"That you'll try and forget all about this mystery of yours," he said earnestly. "You'll be getting brain fever, or something equally disagreeable, if you don't try to control yourself and think no more of it. The experience is unusual, but, depend upon it, the mystery is so well kept by the set of scoundrels into whose hands you fell, that you'll never get to the bottom of it." "But I mean to solve it," I said resolutely. "I'm married, my dear fellow, and--well, I love her." "I know. That's just the devil of it," he answered bluntly. "You're gone on her, and the mystery makes you the more eager to claim her as your wife!" "Exactly, old fellow," I answered. "I know that you're my best friend. Indeed, you have kept me out of the gutter or the common lodging-house these past weeks, and I am ready to repay you in any way in my power; but as to taking your advice in this matter, I really can't." "Then, you're a fool, Dick." "I may be," I responded; "but I mean to clear up the mystery." "Because you are jealous of this young Chetwode." "I don't deny that I'm jealous," I replied with perfect frankness. "But I know that Beryl is in danger, and, as her husband, I should be at her side to protect her." "That's all very well; but, after all your exertions, you've really discovered absolutely nothing." His words were, alas! only too true. I had made many discoveries, but each of them had only served to render the veil of mystery more impenetrable. "But why do you urge me to give it up?" "For your own sake," he responded. "You can't practise properly when your head is full of such a bewildering puzzle. Don't you see that in this affair your reputation is at stake?" "But her life is of greater moment to me than my own reputation," I declared. "Let me have my own way, there's a good chap." And I wished him good-bye. An hour later I became installed as temporary assistant to a surgeon in Richmond Road, Bayswater, who, having been "run down" by the unusual number of cases of influenza, had resolved to take a month's vacation. The Bayswater surgeon proved a genial fellow, but I saw little of him, for he left for North Wales with his family early next morning, after handing me his visiting-book and giving me general instructions. A fortnight went by, and so large was the practice--for I had to attend a number of the large drapery establishments in Westbourne Grove, where my principal was medical officer--that I had but little leisure. To forget the strange enigma which so troubled my brain I had thrown myself heartily into the work. One hot, oppressive evening, after I had been in Richmond Road about three weeks, I was busy seeing the patients who, crowding the waiting-room between the hours of seven and nine, entered the consulting-room one by one to describe their physical ills, when the servant came in with a card, saying-- "A lady wishes to see you at once, sir."