"She may need it very badly," agreed the doctor, nodding. "Yet, she is of legal age, and absolute mistress of her actions. There are no relatives to interfere—no intimate friends, even, that I know of. I see no way unless you, as her legal adviser, apply to the authorities for an inquest of lunacy."
But Mr. Royce made an instant gesture of repugnance.
"Oh, that's absurd!" he cried. "We have no possible reason to take such action. It would offend her mortally."
"No doubt," assented the other. "So I fear that at present nothing can be done—things will just have to take their course till something more decided happens."
"There's no tendency to mental disease in the family?" inquired Mr. Royce, after a moment.
"Not the slightest," said the doctor emphatically. "Her father and mother were both sound and well-balanced. I know the history of the family through three generations, and there's no hint of any taint. Twenty-five years ago Holladay, who was then just working to the top in Wall Street, drove himself too hard—it was when the market went all to pieces over that Central Pacific deal—and had a touch of apoplexia. It was just a touch, but I made him take a long vacation, which he spent abroad with his wife. It was then, by the way, that his daughter was born. Since then he has been careful, and has never been bothered with a recurrence of the trouble. In fact, that's the only illness in the least serious I ever knew him to have."
There was nothing more to be said, and we turned to go.
"If there are any further developments," added the doctor, as he opened the door, "will you let me know? You may count upon me, if I can be of any assistance."
"Certainly," answered our junior. "You're very kind, sir," and we went back to our cab.
The week that followed was a perplexing one for me, and a miserable one for Royce. As I know now, he had written her half a dozen times, and had received not a single word of answer. For myself, I had discovered one more development of the mystery. On the day following the delivery of the money, I had glanced, as usual, through the financial column of the Sun as I rode home on the car, and one item had attracted my attention. The brokerage firm of Swift & Currer had that day presented at the sub-treasury the sum of one hundred thousand dollars in currency for conversion into gold. An inquiry at their office next morning elicited the fact that the exchange had been effected for the account of Miss Frances Holladay. It was done, of course, that the recipient of the money might remain beyond trace of the police.