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The blood Stained Parasol by James Ravenscroft. Within the room were sounds that were

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unpleasant to hear. They were dreadful, maniacal shouts of command, shrill cries

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of terror, and more awful,
because constantly broken by hoarseness and moaning of

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infinite tenderness and sadness. He is
in one of his spells. The intendant

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said, perhaps it would be just
as well not to see him now.

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It is not a picture that you
want to carry with you. The attendant's

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voice was one of gentle solitude and
pathos. Doubtless long service in the place

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had made it so. It was
a private sanitarium in the national capital for

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the hopelessly insane, to which my
profession as specialist and alienist gained me admittance.

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The sound hypnotized me. I could
not turn away. The small iron

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grating at the top part of the
window drew me like a magnet, and

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I went and looked into the room. A pale faced, emaciated, wild

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looking man standing in the middle of
a bare mattress on a heavy iron bedstead,

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was yelling and gesticulating madly at some
imaginary object at the bottom of the

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door. Get away. Curse you, get away, he cried, frantically.

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Be gone, you brute, out
of my sight. Would to God

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I had burned you as fine as
ashes. Oh. Oh. The groans

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which ended the fury cannot be described. They were those of a soul and

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agony. His whole appearance was that
of one convulsed with a terror as of

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death. At first he did not
see me as I peered through the grating.

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His eyes, bright with the glitter
of madness, were fixed in a

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fearful stare at the bottom of the
door. It is over now for a

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while, said the intendant. The
words roused the man, and he raised

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his eyes to the grating. A
wan smile of relief broke the expression of

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horror on his face, and he
at once stepped off the bed and came

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to the door. A heady sweat, not the kind caused by heat,

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though the day was sultry, was
on his brow and upper lip, and

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his body, relaxed from the tension
of the spell, as shaking with a

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nervous palsy. He was clad in
pajamas of some coarse white material, and

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his feet were bare. Pardon me, He spoke in low tones and with

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an accent of breeding, but that
infernal dog distracted my attention and I didn't

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see you. I am glad you
came. I remember you quite well.

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Indeed, you were doing intern work
here, were you not. I yielded

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to his humor, grateful that I
could help to ease his tormented spirit,

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and nodded affirmatively. The glitter in
his eyes seemed to be intensified, and

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putting his face almost against the grating, as though he meant his speech to

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be confidential, he said, perhaps
you saw her. His voice was almost

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a whisper. She came in when
I was dissecting. I was always dissecting,

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then, always dissecting. Understand,
I cut things up, alive and

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dead, dead and alive. That
was the beginning of the hell. He

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said it, so sanely, so
remorsefully, that I startled. Looked close

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at him. Reason appeared to be
reinstated on her throne. Then he broke

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out again. I cut them to
pieces, but I didn't burn the pieces,

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and they escaped out the windows through
the keyhole. They even hid in

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the pockets of my clothes until I
was on the street, and then they

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would leap out and dart away.
He moistened his thick, dry lips with

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his tongue and took hold of the
bars in the grating and went on,

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No, I didn't burn the pieces. They escaped. That dog follows me

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in pieces at night. Its feet
scratched at the bottom of the door,

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and its eyes look in between the
bars of this window. Its red,

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dripping tongue lies on the bed beside
me, and its hot, horrible breath

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smothers me. Its footsteps trod up
and down the floor, and its hellish

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moans and wines drive me crazy.
Listen, it was alive. That's why

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she struck me. A soft white
thing. It was, and I threw

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up my hands and caught it.
She dropped it, and I took it

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and kept it. That's it.
Standing in the corner over there, involuntarily,

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I shuddered and looked toward the corner
designated by his gesture. There was

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nothing in any of the corners.
And after the dog is gone, she

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comes. She comes, slipping,
slipping. I can't hear, I can't

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see her. She comes to get
her parasol, but when she sees the

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bloodstains on it, she turns to
a ghost. I tried to wash the

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stains out, but I can't.
Every time I put water on them,

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they spread. He leaned closer to
the bars, and with one eye cautiously

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on the attendant, he whispered,
I'm working on a solution that will entirely

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remove the bloodstains, so she will
take the parasol, for when she does,

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the dog will leave, and then
I can get a long, quiet

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rest. He paused and looked furtively
around the room, and then began his

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awful babblings again. He called piteously
after me, as the intendant took my

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arm and drew me away. I
remembered little else that I saw in the

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sanitarium. Tell me about him,
I implored, as soon as we got

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out of hearing of his cries.
Who is he? How did he come

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to be here? The intendant hesitated. Not everyone should hear that story,

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he remarked thoughtfully, as if half
talking to himself. But of course,

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with you a specialist, it's different. He took me to a chair on

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the porch. From them, I
could see into a section of the grounds

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of the inmates, where benighted beings
were engaged in assuming their various and fantastic

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roles of madness. His name I
shall not tell you he began, for

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that is a secret and very properly. So I shall only relate briefly what

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happened to him as it came to
me from his mother. His people are

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prominent and wealthy. It wrecked his
mother's life, but the only thing that

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could be done was to give him
up into this place. When they come

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here to see him, they wait
until he is comparatively free from symptoms of

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an attack, and then they go
look in the grating as you did.

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Strange to tell he recognizes only one
of them, a sister, but he

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believes her to be a sister who
died some two or three years before he

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became insane. Every possible care is
given him, and every famous specialist in

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the country have examined him. They
say it is useless to hope that he

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will be raving mad to the end
of his days. Then the furies seize

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him, and he will hurl at
his imaginary tormentors anything he can lift.

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That is why his room has nothing
in it but a bed, and that

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is fastened to the floor with heavy
cleats. The mattress, made of a

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material that resists his nails, is
securely attached to steal slats riveted to the

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bed frame, and there is no
covering. Blankets, spreads, pillows,

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and cheets were given him at first, and he rnt them to tatters fighting

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the dog. In the winter,
his room is kept so warm that covering

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is not needed. He was accounted
one of the brightest minds at the medical

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college where he was a professor.
It was predicted that he would do great

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things in surgery. He was making
a special research in the field of vivisection.

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As he himself said, every time
he can get some one to listen.

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That was the beginning of the hell. He was engaged to marry one

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of the loveliest young women of his
city. From what I was told,

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she was as lovely in spirit as
she was in person. The woman,

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it is said, was the real
force that moved his work at such amazing

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strides. He was eager to give
her of the very best of his energies

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and talents. As a quiet and
close observer of life, I am sometimes

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almost persuaded to believe in fate.
The story is that a whim possessed his

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fiancee to go through the medical college, just as I presume as a whim

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possessed you to go through this place. She said nothing to him of her

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intention, for she wanted to surprise
him. Two girlfriends accompanied her, and

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together they explored. An attendant,
who must have been exceedingly careless, was

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directing them, and at a certain
place in their adventure, fate willed that

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he should be called elsewhere for a
few minutes. In those few minutes,

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a man was doomed to madness,
a woman's heart was broken, and several

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lives were made desolate. The place
where the attendant left them was in a

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corridor by a laboratory where dissecting and
other experimental work was done. The doctor's

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fiancee opened the door of the room
and peeped in. At the opposite side,

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a man, with his back to
her, was working over some object.

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She at once recognized the familiar figure, and as fate would have it,

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she was seized with a caprice to
steal up behind him, telling her

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companions who he was and bidding them
wait in the corridor for the intendant.

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She went in, softly, closed
the door, and noiselessly tiptoed along the

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aisle between benches. If there had
been more light, but why say if

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other than if fate had not taken
her there that day. Her lightly slippered

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feet made no sound, and she
stood behind him unnoticed. He might have

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heard, but he was deeply engrossed
in his work. She tilted slightly on

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one foot and looked past him at
the object which so held his attention.

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She gazed a moment, and then, as though forgetting his presence, she

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sprang to his side. A dog
was stretched on a dissecting How she discovered

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the tactics of mystery unless she saw
with the inner and more penetrating vision,

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But she did see evidence of life
in an animal that had been carefully prepared

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by all the modern methods as a
subject for the dissector. The doctor dropped

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his instruments and stood staring at her, speechless. Had she dropped from above,

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he could not have been more amazed
and startled. It's alive, the

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girl gasped, yes, he admitted, you had better not look at it.

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Please come away. How did you
get here? The girl never moved

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nor took her eyes from him.
It is in the interest of science,

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of saving and preserving human life,
he began to explain. No doubt,

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A cold fear was creeping into his
heart at the sight of her. It

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is done in nearly all colleges and
hospitals. You know, the animal is

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under a powerful anesthetic and does not
feel pain. A moment more she stood,

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So the tale goes as though transfigured. And then you fiend, you

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coward, she screamed, as she
struck him in the face with her parasol.

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She swung it with all her strength
for a second blow, and he

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threw his hands to ward it off. There were red smears where he touched

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it, and when she saw them, she flung the parasol from her and

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swooned. Her companions, from where
they were waiting in the corridor, heard

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the scream and the commotion, and
rushed in just as the doctor picked her

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up and ran after him. As
he carried her to another room, he

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told them that she had fainted at
the sight of the dissecting table. It

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was a fatal day for the doctor. In his excitement, he had forgotten

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to wipe his hands before he lifted
the girl, and there were red finger

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marks on her white dress. Almost
as soon as she revived, she saw

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them and swooned again. And when
she again revived, she began trying to

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tear off the dress like she had
lost her reason. One of her companions

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telephoned to her home, and fresh
clothes were brought. It was perhaps all

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of an hour later, when sick
and too weak to walk, she was

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carried from the room to which the
doctor had taken her. That is the

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end. The doctor pleaded with the
girl's father and mother, but in vain,

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she would never again permit him to
see her. She said she would

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as soon marry a murderer. Night
after night he paced the sidewalk in front

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of her home and went away only
when the lateness of the hour and the

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vacancy of the street made him conspicuous. He gave up his college work,

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neglected his personal appearance, and at
last became like a haunted man. Many

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dark tales of what had happened were
whispered among friends and acquaintances of the two

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families. The girl became a nervous
wreck, and finally her people broke up

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their home and moved to a distant
city. Then something in the doctor's brain

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cracked, and well, you have
seen for yourself, he rose, a

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gentle reminder that he could not spare
more of his time. As we shook

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hands in parting, he said Vivisection
may possibly be of service to medical and

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surgical science, but it has nothing
to do with love. The end of

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the blood stained parasol