As he brought it to her he saw that she had taken a chair. Her figure was relaxed from its recent rigidness. Her elbows were upon the tabletop. He put the cast into her gloved hands and reseated himself. She held it before her at arm's length, and one gloved hand went over its surface almost caressingly. “It is wonderful!” she said. “I never saw such an expression on any human face--why, it is soothing to me just to look at it. Doctor, where did you get it? Who was the original of it--or don't you know? What living creature sat for the artist who made it?” “No living creature sat for it,” he said slowly. “Oh!” she said disappointedly. “Well, then, what artist had the imagination to conjure up such a conception?” “No artist conjured it up,” he told her. “Then how-” “That, madam,” he said, “is a death mask.” “A death mask!” Her tone was incredulous. “A death mask, doctor?” “Yes, madam--a death mask. See, the eyes are closed--are half closed, anyway.” “Do you mean to tell me that death can leave such an expression on any face? How could--” She broke off, staring incredulously at the thing. “That is what makes the story I mean to tell you,” he said--“if you care to hear it?” “Of course I want to hear it.” Her manner was insistent, impatient, demanding almost. “Please go on.” He kept her in suspense a moment or two; and so they both sat, he squinting up at the ceiling as though marshalling a narrative in its proper sequence in his mind, she holding fast to the disked shape of white plaster. At length he began, speaking slowly. “Here is the story,” he said: “A few weeks ago an acquaintance of mine--a fellow physician--told me of a case he thought might interest me. Primarily it was a surgical case, and I, as perhaps you know, do not practise surgery; but there was another aspect of it that did have a direct and personal appeal for me. “It seems that some weeks before there had been put into his hands for treatment a man--a young man--who was stone-deaf and stone-blind, and whose senses of taste and of smell were greatly affected--perhaps I should say impaired. He could speak, more or less imperfectly, and his sense of touch was good; in fact, better than with ordinary mortals. These two faculties alone remained to him. He had been afflicted so from childhood; the attack, or the disease, which left him in this state had come upon him very early, before his mind had registered very many sensible impressions. “Speech and feeling--these really were what remained intact. Yet his intelligence, considering these handicaps, was above the average, and his body was healthy, and his temperament, in the main, sanguine. Practically all his life he had been in an asylum--a charity institution. Until chance brought him to the attention of this acquaintance of mine it had seemed highly probable that he would spend the rest of his life in this institution.