they were loud in their protests, even hinting at a conspiracy between
Josephine and the stranger to supplant her brother in the property, as
he had already in the spare bedroom. "Didn't all that yer happen THE
VERY NIGHT she pretended to go for Stephen--eh?" said Mrs. Forsyth.
"Tell me that! And didn't she have it all arranged with the buggy
to bring him here, as that sneaking doctor let out--eh? Looks mighty
curious, don't it?" she muttered darkly to the old man. But although
that gentleman, even from his own selfish view, would scarcely have
submitted to a surgical operation and later idiocy as the price of
insuring comfortable dependency, he had no doubt others were base enough
to do it; and lent a willing ear to his wife's suspicions.

Josephine's personal knowledge of the stranger went little further.
Doctor Duchesne had confessed to her his professional disappointment at
the incomplete results of the operation. He had saved the man's life,
but as yet not his reason. There was still hope, however, for the
diagnosis revealed nothing that might prejudice a favorable progress. It
was a most interesting case. He would watch it carefully, and as soon
as the patient could be removed would take him to the county hospital,
where, under his own eyes, the poor fellow would have the benefit of
the latest science and the highest specialists. Physically, he was doing
remarkably well; indeed, he must have been a fine young chap, free from
blood taint or vicious complication, whose flesh had healed like an
infant's. It should be recorded that it was at this juncture that Mrs.
Forsyth first learnt that a SILVER PLATE let into the artful stranger's
skull was an adjunct of the healing process! Convinced that this
infamous extravagance was part and parcel of the conspiracy, and was
only the beginning of other assimilations of the Forsyths' metallic
substance; that the plate was probably polished and burnished with
a fulsome inscription to the doctor's skill, and would pass into the