"Madam, yes. When stories appeal to them more than pills and tonics,
they reform and write stories. They have to!" he cried, suddenly in
earnest, "When one is life, and the other death--"

"Oh, if it was death to them--your patients," she murmured. Then,
ashamed of her own flippancy: "Of course, I didn't mean anything as
silly as that! I meant--I meant, please sit down while I finish this
patch. There, in that easy-chair. There are magazines on the table."

There was one magazine with his own name in the list of contents. He
opened it at that page and gazed down upon it quite soberly.

"My name is John Bradford," he said, as if reading. Miss Theodosia
started a little, but it was not as he thought, in his innocent vanity.
Miss Theodosia got no farther than the first part of the name--so he was
a John! She glanced quickly at the doorway, measuring him in her mind as
he had stood against the lintel. He had reached a long way up--a long
man. The Shadow Man had been a long shadow. Something told her--

[Illustration: "If you are thinking of putting me anywhere, put me into
a story like that."]

"Did you ever carry a child in your arms and lay her on a bed? In the
middle of the night? Did you do it last night? Are you the same man?"

"I am the same man I was last night," he answered gravely. "I was John
Bradford then, too. Didn't I carry her all right? What was the matter?"
Suddenly he leaned forward in the chair. "Did you kiss her thumbs?" he
demanded.