III
A CURIOUS CASE
"What is it, dear?"
"Bothered—bothered."
"A case?"
"Yes, and I must get it off my mind this evening."
The Doctor set down his after-dinner coffee untasted on the library table, and rose with a half sigh from his easy chair before the blazing wood-fire. His heavy eyebrows were drawn together into a straight line over the bridge of his nose, and that, his wife knew full well, was an ominous sign.
"Must you go to-night? It's such a fearful storm; just hear it!"
"Yes, I must; just to get it off my mind. I sha'n't be gone long, and I'll tell you all about it when I get home." The Doctor stooped and kissed the detaining hand that his wife had laid lovingly on his arm; then, turning to the telephone, he bespoke a cab.
As the vehicle made its way up Fifth Avenue in the teeth of a February, northeast gale that drove the sleet rattling against the windows, Doctor Heath settled back farther into his corner, growling to himself, "I wish some people would let me manage their affairs for them; it would
