Carroll knew that Abby was as well aware as was he of Alice's invincible truthfulness, and that he had not to reckon with any unfounded suspicion of deceit. If Alice had said she did not know who destroyed the letter, then it was evident that she had done it unconsciously and in some condition which needed to be inquired into. He leaned back against the mantel, and playing absently with the dangling prisms which hung above a brazen pair of pastoral lovers on the old-fashioned candelabra, he heard Abby's story in full. Miss Gaylord had said to the servant that she was about to write the letter, and that it must be posted that evening. Going to the parlor after the note, Abby had seen her mistress cut it to pieces. The maid withdrew, supposing that for some reason the note needed rewriting; but on returning some time later, she had been met by the declaration that it was on the table. As it was not there, her mistress had joined in searching for it, but nothing could be found save the fragments in the waste-basket. Miss Gaylord had insisted that she had not cut it, and that she was entirely ignorant of how the damage had occurred. Dr. Carroll was puzzled and troubled, nor was he less so when Alice had given him her account. She did this unsolicited, and with evident frankness. "I suppose, George," she said, "it's absent-mindedness; but if I have got so far that I don't know what I'm doing, I'd better be shut up for a lunatic at once." "Has anything of the sort ever happened before?" he asked. "I am not sure," was her answer; "but sometimes I've found things done that I could not remember doing: my clothes put in queer places, and that sort of thing, you know. I never really thought much about it before. You don't think--" He could see that she was seriously troubled, and he set himself to dissipate her concern. "I think you are tired, and so you may be a little absent-minded; but I certainly do not think it's worth making any fuss about. You and Abby will have a theory of demoniacal possession soon, to account for a mere slip of memory." He did not leave her until it seemed to him that she no longer regarded the incident seriously; but in his own mind he was by no means at ease. At the earliest moment possible he went to consult with a fellow physician who was a specialist in disorders of the nerves, and to him he told the whole case as accurately as he was able. The specialist put some questions and in the end asked:-- "Has she ever been hypnotized?" "I'm sure she never has," Carroll answered. "She might easily be a subject, I should think. She's naturally nervous, and just now she is run down and unstrung." "It seems like a case of self-hypnotism," the other said. "Sometimes, you know, patients unconsciously hypnotize themselves, or get hypnotized, without having any idea of it." "But would n't she know it afterward?" "Oh, no; the second personality generally knows all about the first--"