"Everything went well until I became friends with a certain young tutor
in the university. He noticed that I was working hard, and that
sometimes I would begin the day tired and depressed, when, naturally, my
mind would not be as bright as it should be.... The man was a vampire of
viciousness--only desirous to corrupt.... And I was an easy mark! The
only excuse I have to offer is my age.

"This man was a drug-fiend. He used morphia slyly, knowing full well
what the outcome must be. It was that hideous knowledge that made him
eager to enchain others, even as he himself was enchained, so that h