“You’ll have to admit all March says is true, Gray,” Keeley said to me, his fine face drawn with deepest concern. “And also the stories Posy May has told us. They bear the stamp of truth, and they are all human evidence, not merely circumstantial. Now, I will tell you the conclusion that I have been obliged to arrive at. And that is, that Alma Remsen is indeed afflicted. Not with epilepsy but with a far more serious malady. I mean dementia praecox. This is a terrible statement to make, but I am sure it is the only diagnosis that fits the case. As you may or may not know, that condition may be in existence yet remain unknown and unsuspected by those nearest and dearest to the patient.” “No!” I cried, recoiling from the thought of horrors that this idea conjured up. “That lovely girl——” “You know nothing about the disease, Gray,” Keeley said, patiently. “I didn’t know much about it myself, until I read it up, which I have just done. It has many forms and phases, but there are some symptoms inseparable from the conditions. For instance, and this is the thing that impressed me from the very first. You remember I said the watch in the water pitcher was the keynote. Well, I had a vague idea, and my recent study has corroborated it, that victims of this dread disease almost invariably throw a watch into a jar or pail of water if they get a chance. That is a common peculiarity, and all the queer work around Tracy’s deathbed points unmistakably to a mind disordered by dementia praecox and nothing else. Epilepsy won’t do. That is a different disease. But the feather duster, the flowers, the waistcoat business, the Totem Pole, and more than all, the fatal nail, all indicate the same thing. Now, this disease has the strange quality of becoming evident at times, and then disappearing so utterly that no one would suspect its presence in the person affected. March and I have concluded that Alma Remsen is a victim of this horrible curse and that her actions are in no way of her own volition during the attacks of the dementia.” “I can’t believe it,” I said, after a straight glance into Keeley’s sympathetic eyes, “but I suppose I must take your word for it. However, it makes no difference in my love and loyalty to Alma, but I want to get at the truth. Now if it is true, her doctor must know about it. And I can’t think Doctor Rogers would have gone off and left her if there was danger of attacks of such a sort.”