"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Perfectly," he said. "In the evening, at about half-past nine."
"At half-past nine, on the tenth!" I exclaimed. "Why, she was at the theatre at that hour. I saw her."
"Impossible!" said the doctor. "You must have been mistaken; someone like her, perhaps."
"No, no, doctor," I firmly asserted; "I tell you she was in a box near the stage while I was acting Hamlet. I was as near to her as I am to you now; it is impossible that I could be mistaken."
"But I tell you, you are mistaken, most grievously," said the doctor, somewhat warmly. "I give you my word of honour as a medical man and a gentleman that I attended Miss Maud at her own country house on the tenth instant, at about half-past nine in the evening."
"Then it must have been her ghost I saw, that's all," said I. "And do you know, doctor, that the most strange part of it all was, she was perfectly alone in the box, and not dressed for the theatre, but wore the very same dress I saw her last in? I marked her well, and wondering to myself what brought her there unaccompanied and in such plain attire. It is true, she is a little eccentric, but then her parents, I thought, would have looked after her sufficiently to prevent such a breach of etiquette. Really, doctor, I don't know what to think of it."
"Come," said he, with a smile, "come, confess you are a little smitten with the young lady. You can't quite get her out of your thoughts, even while you are acting. She has made a great impression on your over-sensitive brain, and at the time perhaps your nerves were a little unstrung from over study or over excitement about your part, or else"—here he relaxed into another smile—"are you quite, quite sure you did not take just a leetle drop of something upon an empty stomach, just to screw yourself up to the right pitch?"
And here he laughed heartily.
"Upon my honour, doctor," said I, "I am not in the habit of having recourse to stimulants. I assure you——"