The Tracer of Lost Persons Part 40

"Your doctor!" she repeated, appalled.

"Yes, certainly. Why not?"

"Don't do that! Please don't do that! I--why _I_ discovered this case. I beg you most earnestly to let me observe it. You don't understand the importance of it! You don't begin to dream of the rarity of this case!

How much it means to me!"

He flushed up. "Do you intend to intimate that I am afflicted with some sort of rare and s-s-trange d-d-disease?" he stammered.

"I dare not p.r.o.nounce upon it too confidently," she said with enthusiasm; "I have not yet absolutely determined the nature of the disease. But, oh, I am beginning to hope--"

"Then I _am_ diseased!" he faltered. "I've got _something_ anyhow; is that it? Only you are not yet perfectly sure what it is called! Is that the truth, Miss Hollis?"

"How can I answer positively until I have had time to observe these symptoms? It requires time to be certain. I do not wish to alarm you, but it is my duty to say to you that you should immediately place yourself under medical observation."

"You think that?"

"I do; I am convinced of it. Please understand me; I do not p.r.o.nounce upon these visible symptoms; I do not express an unqualified opinion; but I could be in a position to do so if you consent to place yourself under my observations and care. For these suspicious symptoms are not only very plainly apparent to me, but were even noted by that old gentleman whom you may perhaps have observed conversing with me."

"Yes, I saw him. Who is he?"

"Dr. Austin Atwood," said the girl solemnly.

"Oh! And you say he also observed something queer about me? What did he see? Are there spots on me? Am I turning any remarkable color? Am I--"

And in the very midst of his genuine alarm he suddenly remembered the make-up box and what the Tracer of Lost Persons had done to his eyes.

Was _that_ it? Where was the Tracer, anyway? He had promised to appear.

And then Carden recollected the gray wig and whiskers that the Tracer had waved at him from the cupboard, bidding him note them well. _Could_ that beaming, benignant, tottering old gentleman have been the Tracer of Lost Persons himself? And the same instant Carden was sure of it, spite of the miraculous change in the man.

Then logic came to his aid; and, deducing with care and patience, an earnest conviction grew within him that the dark circles under his eyes and the tottering old gentleman resembling Dr. Austin Atwood had a great deal to do with this dreadful disease which Dr. Hollis desired to study.

He looked at the charming girl beside him, and she looked back at him very sweetly, very earnestly, awaiting his decision.

For a moment he realized that she had really scared him, and in the reaction of relief an overwhelming desire to laugh seized him. He managed to suppress it, to compose himself. Then he remembered the Tracer's admonition to acquiesce in everything, do what he was told to do, not to run away, and to pay his court at the first decent opportunity.

He had no longer any desire to escape; he was quite willing to do anything she desired.

"Do you really want to study me, Dr. Hollis?" he asked, feeling like a hypocrite.

"Indeed I do," she replied fervently.

"You believe me worth studying?"

"Oh, truly, truly, you are! You don't suspect--you cannot conceive how important you have suddenly become to me."

"Then I think you had better take my case, Dr. Hollis," he said seriously. "I begin now to realize that you believe me to be a sort of freak--an afflicted curiosity, and that, in the interest of medicine, I ought to go to an asylum or submit myself to the ceaseless observation of a competent private physician."

"I--I think it best for you to place yourself in my care," she said.

"Will you?"

"Yes," he said, "I will. I'll do anything in the world you ask."

"That is very--very generous, very n.o.ble of you!" she exclaimed, flushing with excitement and delight. "It means a great deal to me--it means, perhaps, a fame that I scarcely dared dream of even in my most enthusiastic years. I am too grateful to express my grat.i.tude coherently; I am trying to say to you that I thank you; that I recognize in you those broad, liberal, generous qualities which, from your appearance and bearing, I--I thought perhaps you must possess."

She colored again very prettily; he bowed, and ventured to remind her that she had not yet given him the privilege of naming himself.

"That is true!" she said, surprised. "I had quite forgotten it." But when he named himself she raised her head, startled.

"Victor Carden!" she repeated. "You are the _artist_, Victor Carden!"

"Yes," he said, watching her dilated eyes like two violet-tinted jewels.

For a minute she sat looking at him; and imperceptibly a change came into her face, and its bewildering beauty softened as the vivid tints died out, leaving her cheeks almost pale.

"It is--a pity," she said under her breath. All the excitement, all the latent triumph, all the scarcely veiled eager enthusiasm had gone from her now.

"A pity?" he repeated, smiling.

"Yes. I wish it had been only an ordinary man. I--why should this happen to you? You have done so much for us all--made us forget ourselves in the beauty of what you offer us. Why should this happen to _you_!"

"But you have not told me yet what has happened to me, Miss Hollis."

She looked up, almost frightened.

"_Are_ you our Victor Carden? I do not wish to believe it! You have done so much for the world--you have taught us to understand and desire all that is n.o.ble and upright and clean and beautiful!--to desire it, to aspire toward it, to venture to live the good, true, wholesome lives that your penciled creations must lead--_must_ lead to wear such beautiful bodies and such divine eyes!"

"Do _you_ care for my work?" he asked, astonished and moved.

"I? Yes, of course I do. Who does not?"

"Many," he replied simply.

"I am sorry for them," she said.

They sat silent for a long while.

At first his overwhelming desire was to tell her of the deception practiced upon her; but he could not do that, because in exposing himself he must fail in loyalty to the Tracer of Lost Persons. Besides, she would not believe him. She would think him mad if he told her that the old gentleman she had taken for Dr. Atwood was probably Mr. Keen, the Tracer of Lost Persons. Also, he himself was not absolutely certain about it. He had merely deduced as much.

"Tell me," he said very gently, "what is the malady from which you believe I am suffering?"

For a moment she remained silent, then, face averted, laid her finger on the book beside her.

"That," she said unsteadily.

He read aloud: "Lamour's Disease. A Treatise in sixteen volumes by Ero S. Lamour, M.D., M.S., F.B.A., M.F.H."

"All that?" he asked guiltily.

"I don't know, Mr. Carden. Are you laughing at me? Do you not believe me?" She had turned suddenly to confront him, surprising a humorous glimmer in his eyes.