CHAPTER VII

AMONG THE BREAKERS



After another brief but fuller examination of Mr. Allen in the privacy
of his own room, Dr. Mark went down to the parlors. The guests were
gathered in little groups, talking in low, excited whispers; those who
had seen the reading of the note and Mr. Allen's strange action
gaining brief eminence by their repeated statements of what they had
witnessed and their varied surmises. The role of commentator, if
mysterious human action be the text, is always popular, and as this
explanatory class are proverbially gifted in conjecture, there were
many theories of explanation. Some of the guests had already the good
taste to prepare for departure, and when Dr. Mark appeared from the
sick room, and said:

"Mr. Allen and the family will be unable to appear again this evening.
I am under the painful necessity of saying that this occasion, which
opened so brilliantly, must now come to a sad and sudden end. I will
convey your adieux and expressions of sympathy to the family"--there
was a general move to the dressing-rooms. The doctor was overwhelmed
for a moment with expressions of sympathy, that in the main were felt,
and well questioned by eager and genuine curiosity, for Fox had
dropped some mysterious hints during the evening, which had been