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                          DR. RUMSEY'S PATIENT

                         _A VERY STRANGE STORY_

                      BY L. T. MEAD AND DR. HALIFAX

          JOINT AUTHORS OF "STORIES FROM THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR"


    NEW YORK
    HURST & COMPANY
    PUBLISHERS

    COPYRIGHTED, 1896, BY
    THE INTERNATIONAL NEWS COMPANY
    _ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_



[Illustration: MRS L. T. MEADE.]




DR. RUMSEY'S PATIENT.




CHAPTER I.


Two young men in flannels were standing outside the door of the Red Doe
in the picturesque village of Grandcourt. The village contained one long
and straggling street. The village inn was covered with ivy, wistaria,
flowering jessamine, monthly roses, and many other creepers. The flowers
twined round old-fashioned windows, and nodded to the guests when they
awoke in the morning and breathed perfume upon them as they retired to
bed at night. In short, the Inn was an ideal one, and had from time
immemorial found favor with reading parties, fishermen, and others who
wanted to combine country air and the pursuit of health with a certain
form of easy amusement. The two men who now stood in the porch were
undergraduates from Balliol. There was nothing in the least remarkable
about their appearance--they looked like what they were, good-hearted,
keen-witted young Englishmen of the day. The time was evening, and as
the Inn faced due west