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“What for? I see that it contains muriatic acid.”

“If necessary I will explain five years from now.”

“If I live.”

“If you live.”

Arnold drew me down to him and whispered, “Tell her to fly at once; this man may make trouble for her.”

Was there ever a more generous fellow?

* * * * *

I thought that I recognized a thin, pale, bright face among the passengers who were leaving an Australian steamer which had just arrived at San Francisco.

“Dr. Entrefort!” I cried.

“Ah!” he said, peering up into my face and grasping my hand; “I know you now, but you have changed. You remember that I was called away immediately after I had performed that crazy operation on your friend. I have spent the intervening four years in India, China, Tibet, Siberia, the South Seas, and God knows where not. But wasn’t that a most absurd, hare-brained experiment that I tried on your friend! Still, it was all that could have been done. I have dropped all that nonsense long ago. It is better, for more reasons than one, to let them die at once. Poor fellow! he bore it so bravely! Did he suffer much afterwards? How long did he live? A week–perhaps a month?”

“He is alive yet.”

“What!” exclaimed Entrefort, startled.

“He is, indeed, and is in this city.”

“Incredible!”

“It is true; you shall see him.”

“But tell me about him now!” cried the surgeon, his eager eyes glittering with the peculiar light which I had seen in them on the night of the operation. “Has he regularly taken the medicine which I prescribed?”

“He has. Well, the change in him, from what he was before the operation, is shocking. Imagine a young dare-devil of twenty-two, who had no greater fear of danger or death than of a cold, now a cringing, cowering fellow; apparently an old man, nursing his life with pitiful tenderness, fearful that at any moment something may happen to break the hold of his aorta-walls on the stiletto-blade; a confirmed hypochondriac, peevish, melancholic, unhappy in the extreme. He keeps himself confined as closely as possible, avoiding all excitement and exercise, and even reads nothing exciting. The constant danger has worn out the last shred of his manhood and left him a pitiful wreck. Can nothing be done for him?”

“Possibly. But has he consulted no physician?”

“None whatever; he has been afraid that he might learn the worst.”

“Let us find him at once. Ah, here comes my wife to meet me! She arrived by the other steamer.”

I recognized her immediately and was overcome with astonishment.

“Charming woman,” said Entrefort; “you’ll like her. We were married three years ago at Bombay. She belongs to a noble Italian family and has travelled a great deal.”

He introduced us. To my unspeakable relief she remembered neither my name nor my face. I must have appeared odd to her, but it was impossible for me to be perfectly unconcerned. We went to Arnold’s rooms, I with much dread. I left her in the reception-room and took Entrefort within. Arnold was too greatly absorbed in his own troubles to be dangerously excited by meeting Entrefort, whom he greeted with indifferent hospitality.

“But I heard a woman’s voice,” he said. “It sounds—-” He checked himself, and before I could intercept him he had gone to the reception-room; and there he stood face to face with the beautiful adventuress,–none other than Entrefort’s wife now,–who, wickedly desperate, had driven a stiletto into Arnold’s vitals in a hotel four years before because he had refused to marry her. They recognized each other instantly and both grew pale; but she, quicker witted, recovered her composure at once and advanced towards him with a smile and an extended hand. He stepped back, his face ghastly with fear.

“Oh!” he gasped, “the excitement, the shock,–it has made the blade slip out! The blood is pouring from the opening,–it burns,–I am dying!” and he fell into my arms and instantly expired.

The autopsy revealed the surprising fact that there was no blade in his thorax at all; it had been gradually consumed by the muriatic acid which Entrefort had prescribed for that very purpose, and the perforations in the aorta had closed up gradually with the wasting of the blade and had been perfectly healed for a long time. All his vital organs were sound. My poor friend, once so reckless and brave, had died simply of a childish and groundless fear, and the woman unwittingly had accomplished her revenge.