XIII. MY LOVE 119 XIV. IS DISTINCTLY CURIOUS 128 XV. I AM CALLED FOR CONSULTATION 139 XVI. REVEALS AN ASTOUNDING FACT 150 XVII. DISCUSSES SEVERAL MATTERS 162 XVIII. WORDS OF THE DEAD 173 XIX. JEVONS GROWS MYSTERIOUS 183 XX. MY NEW PATIENT 194 XXI. WOMAN'S WILES 203 XXII. A MESSAGE 215 XXIII. THE MYSTERY OF MARY 226 XXIV. ETHELWYNN IS SILENT 236 XXV. FORMS A BEWILDERING ENIGMA 249 XXVI. AMBLER JEVONS IS BUSY 256 XXVII. MR. LANE'S ROMANCE 274 XXVIII. "POOR MRS. COURTENAY!" 281 XXIX. THE POLICE ARE AT FAULT 290 XXX. SIR BERNARD'S DECISION 298 XXXI. CONTAINS THE PLAIN TRUTH 306 THE SEVEN SECRETS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCES AMBLER JEVONS. "Ah! You don't take the matter at all seriously!" I observed, a trifle annoyed. "Why should I?" asked my friend, Ambler Jevons, with a deep pull at his well-coloured briar. "What you've told me shows quite plainly that you have in the first place viewed one little circumstance with suspicion, then brooded over it until it has become magnified and now occupies your whole mind. Take my advice, old chap, and think nothing more about it. Why should you make yourself miserable for no earthly reason? You're a rising man--hard up like most of us--but under old Eyton's wing you've got a brilliant future before you. Unlike myself, a mere nobody, struggling against the tide of adversity, you're already a long way up the medical ladder. If you climb straight you'll end with an appointment of Physician-in-Ordinary and a knighthood thrown in as makeweight. Old Macalister used to prophesy it, you remember, when we were up at Edinburgh. Therefore, I can't, for the life of me, discover any cause why you should allow yourself to have these touches of the blues--unless it's liver, or some other internal organ about which you know a lot more than I do. Why, man, you've got the whole world before you, and as for Ethelwynn----" "Ethelwynn!" I ejaculated, starting up from my chair. "Leave her out of the question! We need not discuss her," and I walked to the mantelshelf to light a fresh cigarette. "As you wish, my dear fellow," said my merry, easy-going friend. "I merely wish to point out the utter folly of all this suspicion." "I don't suspect her," I snapped.