“Some_what_!” he returned with humorous emphasis. “We’ve managed to keep your name out of the papers—so far.” “What papers?” “All of them. Take your choice,” he said—and he offered her two; but one at a time was enough for Lily. Headlines announced that a “Mysterious Accident” at the Blue Hills Country Club had “resulted in grave injury” to James Herbert McArdle. The illustrious youth had lain unconscious and unrecognized until a short time after midnight, the more sober text of the report informed her. Mr. H. H. Huston, the McArdle representative, had been alarmed by Mr. McArdle’s disappearance and continued absence, subsequent to the reception of an address by the suburban welcoming committee, and in the course of an exhaustive search Mr. Huston had caused inquiries to be made at the Blue Hills Country Club. Here it was learned that an unknown gentleman had been struck in the head by a golf ball driven with such force as to cause a concussion of the brain. The club’s employees had withheld the name of the person responsible for the injury; but a reporter had ascertained that it was a lady and that she had accompanied the wounded man—“wounded man” was the newspaper’s phrase—in the ambulance, and had “insisted upon remaining at the hospital until a late hour.” Mr. H. H. Huston had reached the hospital not long after midnight; Mr. McArdle had just become conscious and revealed his identity to the nurse in charge. Mr. Huston had said to a reporter that Mr. McArdle “positively declared himself ignorant of the name of the person who had caused his injury.” Altogether, there was “an air of mystery about the affair”; and Mr. McArdle’s condition was still grave, though the surgeons said that he would “probably recover.” It is to Lily’s credit that the strongest emotion roused in her by this reading concerned these final two words. She repeated them pathetically to Doctor Waite. “‘Probably recover’? ‘Probably’?” He laughed. “Don’t you know newspapers? Didn’t I tell you last night he’d be all right? We wired his family an hour ago that there was no reason for any of them to come on. All that surgical and medical impressiveness over yonder only represents old Hiram Huston’s idea of the right thing to do for a McArdle with a bump on his head. The young fellow may have to stay here quietly for a week or ten days possibly; but by that time he ought to be pretty nearly ready to stop a ball for you again.” “Don’t joke about it,” Lily said, huskily. “When can I see him?” “Think you better?” “Why not?” “The newspapers called it a ‘mystery,’ you know,” he explained. “They’ll probably be inquisitive. They might get your name.” “What do I care?” she cried. “Do you think I’d let that stop me from asking him to forgive me?” “So?” the doctor said, looking at her twinklingly. “So that’s why you want to see him?” She stared, not understanding his humorous allusion. “Why, what else could I do?”