“What I’m driving at is this, doctor, and I’ve been thinking about it for days. Don’t you think you could operate on Phoebe’s father, put a silver plate on his skull or lift whatever’s pressing on his memory bump? Don’t you think you could undertake it, doctor? I know you are a famous surgeon. Papa wrote that to me long ago, but I knew it before he told me. I could tell just from seeing and being with you that you were a great man.”
The doctor laughed over these artless compliments.
“Are you a mind reader, Miss Billie?”
“But you will undertake it, doctor?” she urged.
“We must first catch our man, my child, and then have a look at him. A good many things would have to be considered: whether he would consent himself; whether he would be able to stand the shock of a serious operation, and whether he may not have some disease an operation wouldn’t help; paralysis or softening of the brain.”
“At any rate, you will undertake it?” cried Billie joyfully.
“Do you wish it so much?” he asked, watching her face as she guided the car down the steep road.
“I do, I do! Think what it would mean to Phoebe to have this mystery cleared; think what it would mean to him, too!”
“I was thinking of it,” answered the doctor gravely. “That’s just the point. Suppose Phoebe’s father would not thank me for bringing his past back? Suppose, after all, he would be happier in this state than with his memory restored. Do you realize that a man like that, a man of education and refinement, I mean, must have had some very good reason for hiding himself away in these mountains? That he may have been flying from something?”
The enthusiasm died out of Billie’s face.