Usually I secured a morning paper, and ran over the contents at my office while waiting for patients.

It was perhaps a week later that I selected the Herald—I did not confine myself exclusively to one paper—and casually my eye fell upon the arrivals at the hotels.

I started in surprise as I read among the guests at the Brevoort House the name of Count di Penelli.

"What!" I exclaimed, "are our friends back again? Why is not the Countess mentioned? Perhaps, however, the Count has left his wife in Philadelphia, and come on here on business."

[Pg 170]

It chanced that I had occasion to pass the Brevoort an hour later.

I was prompted to call and inquire for the Count.

"Yes, he is in. Will you send up your card?"

I hastily inscribed my name on a card and sent it up to his room.

The bell-boy soon returned.

"The Count will be glad to see you, sir," he said. "Will you follow me?"

"He is getting ceremonious," I reflected. "I thought he would come down to see me."

I followed the bell-boy to a room on the second floor.

"Dr. Fenwick?" he said, as the door was opened.

I saw facing me a tall, slender, dark-complexioned man of about forty-five, a perfect stranger to me.

"I wished to see Count di Penelli," I stammered, in some confusion.

[Pg 171]

"I am the Count," he answered, courteously.

"But the Count I know is a young man."

"There is no other Count di Penelli."

"Pardon me!" I said, "but a young man calling himself by th............