"How many hurdles on the other track?" asked Mrs. Jack, abruptly.
"Pardon me," said the physician, gently; "I didn't catch your meaning."
"There were two lines of conjecture open to us," explained Mrs. Jack, "after we had agreed that--what shall I call him?--the man with Chopinitis is not a liar. You don't accept the hypnotic theory, Dr. Woodruff. What's the other?"
"Would you be shocked," asked the psychologist, suavely, "if I should suggest that your friend may be possibly under the direct influence of the spirit of the late Frederic François Chopin?"
"That's what Tom thinks!" I cried, excitedly, and then bit my tongue, regretfully. Dr. Woodruff's penetrating eyes were fixed on me.
"I said that there were gaps in your narrative," he remarked, reproachfully. "Your friend--I take it that his name is Tom--believes, then, that he is under the control of Chopin?"
"I think he does," I answered, not very graciously; "he has spent much time of late reading the details of Chopin's life."
"H'm!" exclaimed the doctor, like one who comes gladly on a new symptom in a puzzling case; "would it not be possible, madam, for me to see this man, unobserved myself? If I could hear him play it would be throwing a flood of light on the case. As it is, I am groping in the dark."
"And--and--in case, sir, that your worst fears are realized," I faltered, "can you do anything for him? Can he be cured?"
"You see, doctor, she didn't marry Chopin. Naturally--"