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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Chief Legatee, by Anna Katharine Green,
+Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Chief Legatee
+
+
+Author: Anna Katharine Green
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 18, 2006  [eBook #17999]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHIEF LEGATEE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 17999-h.htm or 17999-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/9/9/17999/17999-h/17999-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/9/9/17999/17999-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CHIEF LEGATEE
+
+by
+
+ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
+
+Author of
+"The Leavenworth Case," "The Woman in the Alcove," Etc., Etc.
+
+Illustrated in Water-Colors by Frank T. Merrill
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1906, by Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs
+Weinstock, Lubin & Co.
+Special Edition,
+400 to 418 K. Street, Sacramento, Cal.
+New York and London
+The Authors and Newspapers Association
+1906
+Copyright, 1906, by
+Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs
+Entered at Stationers' Hall.
+All rights reserved.
+Composition, Electrotyping,
+Printing and Binding by
+The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A young girl sitting on a low stool by the window mending
+a rent in her skirt.]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I.--A WOMAN OF MYSTERY
+
+CHAPTER
+
+     I. A Bride of Five Hours
+
+    II. The Lady in Number Three
+
+   III. "He Knows the Word"
+
+    IV. Mr. Ransom Waits
+
+     V. In Corridor and in Room
+
+    VI. The Lawyer
+
+   VII. Rain
+
+  VIII. Elimination
+
+    IX. Hunter's Inn
+
+
+PART II.--THE CALL OF THE WATERFALL
+
+     X. Two Doors
+
+    XI. Half-Past One in the Morning
+
+   XII. "Georgian"
+
+  XIII. Where the Mill Stream Runs Fiercest
+
+   XIV. A Detective's Work
+
+    XV. Anitra
+
+   XVI. "Love"
+
+  XVII. "I Don't Hear"
+
+
+PART III.--MONEY
+
+ XVIII. God's Forest, Then Man's
+
+   XIX. In Mrs. Deo's Room
+
+    XX. Between the Elderberry Bushes
+
+   XXI. On the Cars
+
+  XXII. A Suspicious Test
+
+ XXIII. A Startling Decision
+
+  XXIV. The Devil's Cauldron
+
+
+PART IV.--THE MAN OF MYSTERY
+
+   XXV. Death Eddy
+
+  XXVI. Hazen
+
+ XXVII. She Speaks
+
+XXVIII. Fifteen Minutes
+
+  XXIX. "There is One Way"
+
+   XXX. Not Yet
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+A young girl sitting on a low stool by the window mending a rent in her
+skirt (_Frontispiece_)
+
+"I cut them letters there fifteen years ago. Now I'm to cut 'em out"
+
+"A slight, dark form steals from the shadows and lays a hand on the
+stooping man's shoulder"
+
+"Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast of death, but they
+will be disappointed"
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Facsimile Page of Manuscript from THE LEAVENWORTH CASE
+
+"Yes, sir,"
+
+Might even have entered
+his room late at night,
+crossed it and stood at his
+side, without disturbing him
+sufficiently to cause him to
+turn his head?
+
+"Yes," her hands pressing
+themselves painfully together.
+
+"Miss Leavenworth, the key
+to the library door is missing."
+
+She made no answer.
+
+"It has been testified to,
+that previous to the actual
+discovery of the murder,
+you visited the door of the
+library above. Will you tell
+us if the key to the door
+was there in the lock?"
+
+"It was not."
+
+Anna K. Green Rohlfs]
+
+
+
+
+THE CHIEF LEGATEE
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+A Woman of Mystery
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A BRIDE OF FIVE HOURS
+
+
+"What's up?"
+
+This from the manager of the Hotel ---- to his chief clerk. "Something
+wrong in Room 81?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I've just sent for a detective. You were not to be found and
+the gentleman is desperate. But very anxious to have it all kept quiet;
+very anxious. I think we can oblige him there, or, at least, we'll try.
+Am I right, sir?"
+
+"Of course, if--"
+
+"Oh! it's nothing criminal. The lady's missing, that's all; the lady
+whose name you see here."
+
+The register lay open between them; the clerk's finger, running along the
+column, rested about half-way down.
+
+The manager bent over the page.
+
+"'Roger J. Ransom and wife,'" he read out in decided astonishment. "Why,
+they are--"
+
+"You're right. Married to-day in Grace Church. A great wedding; the
+papers are full of it. Well, she's the lady. They registered here a few
+minutes before five o'clock and in ten minutes the bride was missing.
+It's a queer story Mr. Ransom tells. You'd better hear it. Ah, there's
+our man! Perhaps you'll go up with him."
+
+"You may bet your last dollar on that," muttered the manager. And joining
+the new-comer, he made a significant gesture which was all that passed
+between them till they stepped out on the second floor.
+
+"Wanted in Room 81?" the manager now asked.
+
+"Yes, by a man named Ransom."
+
+"Just so. That's the door. Knock--or, rather, I'll knock, for I must hear
+his story as soon as you do. The reputation of the hotel--"
+
+"Yes, yes, but the gentleman's waiting. Ah! that's better."
+
+The manager had just knocked.
+
+An exclamation from within, a hurried step, and the door fell open. The
+figure which met their eyes was startling. Distress, anxiety, and an
+impatience almost verging on frenzy, distorted features naturally amiable
+if not handsome.
+
+"My wife," fell in a gasp from his writhing lips.
+
+"We have come to help you find her," Mr. Gerridge calmly assured him. Mr.
+Gerridge was the detective. "Relate the circumstances, sir. Tell us where
+you were when you first missed her."
+
+Mr. Ransom's glance wandered past him to the door. It was partly open.
+The manager, whose name was Loomis, hastily closed it. Mr. Ransom showed
+relief and hurried into his story. It was to this effect:
+
+"I was married to-day in Grace Church. At the altar my bride--you
+probably know her name, Miss Georgian Hazen--wore a natural look, and was
+in all respects, so far as any one could see, a happy woman, satisfied
+with her choice and pleased with the éclat and elegancies of the
+occasion. Half-way down the aisle this all changed. I remember the
+instant perfectly. Her hand was on my arm and I felt it suddenly stiffen.
+I was not alarmed, but I gave her a quick look and saw that something had
+happened. What, I could not at the moment determine. She didn't answer
+when I spoke to her and seemed to be mainly concerned in getting out of
+the church before her emotions overcame her. This she succeeded in doing
+with my help; and, once in the vestibule, recovered herself so
+completely, and met all my inquiries with such a gay shrug of the
+shoulders, that I should have passed the matter over as a mere attack of
+nerves, if I had not afterwards detected in her face, through all the
+hurry and excitement of the ensuing reception, a strained expression not
+at all natural to her. This was still more evident after the
+congratulations of a certain guest, who, I am sure, whispered to her
+before he passed on; and when the time came for her to go up-stairs she
+was so pale and unlike herself that I became seriously alarmed and asked
+if she felt well enough to start upon the journey we had meditated.
+Instantly her manner changed. She turned upon me with a look I have been
+trying ever since to explain to myself, and begged me not to take her out
+of town to-night but to some quiet hotel where we might rest for a few
+days before starting on our travels. She looked me squarely in the eye as
+she made this request and, seeing in her nothing more than a feverish
+anxiety lest I should make difficulties of some kind, I promised to do
+what she asked and bade her run away and get herself ready to go and say
+nothing to any one of our change of plan. She smiled and turned away
+towards her own room, but presently came hurrying back to ask if I would
+grant her one more favor. Would I be so good as not to speak to her or
+expect her to speak to me till we got to the hotel; she was feeling very
+nervous but was sure that a few minutes of complete rest would entirely
+restore her; something had occurred (she acknowledged this) which she
+wanted to think out; wouldn't I grant her this one opportunity of doing
+so? It was a startling request, but she looked so lovely--pardon me, I
+must explain my easy acquiescence--that I gave her the assurance she
+wished and went about my own preparations, somewhat disconcerted but
+still not at all prepared for what happened afterward. I had absolutely
+no idea that she meant to leave me."
+
+Mr. Ransom paused, greatly affected; but upon the detective asking him
+how and when Mrs. Ransom had deserted him, he controlled himself
+sufficiently to say:
+
+"Here; immediately after that silent and unnatural ride. She entered the
+office with me and was standing close at my side all the time I was
+writing our names in the register; but later, when I turned to ask her to
+enter the elevator with me, she was gone, and the boy who was standing by
+with our two bags said that she had slipped into the reception-room
+across the hall. But I didn't find her there or in any of the adjoining
+rooms. Nor has anybody since succeeded in finding her. She has left the
+building--left me, and--"
+
+"You want her back again?"
+
+This from the detective, but very dryly.
+
+"Yes. For she was not following her own inclinations in thus abandoning
+me so soon after the words which made us one were spoken. Some influence
+was brought to bear on her which she felt unable to resist. I have
+confidence enough in her to believe that. The rest is mystery--a mystery
+which I am forced to ask you to untangle. I have neither the necessary
+calmness nor experience myself."
+
+"But you surely have done something," protested Gerridge. "Telephoned to
+her late home or--"
+
+"Oh yes, I have done all that, but with no result. She has not returned
+to her old home. Her uncle has just been here and he is as much mystified
+by the whole occurrence as I am. He could tell me nothing, absolutely
+nothing."
+
+"Indeed! and the man, the one who whispered to her during the reception,
+couldn't you learn anything about him?"
+
+Mr. Ransom's face took on an expression almost ferocious.
+
+"No. He's a stranger to Mr. Fulton; yet Mr. Fulton's niece introduced him
+to me as a relative."
+
+"A relative? When was that?"
+
+"At the reception. He was introduced as Mr. Hazen (my wife's maiden name,
+you know), and when I saw how his presence disturbed her, I said to her,
+'A cousin of yours?' and she answered with very evident embarrassment, 'A
+relative';--which you must acknowledge didn't locate him very definitely.
+Mr. Fulton doesn't know of any such relative. And I don't believe he is
+a relative. He didn't sit with the rest of the family in the church."
+
+"Ah! you saw him in the church."
+
+"Yes. I noticed him for two reasons. First, because he occupied an end
+seat and so came directly under my eye in our passage down the aisle.
+Secondly, because his face of all those which confronted me when I looked
+for the cause of her sudden agitation, was the only one not turned
+towards her in curiosity or interest. His eyes were fixed and vacant; his
+only. That made him conspicuous and when I saw him again I knew him."
+
+"Describe the man."
+
+Mr. Ransom's face lightened up with an expression of strong satisfaction.
+
+"I am going to astonish you," said he. "The fellow is so plain that
+children must cry at him. He has suffered some injury and his mouth and
+jaw have such a twist in them that the whole face is thrown out of shape.
+So you see," continued the unhappy bridegroom, as his eyes flashed from
+the detective's face to that of the manager's, "that the influence he
+exerts over my wife is not that of love. No one could love _him_. The
+secret's of another kind. What kind, what, what, what? Find out and I'll
+pay you any amount you ask. She is too dear and of too sensitive a
+temperament to be subject to a wretch of his appearance. I cannot bear
+the thought. It stifles, it chokes me; and yet for three hours I've had
+to endure it. Three hours! and with no prospect of release unless you--"
+
+"Oh, I'll do something," was Gerridge's bland reply. "But first I must
+have a few more facts. A man such as you describe should be easy to find;
+easier than the lady. Is he a tall man?"
+
+"Unusually so."
+
+"Dark or light?"
+
+"Dark."
+
+"Any beard?"
+
+"None. That's why the injury to his jaw shows so plainly."
+
+"I see. Is he what you would call a gentleman?"
+
+"Yes, I must acknowledge that. He shows the manners of good society, if
+he did whisper words into my wife's ear which were not meant for mine."
+
+"And Mr. Fulton knows nothing of him?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Well, we'll drop him for the present. You have a photograph of your
+wife?"
+
+"Her picture was in all the papers to-night."
+
+"I noticed. But can we go by it? Does it resemble her?"
+
+"Only fairly. She is far prettier. My wife is something uncommon. No
+picture ever does her justice."
+
+"She looks like a dark beauty. Is her hair black or brown?"
+
+"Black. So black it has purple shades in it."
+
+"And her eyes? Black too?"
+
+"No, gray. A deep gray, which look black owing to her long lashes."
+
+"Very good. Now about her dress. Describe it as minutely as you can. It
+was a bride's traveling costume, I suppose."
+
+"Yes. That is, I presume so. I know that it was all right and suitable to
+the occasion, but I don't remember much about it. I was thinking too much
+of the woman in the gown to notice the gown itself."
+
+"Cannot you tell the color?"
+
+"It was a dark one. I'm sure it was a dark one, but colors are not much
+in my line. I know she looked well--they can tell you about it at the
+house. All that I distinctly remember is the veil she had wound so
+tightly around her face and hat to keep the rice out of her hair that
+I could not get one glimpse of her features. All nonsense that veil,
+especially when I had promised not to address her or even to touch her
+in the cab. And she wore it into the office. If it had not been for that
+I might have foreseen her intention in time to prevent it."
+
+"Perhaps she knew that."
+
+"It looks as if she did."
+
+"Which means that she was meditating flight from the first."
+
+"From the time she saw that man," Mr. Ransom corrected.
+
+"Just so; from the time she left her uncle's house. Your wife is a woman
+of means, I believe."
+
+"Yes, unfortunately."
+
+"Why unfortunately?"
+
+"It makes her independent and offers a lure to irresponsible wretches
+like him."
+
+"Her fortune is large, then?"
+
+"Very large; larger than my own."
+
+Every one knew Mr. Ransom to be a millionaire.
+
+"Left her by her father?"
+
+"No, by some great-uncle, I believe, who made his fortune in the
+Klondike."
+
+"And entirely under her own control?"
+
+"Entirely so."
+
+"Who is her man of business?"
+
+"Edward Harper, of--Wall Street."
+
+"He's your man. He'll know sooner or later where she is."
+
+"Yes, but later won't do. I must know to-night; or, if that is
+impossible, to-morrow. Were it not for the mortification it would cause
+her I should beg you to put on all your force and ransack the city for
+this bride of five hours. But such publicity is too shocking. I should
+like to give her a day to reconsider her treatment of me. She cannot mean
+to leave me for good. She has too much self-respect; to say nothing of
+her very positive and not to be questioned affection for myself."
+
+The detective looked thoughtful. The problem had its difficulties.
+
+"Are those hers?" he asked at last, pointing to the two trunks he saw
+standing against the wall.
+
+"Yes. I had them brought up, in the hope that she had slipped away on
+some foolish errand or other and would yet come back."
+
+"By their heft I judge them to be full; how about her hand-bag?"
+
+"She had only a small bag and an umbrella. They are both here."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"The colored boy took them at the door. She went away with nothing in her
+hands."
+
+Gerridge glanced at the bag Mr. Ransom had pointed out, fingered it, then
+asked the young husband to open it.
+
+He did so. The usual articles and indispensable adjuncts of a nice
+woman's toilet met their eyes. Also a pocketbook containing considerable
+money and a case holding more than one valuable jewel.
+
+The eyes of the officer and manager met in ill disguised alarm.
+
+"She must have been under the most violent excitement to slip away
+without these," suggested the former. "I'd better be at work. Give me two
+hours," were his parting words to Mr. Ransom. "By that time I'll either
+be back or telephone you. You had better stay here; she may return.
+Though I don't think that likely," he muttered as he passed the manager.
+
+At the door he stopped. "You can't tell me the color of that veil?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Look about the room, sir. There's lots of colors in the furniture and
+hangings. Don't you see one somewhere that reminds you of her veil or
+even of her dress?"
+
+The miserable bridegroom looked up from the bag into which he was still
+staring and, glancing slowly around him, finally pointed at a chair
+upholstered in brown and impulsively said:
+
+"The veil was like that; I remember now. Brown, isn't it? a dark brown?"
+
+"Yes. And the dress?"
+
+"I can't tell you a thing about the dress. But her gloves--I remember
+something about them. They were so tight they gaped open at the wrist.
+Her hands looked quite disfigured. I wondered that so sensible a woman
+should buy gloves at least two sizes too small for her. I think she was
+ashamed of them herself, for she tried to hide them after she saw me
+looking."
+
+"This was in the cab?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where you didn't speak a word?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"Though she seemed so very much cut up?"
+
+"No, she didn't seem cut up; only tired."
+
+"How tired?"
+
+"She sat with her head pressed against the side of the cab."
+
+"And a little turned away?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"As if she shrank from you?"
+
+"A little so."
+
+"Did she brighten when the carriage stopped?"
+
+"She started upright."
+
+"Did you help her out?"
+
+"No, I had promised not to touch her."
+
+"She jumped out after you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And never spoke?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+Gerridge opened the door, motioned for the manager to follow, and, once
+in the hall, remarked to that gentleman:
+
+"I should like to see the boy who took her bag and was with them when she
+slipped away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE LADY IN NUMBER THREE
+
+
+The boy was soon found and proved to be more observing in matters of
+dress than Mr. Ransom. He described with apparent accuracy both the color
+and cut of the garments worn by the lady who had flitted away so
+mysteriously. The former was brown, all brown; and the latter was of the
+tailor-made variety, very natty and becoming. "What you would call
+'swell,'" was the comment, "if her walk hadn't spoiled the hang of it.
+How she did walk! Her shoes must have hurt her most uncommon. I never did
+see any one hobble so."
+
+"How's that? She hobbled, and her husband didn't notice it?"
+
+"Oh, he had hurried on ahead. She was behind him, and she walked like
+this."
+
+The pantomime was highly expressive.
+
+"That's a point," muttered Gerridge. Then with a sharp look at the boy:
+"Where were you that you didn't notice her when she slipped off?"
+
+"Oh, but I did, sir. I was waiting for the clerk to give me the
+key, when I saw her step back from the gentleman's side and, looking
+quickly round to see if any one was noticing her, slide off into the
+reception-room. I thought she wanted a drink of water out of the pitcher
+on the center-table, but if she did, she didn't come back after she had
+got it. None of us ever saw her again."
+
+"Did you follow Mr. Ransom when he walked through those rooms?"
+
+"No, sir; I stayed in the hall."
+
+"Did the lady hobble when she slid thus mysteriously out of sight?"
+
+"A little. Not so much as when she came in. But she wasn't at her ease,
+sir. Her shoes were certainly too small."
+
+"I think I will take a peep at those rooms now," Gerridge remarked to the
+manager.
+
+Mr. Loomis bowed, and together they crossed the office to the
+reception-room door. The diagram of this portion of the hotel will give
+you an idea of these connecting rooms.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There are three of them, as you will see, all reception-rooms. Mr. Ransom
+had passed through them all in looking for his wife. In No. 1 he found
+several ladies sitting and standing, all strangers. He encountered no one
+in No. 2, and in No. 3 just one person, a lady in street costume
+evidently waiting for some one. To this lady he had addressed himself,
+asking if she had seen any one pass that way the moment before. Her reply
+was a decided "No"; that she had been waiting in that same room for
+several minutes and had seen no one. This staggered him. It was as if his
+wife had dissolved into thin air. True, she might have eluded him by
+slipping out into the hall by means of door two at the moment he entered
+door one; and alert to this possibility, he hastened back into the hall
+to look for her. But she was nowhere visible, nor had she been observed
+leaving the building by the man stationed at entrance A. But there was
+another exit, that of B. Had she gone out that way? Mr. Ransom had taken
+pains to inquire and had been assured by the man in charge that no
+lady had left by that door during the last ten minutes. This he had
+insisted on, and when Mr. Loomis and the detective came in their turn
+to question him on this point he insisted on it again. The mystery seemed
+complete,--at least to the manager. But the detective was not quite
+satisfied. He asked the man if at any time that day, before or after Mrs.
+Ransom's disappearance, he had swung the door open for a lady who walked
+lame. The answer was decisive. "Yes; one who walked as if her shoes were
+tight."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Oh a little while after the gentleman asked his questions."
+
+"Was she dressed in brown?"
+
+That he didn't know. He didn't look at ladies' dresses unless they were
+something special.
+
+"But she walked lame and she came from Room 3?"
+
+Yes. He remembered that much.
+
+Gerridge, with a nod to the manager, stepped into the open compartment of
+the whirling door. "I'm off," said he. "Expect to hear from me in two
+hours."
+
+At twenty minutes to ten Mr. Ransom was called up on the telephone.
+
+"One question, Mr. Ransom."
+
+"Hello, who are you?"
+
+"Gerridge."
+
+"All right, go ahead."
+
+"Did you see the face of the woman you spoke to in Room No. 3?"
+
+"Of course. She was looking directly at me."
+
+"You remember it? Could identify it if you saw it again?"
+
+"Yes; that is--"
+
+"That's all, good-by."
+
+The circuit was cut off.
+
+Another intolerable wait. Then there came a knock on the door and
+Gerridge entered. He held a photograph in his hand which he had evidently
+taken from his pocket on his way up.
+
+"Look at this," said he. "Do you recognize the face?"
+
+"The lady--"
+
+"Just so; the one who said she had seen no one come into No. 3 on the
+first floor."
+
+Mr. Ransom's expression of surprised inquiry was sufficient answer.
+
+"Well, it's a pity you didn't look at her gloves instead of at her face.
+You might have had some dim idea of having seen them before. It was she
+who rode to the hotel with you; not your wife. The veil was wound around
+her face for a far deeper purpose than to ward off rice."
+
+Mr. Ransom staggered back against the table before which he had been
+standing. The blow was an overwhelming one.
+
+"Who is this woman?" he demanded. "She came from Mr. Fulton's house. More
+than that, from my wife's room. What is her name and what did she mean by
+such an outrage?"
+
+"Her name is Bella Burton, and she is your wife's confidential maid. As
+for the meaning of this outrage, it will take more than two hours to
+ferret out that. I can only give you the single fact I've mentioned."
+
+"And Mrs. Ransom?"
+
+"She left the house at the same moment you did; you and Miss Burton. Only
+she went by the basement door."
+
+"She? _She?_"
+
+"Dressed in her maid's clothes. Oh, you'll have to hear worse things than
+that before we're out of this muddle. If you won't mind a bit of advice
+from a man of experience, I would suggest that you take things easy. It's
+the only way."
+
+Shocked into silence by this cold-blooded philosophy, Mr. Ransom
+controlled both his anger and his humiliation; but he could not control
+his surprise.
+
+"What does it mean?" he murmured to himself. "_What does it all mean?_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"HE KNOWS THE WORD"
+
+
+The next moment the doubt natural to the occasion asserted itself.
+
+"How do you know all this? You state the impossible. Explain yourself."
+
+Gerridge was only too willing to do so.
+
+"I have just come from Mr. Fulton's house," said he. "Inquiries there
+elicited the facts which have so startled you. Neither Mr. Fulton nor his
+wife meant to deceive you. They knew nothing, suspected nothing of what
+took place, and you have no cause to blame them. It was all a plot
+between the two women."
+
+"But how--why--"
+
+"You see, I had a fact to go upon. You had noticed that your so-called
+bride's gloves did not fit her; the boy below, that her shoes were so
+tight she hobbled. That set me thinking. A woman of Mrs. Ransom's
+experience and judgment would not be apt to make a mistake in two such
+important particulars; which, taken with the veil and the promise she
+exacted from you not to address or touch her during your short ride to
+the hotel, led me to point my inquiries so that I soon found out that
+your wife had had the assistance of another woman in getting ready for
+her journey and that this woman was her own maid who had been with her
+for a long time, and had always given evidence of an especial attachment
+for her. Asking about this girl's height and general appearance (for the
+possibility of a substitution was already in my mind), I found that she
+was of slight figure and good carriage, and that her age was not far
+removed from that of her young mistress. This made the substitution I
+have mentioned feasible, and when I was told that she was seen taking her
+hat and bonnet into the bride's room, and, though not expected to leave
+till the next morning, had slid away from the house by the basement door
+at the same moment her mistress appeared on the front steps, my
+suspicions became so confirmed that I asked how this girl looked, in the
+hope that you would be able to recognize her, through the description,
+as the woman you had seen sitting in Reception-room No. 3. But to my
+surprise, Mrs. Fulton had what was better than any description, the
+girl's picture. This has simplified matters very much. By it you have
+been able to identify the woman who attempted to mislead you in the
+reception-room, and I the person who rode here with you from Mr. Fulton's
+house. Wasn't she dressed in brown? Didn't you notice a similarity in her
+appearance to that of the very lady you were then seeking?"
+
+"I did not observe. Her face was all I saw. She was looking directly at
+me as I stepped into the room."
+
+"I see. She had taken off her veil and trusted to your attention being
+caught by her strange features,--as it was. But that dress was brown;
+I'm sure of it. She was the very woman. Otherwise the mystery is
+impenetrable. A deep plot, Mr. Ransom; one that should prove to you that
+Mrs. Ransom's motive in leaving you was of a very serious character. Do
+you wish that motive probed to the bottom? I cannot do it without
+publicity. Are you willing to incur that publicity?"
+
+"I must." Mr. Ransom had risen in great excitement. "Nothing can hide the
+fact that my bride left me on our wedding-day. It only remains now to
+show that she did it under an influence which robbed her of her own will;
+an influence from which she shrank even while succumbing to it. I can
+show her no greater kindness, and I am not afraid of the result. I have
+perfect confidence in her integrity"--he hesitated, then added with
+strong conviction--"and in her love."
+
+The detective hid his surprise. He could not understand this confidence.
+But then he knew nothing of the memories which lay back of it. Not to him
+could this grievously humiliated and disappointed man reveal the secrets
+of a courtship which had fixed his heart on this one woman, and aroused
+in him such trust that even this uncalled-for outrage to his pride and
+affection had not been able to shake it. Such secrets are sacred; but the
+reflection of his trust was strong on his face as he repeated:
+
+"Perfect confidence, Mr. Gerridge. Whatever may have drawn Mrs. Ransom
+from my side, it was not lack of affection, or any doubt of my sincerity
+or undivided attachment to herself."
+
+The detective may not have been entirely convinced on the first point,
+but he was discretion itself, and responded quite cheerfully with an
+emphatic:
+
+"Very well. You still want me to find her. I will do my best, sir; but
+first, cannot you help me with a suggestion or two?"
+
+"I?"
+
+"There must be some clew to so sudden a freak on the part of a young and
+beautiful woman, who, I have taken pains to learn, has not only a clean
+record but a reputation for good sense. The Fultons cannot supply it.
+She has lived a seemingly open and happy life in their house, and the
+mystery is as great to them as to you. But _you_, as her lover and now
+her husband, must have been favored with confidences not given to others.
+Cannot you recall one likely to put us on the right track? Some fact
+prior to the events of to-day, I mean; some fact connected with her past
+life; before she went to live with the Fultons?"
+
+"No. Yet let me think; let me think." Mr. Ransom dropped his face into
+his hands and sat for a moment silent. When he looked up again, the
+detective perceived that the affair was hopeless so far as he was
+concerned. "No," he repeated, this time with unmistakable emphasis,
+"she has always appeared buoyant and untrammeled. But then I have only
+known her six months."
+
+"Tell me her history so far as you know it. What do you know of her life
+previous to your meeting her?"
+
+"It was a very simple one. She had a country bringing up, having been
+born in a small village in Connecticut. She was one of three children and
+the only one who has survived; her sister, who was her twin, died when
+she was a small child, and a brother some five years ago. Her fortune was
+willed her, as I have already told you, by a great-uncle. It is entirely
+in her own hands. Left an orphan early, she lived first with her brother;
+then when he died, with one relative after another, till lastly she
+settled down with the Fultons. I know of no secret in her life, no
+entanglement, not even of any prior engagements. Yet that man with the
+twisted jaw was not unknown to her, and if he is a relative, as she said,
+you should have no difficulty in locating him."
+
+"I have a man on his track," Gerridge replied. "And one on the girl's
+too; I mean, of course, Bela Burton's. They will report here up to twelve
+o'clock to-night. It is now half-past eleven. We should hear from one or
+the other soon."
+
+"And my wife?"
+
+"A description of the clothing she wore has gone out. We may hear from
+it. But I doubt if we do to-night unless she has rejoined her maid or the
+man with a scar. Somehow I think she will join the girl. But it's hard to
+tell yet."
+
+Mr. Ransom could hardly control his impatience. "And I must sit helpless
+here!" he exclaimed. "I who have so much at stake!"
+
+The detective evidently thought the occasion called for whatever comfort
+it was in his power to bestow.
+
+"Yes," said he. "For it is here she will seek you if she takes a notion
+to return. But woman is an uncertain quantity," he dryly added.
+
+At that moment the telephone bell rang. Mr. Ransom leaped to answer;
+but the call was only an anxious one from the Fultons, who wanted to
+know what news. He answered as best he could, and was recrossing
+disconsolately to his chair when voices rose in the hall, and a man was
+ushered in, whom Gerridge immediately introduced as Mr. Sims.
+
+A runner--and with news! Mr. Ransom, summoning up his courage, waited for
+the inevitable question and reply. They came quickly enough.
+
+"What have you got? Have you found the man?"
+
+"Yes. And the lady's been to see him; that is, if the description of her
+togs was correct."
+
+"He means Mrs. Ransom," explained Gerridge. Then, as he marked his
+client's struggle for composure, he quietly asked, "A lady in a dark
+green suit with yellowish furs and a blue veil over her hat?"
+
+"That's the ticket!"
+
+"The clothes worn by the woman who went out of the basement door, Mr.
+Ransom."
+
+The latter turned sharply aside. The shame of the thing was becoming
+intolerable.
+
+"And this woman wearing those yellow furs and the blue veil visited the
+man of the broken jaw?" inquired Gerridge.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"When?"
+
+"About six this afternoon."
+
+"And where?"
+
+"At the hotel St. Denis where I have since tracked him."
+
+"How long did she stay?"
+
+"About an hour."
+
+"In the parlor or--"
+
+"In the parlor. They had a great deal to say. More than one noticed them,
+but no one heard anything. They talked very low but they meant business."
+
+"Where is this man now?"
+
+"At the same place. He has engaged a room there."
+
+"The man with the twisted jaw?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Under what name?"
+
+"Hugh Porter."
+
+"Ah, it was Hazen only five hours ago," muttered Ransom. "Porter, did you
+say? I'll have a talk with this Porter at once."
+
+"I think not to-night," put in the detective, with the mingled authority
+and deference natural to one of his kind. "To-morrow, perhaps, but
+to-night it would only provoke scandal."
+
+This was certainly true, but Mr. Ransom was not an easy man to dominate.
+
+"I must see him before I sleep," he insisted. "A single word may solve
+this mystery. He has the word. I'd be a fool to let the night go by--Ah!
+what's that?"
+
+The telephone bell had rung again. A message from the office this time. A
+note had just been handed in for Mr. Ransom; should they send it up?
+
+Gerridge was at the 'phone.
+
+"Instantly," he shouted down, "and be sure you hold the messenger. It may
+be from your lady," he remarked to Mr. Ransom. "Stranger things than that
+have happened."
+
+Mr. Ransom reeled to the door, opened it and stood waiting. The two
+detectives exchanged glances. What might not that note contain!
+
+Mr. Ransom opened it in the hall. When he came back into the room, his
+hand was shaking and his face looked drawn and pale. But he showed no
+further disposition to go out. Instead, he sank into a chair, with a
+motion of dismissal to the two detectives.
+
+"Question the boy who brought this," said he. "It is from Mrs. Ransom;
+written, as you see, at the St. Denis. She bids me farewell for a time,
+but does not favor me with any explanations. She cannot do differently,
+she says, and asks me to trust her and wait. Not very encouraging to
+sleep on; but it's something. She has not entirely forsaken me."
+
+Gerridge with a shrug turned sharply towards the door. "I take it that
+you wouldn't object to knowing all the messenger can tell you?"
+
+"No, no. Question him. Find out whether she gave this to him with her own
+hand."
+
+Gerridge obeyed this injunction, but was told in reply that the note had
+been given him to deliver by a clerk in the hotel lobby. He could tell
+nothing about the lady.
+
+This was unsatisfactory enough; but the man who had influenced her to
+this step had been placed under surveillance. To-morrow they would
+question him; the mystery was not without a promise of solution. So
+Gerridge felt; but not Mr. Ransom; for at the end of the lines whose
+purport he had just communicated to the detective were these few,
+significant words:
+
+"Make no move to find me. If you love me well enough to wait in silence
+for developments, happiness may yet be ours."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MR. RANSOM WAITS
+
+
+Gerridge rose early, primed, as he said to himself, for business. But to
+his great disappointment he found Mr. Ransom in a frame of mind which
+precluded action. Indeed, that gentleman looked greatly changed. He not
+only gave evidence of a sleepless night but showed none of the spirit of
+the previous evening, and hesitated quite painfully when Gerridge asked
+him if he did not intend to go ahead with the interview they had promised
+themselves.
+
+"That's as it may be," was the hesitating reply. "I hardly think that I
+shall visit the man you mean this morning. He interests me and I hope
+that none of his movements will escape you. But I'm not ready to talk to
+him. I prefer to wait a little; to give my wife a chance. I should feel
+better, and have less to forget."
+
+"Just as you say," returned the detective stiffly. "He's under our thumb
+at present, I can't tell when he may wriggle out."
+
+"Not while your eye's on him. And your eye won't leave him as long as you
+have confidence in the reward I've promised you."
+
+"Perhaps not; but you take the life out of me. Last night you were too
+hot; this morning you are too cold. But it's not for me to complain. You
+know where to find me when you want me." And without more ado the
+detective went out.
+
+Mr. Ransom remained alone and in no enviable frame of mind. He was
+distrustful of himself, distrustful of the man who had made all this
+trouble, and distrustful of her, though he would not acknowledge it.
+Every baser instinct in him drove him to the meeting he declined. To see
+the man--to force from him the truth, seemed the only rational thing to
+do. But the final words of his wife's letter stood in his way. She had
+advised patience. If patience would clear the situation and bring him the
+result he so ardently desired, then he would be patient--that is, for a
+day; he did not promise to wait longer. Yes, he would give her a day.
+That was time enough for a man suffering on the rack of such an
+intolerable suspense--one day.
+
+But even that day did not pass without breaks in his mood and more than
+one walk in the direction of the St. Denis Hotel. If Gerridge's eye was
+on him as well as on the special object of his surveillance, he must have
+smiled, more than once, at the restless flittings of his client about the
+forbidden spot. In the evening it was the same, but the next morning he
+remained steadfastly at his hotel. He had laid out his future course in
+these words: "I will extend the time to three days; then if I do not hear
+from her I will get that wry-necked fellow by the throat and twist an
+explanation from him." But the three days passed and he found the
+situation unchanged. Then he set as his limit the end of the week, but
+before the full time had elapsed he was advised by Gerridge that he
+himself was being followed in his turn by a couple of private detectives;
+and while still under the agitation of this discovery was further
+disconcerted by having the following communication thrust into his hand
+in the open street by a young woman who succeeded in losing herself in
+the crowd before he had got so much as a good look at her.
+
+You can judge of his amazement as he read the few lines it contained.
+
+   Read the papers to-night and forget the stranger at the St. Denis.
+
+That was all. But the writing was hers. The hours passed slowly till the
+papers were cried in the street. What Mr. Ransom read in them increased
+his astonishment, I might say his anxiety. It was a paragraph about his
+wife, an almost incredible one, running thus:
+
+  A strange explanation is given of the disappearance of Mrs. Roger
+  Ransom on her wedding-day. As our readers will remember, she
+  accompanied her husband to the hotel, but managed to slip away and
+  leave the house while he still stood at the desk. This act, for which
+  nothing in her previous conduct has in any way prepared her friends, is
+  now said to have been due to the shock of hearing, some time during her
+  wedding-day, that a sister whom she had supposed dead was really alive
+  and in circumstances of almost degrading poverty. As this sister had
+  been her own twin the effect upon her mind was very serious. To find
+  and rescue this sister she left her newly made husband in the
+  surreptitious manner already recorded in the papers. That she is not
+  fully herself is shown by her continued secrecy as to her whereabouts.
+  All that she has been willing to admit to the two persons she has so
+  far taken into her confidence--her husband and the agent who conducts
+  her affairs--is that she has found her sister and cannot leave her.
+  Why, she does not state. The case is certainly a curious one and Mr.
+  Ransom has the sympathy of all his friends.
+
+Confused, and in a state of mind bordering on frenzy, Mr. Ransom returned
+to the hotel and sought refuge in his own room. He put no confidence in
+what he had just read; he regarded it as a newspaper story and a great
+fake; but she had bid him read it, and this fact in itself was very
+disturbing. For how could she have known about it if she had not been
+its author, and if she was its author, what purpose had she expected it
+to serve?
+
+He was still debating this question when he reached his own room. On the
+floor, a little way from the sill, lay a letter. It had been thrust under
+the door during his absence. Lifting it in some trepidation, he cast a
+glance at its inscription and sank staggering into the nearest chair,
+asking himself if he had the courage to open and read it. For the
+handwriting, like that of the note handed him in the street, was
+Georgian's, and he felt himself in a maze concerning her which made
+everything in her connection seem dreamlike and unreal. It was not long,
+however, before he had mastered its contents. They were strange enough,
+as this transcription of them will show.
+
+  You have seen what has happened to me, but you cannot understand how I
+  feel. _She looks exactly like me._ It is that which makes the world
+  eddy about me. I cannot get used to it. It is like seeing my own
+  reflected image step from the mirror and walk about doing things. Two
+  of us, Roger, two! If you saw her you would call her Georgian. And she
+  says that she knows _you_, admires _you_! _and she says it in my
+  voice_! I try to shut my ears, but I hear her saying it even when her
+  lips do not move. She is as ignorant as she is afflicted and I cannot
+  leave her. She cannot hear a sound, though she can talk well enough
+  about what is going on in her own mind, and she is so wayward and
+  uncertain of temper, owing to her ignorance and her difficulty in
+  understanding me, that I don't know what she would do if once let out
+  of my sight. I love you--I love you--but I must stay right here.
+
+  Your affectionate and most unhappy
+
+  Georgian.
+
+The sheet with its tear-stained lines fell from his grasp. Then he caught
+it up again and looked carefully at the signature. It was his wife's
+without doubt. Then he studied the rest of the writing and compared it
+with that of the note which had been thrust into his hands earlier in the
+day. There was no difference between them except that there were
+evidences of faltering in the latter, not noticeable in the earlier
+communication. As he noted these tokens of weakness or suffering, he
+caught up the telephone receiver in good earnest and called out
+Gerridge's number. When the detective answered, he shouted back:
+
+"Have you read the evening papers? If you haven't, do so at once; then
+come directly to me. It's business now and no mistake; and our first
+visit shall be on the fellow at the St. Denis."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+IN CORRIDOR AND IN ROOM
+
+
+Three quarters of an hour later Mr. Ransom and Gerridge stood in close
+conference before the last mentioned hotel. The former was peremptory in
+what he had to say.
+
+"I haven't a particle of confidence in this newspaper story," he
+declared. "I haven't much confidence in her letter. It is this man who is
+working us. He has a hold on her and has given her this cock and bull
+story to tell. A sister! A twin sister come to light after fifteen years
+of supposed burial! I find the circumstance entirely too romantic. Nor
+does an explanation of this nature fit the conditions. She was happy
+before she saw _him_ in the church. He isn't her twin sister. I tell you
+the game is a deep one and she is the sufferer. Her letters betray more
+than a disturbed mind; they betray a disturbed brain. That man is the
+cause and I mean to wring his secret from him. You are sure of his being
+still in the house?"
+
+"He was early this morning. He has lived a very quiet life these last few
+days, the life of one waiting. He has not even had visitors, after that
+one interview he held with your wife. I have kept careful watch on him.
+Though a suspected character, he has done nothing suspicious while I've
+had him under my eye."
+
+"That's all right and I thank you, Gerridge; but it doesn't shake my
+opinion as to his being the moving power in this fraud. For fraud it
+is and no mistake. Of that I am fully convinced. Shall we go up? I want
+to surprise him in his own room where he cannot slip away or back out."
+
+"Leave that business to me; I'll manage it. If you want to see him in his
+room, you shall."
+
+But this time the detective counted without his host. Mr. Porter was not
+in his room but in one of the halls. They encountered him as they left
+the elevator. He was standing reading a newspaper. The disfigured jaw
+could not be mistaken. They stopped where they were and looked at him.
+
+He was intent, absorbed. As they watched, they saw his hands close
+convulsively on the sheet he was holding, while his lips muttered
+some words that made the detective look hard at his companion.
+
+"Did you hear?" he cautiously inquired, as Mr. Ransom stood hesitating,
+not knowing whether to address the man or not.
+
+"No; what did he say? Do you suppose he is reading that paragraph?"
+
+"I haven't a doubt of it; and his words were, 'Here's a damned
+lie!'--very much like your own, sir."
+
+Mr. Ransom drew the detective a few steps down the corridor.
+
+"He said that?"
+
+"Yes, I heard him distinctly."
+
+"Then my theory is all wrong. This man didn't provide her with this
+imaginary twin sister."
+
+"Evidently not."
+
+"And is as surprised as we are."
+
+"And about as much put out. Look at him! Nothing yellow there! We shall
+have to go easy with him."
+
+Mr. Ransom looked and felt a recoil of more than ordinary dislike for the
+man. The latter had put the paper in his pocket and was coming their way.
+His face, once possibly handsome, for his eyes and forehead were
+conspicuously fine, showed a distortion quite apart from that given by
+his physical disfigurement. He was not simply angry but in a mental and
+moral rage, and it made him more than hideous; it made him appalling. Yet
+he said nothing and moved along very quietly, making, to all appearance,
+for his room. Would he notice them as he went by? It did not seem likely.
+Instinctively they had stepped to one side, and Mr. Ransom's face was in
+the shadow. To both it had seemed better not to accost him while he was
+in this mood. They would see him later.
+
+But this was not to be. Some instinct made him turn, and Mr. Ransom,
+recognizing his opportunity, stepped forward and addressed him by the
+name under which he had introduced himself at the reception; that of his
+wife's family, Hazen.
+
+The effect was startling. Instead of increasing his anger, as the
+detective had naturally expected, it appeared to have the contrary
+effect, for every vestige of passion immediately disappeared from his
+face, leaving only its natural disfigurement to plead against him.
+He approached them, and Ransom, at least, was conscious of a revulsion
+of feeling in his favor, there was such restraint and yet such undoubted
+power in his strange and peculiar personality.
+
+"You know me?" said he, darting a keen and comprehensive look from one to
+the other.
+
+"We should like a few words with you," ventured Gerridge. "This gentleman
+thinks you can give him very valuable information about a person he is
+greatly interested in."
+
+"He is mistaken." The words came quick and decisive in a not unmelodious
+voice. "I am a stranger in New York; a stranger in this country. I have
+few, if any, acquaintances."
+
+"You have _one_."
+
+It was now Mr. Ransom's turn.
+
+"A man with no acquaintances does not attend weddings; certainly not
+wedding receptions. I have seen you at one, my own. Do you not recognize
+me, Mr. Hazen?"
+
+A twitch of surprise, not even Ransom could call it alarm, drew his mouth
+still further towards his ear; but his manner hardly altered and it was
+in the same affable tone that he replied:
+
+"You must pardon my short-sightedness. I did not recognize you, Mr.
+Ransom."
+
+"Did not want to," muttered Gerridge, satisfied in his own mind that this
+man was only deterred by his marked and unmistakable physiognomy from
+denying the acquaintanceship just advanced.
+
+"Your congratulations did not produce the desired effect," continued Mr.
+Ransom. "My happiness was short lived. Perhaps you knew its uncertain
+tenure when you wished me joy. I remember that your tone lacked
+sincerity."
+
+It was a direct attack. Whether a wise one or not remained to be seen.
+Gerridge watched the unfolding drama with interest.
+
+"I have reason to think," proceeded Mr. Ransom, "that the unhappy
+termination of that day's felicities were in a measure due to you.
+You seem to know my bride very well; much too well for her happiness
+or mine."
+
+"We will argue that question in my room," was the unmoved reply. "The
+open hall is quite unsuited to a conversation of this nature. Now," said
+he, turning upon them when they were in the privacy of his small but not
+uncomfortable apartment, "you will be kind enough to repeat what you just
+said. I wish to thoroughly understand you."
+
+"You have the right," returned Mr. Ransom, controlling himself under the
+detective's eye. "I said that your presence at this wedding seemed to
+disturb my wife, which fact, considering the after occurrences of the
+day, strikes me as important enough for discussion. Are you willing to
+discuss it affably and fairly?"
+
+"May I ask who your companion is?" inquired the other, with a slight
+inclination towards Gerridge.
+
+"A friend; one who is in my confidence."
+
+"Then I will answer you without any further hesitation. My presence may
+have disturbed your wife, it very likely did, but I was not to blame for
+that. No man is to blame for the bad effects of an unfortunate accident."
+
+"Oh, I don't mean that," Mr. Ransom hastened to protest. "The cause of
+her very evident agitation was not personal. It had a deeper root than
+that. It led, or so I believe, to her flight from a love she cherished,
+at a moment when our mutual life seemed about to begin."
+
+The impassive, I might almost say set features of this man of violent
+passions but remarkable self-restraint failed to relax or give any
+token of the feelings with which he listened to this attack.
+
+"Then the news given of your wife in the papers to-night is false,"
+was his quiet retort. "It professes to give a distinct, if somewhat
+fantastic, reason for her flight. A reason totally different from the
+one you suggest."
+
+"A reason you don't believe in?"
+
+"Certainly not. It is too bizarre."
+
+"I share your incredulity. That is why I seek the truth from you rather
+than from the columns of a newspaper. And you owe me this truth. You have
+broken up my life."
+
+"I? That's a strange accusation you make, Mr. Ransom."
+
+"Possibly. But it's one which strikes hard on your conscience, for all
+that. This is evident enough even to a stranger like myself. I am
+convinced that if you had not come into her life she would have been at
+my side to-day. Now, who are you? She told me you were a relative."
+
+"She told you the truth; I am. Her nearest relative. The story in the
+paper has a certain amount of truth in it. Her brother, not her sister,
+has come back from the grave. I am that brother. She was once devoted to
+me."
+
+"You are--"
+
+"Yes. Oh, there'll be no difficulty in my proving this relationship.
+I have evidence upon evidence of the fact right in this room with me;
+evidence much more convincing and far less disputable than this
+surprising twin can bring forward if _her_ identity is questioned.
+Georgian had a twin sister, but she was buried years ago. I was never
+buried. I simply did not return from a well-known and dangerous voyage.
+The struggle I had for life--you cannot want the details now--has left
+its indelible impress in the scar which has turned me from a personable
+man into what some people might call a monstrosity. And it is this scar
+which has kept me so long from home and country. It has taken me four
+years to make up my mind to face again my family and friends. And now
+that I have, I find that it would have been better for us all if I had
+stayed away. Georgian saw me and her mind wavered. In no other way can I
+account for her wild behavior since that hour. That is all I have to say,
+sir. I think I am almost as much an object of pity as yourself."
+
+And for a moment he appeared to be so, not only to Gerridge, but to Mr.
+Ransom himself. Then something in the man--his unnatural coldness, the
+purpose which made itself felt through all his self-restraint--reawakened
+Mr. Ransom's distrust and led him to say:
+
+"Your complaint is natural. If you are Mrs. Ransom's brother, there
+should be sympathy between us and not antagonism. But I feel only
+antagonism. Why is this?"
+
+A shrug, followed by an odd smile.
+
+"You should be able to account for that on very reasonable grounds," said
+he. "I do not expect much mercy from strangers. It is hard to make your
+good intentions felt through such a distorted medium as my expression has
+now become."
+
+"Mrs. Ransom has been here," Ransom suddenly launched forth. "Within two
+hours of your encounter under Mr. Fulton's roof, she was talking with you
+in this hotel. I have proof positive of that, sir."
+
+"I have no wish to deny the fact," was the steady answer. "She did come
+here and we had a talk; it was necessary; I wanted money."
+
+The last phrase was uttered with such grim determination that the
+exclamation which had risen to Mr. Ransom's lips died in a conflict
+of feeling which forbade any rejoinder that savored of sarcasm. Hazen,
+however, must have noted his first look, for he added with an air of
+haughty apology:
+
+"I repeat that we were once very fond of each other."
+
+Ransom felt his perplexities growing with every moment he talked with
+this man. He remembered the money which both he and Gerridge had seen in
+her bag,--an amount too large for her to have retained very much on her
+person,--and following the instinct of the moment, he remarked:
+
+"Mrs. Ransom is not the woman to hesitate when a person she loves makes
+an appeal for money. She handed you immediately a large sum, I have no
+doubt."
+
+"She wrote me out a check," was the simple but cold answer.
+
+Mr. Ransom felt the failure of his attempt and stole a glance at
+Gerridge.
+
+The doubtful smile he received was not very encouraging. The same thought
+had evidently struck both. The money in the bag was a blind--she had
+carried her check-book with her and so could draw on her account for
+whatever she wished. But under what name? Her maiden one or his? Ransom
+determined to find out.
+
+"I do not begrudge you the money," said he, "but Mrs. Ransom's signature
+had changed a few hours previous to her making out this check. Did she
+remember this?"
+
+"She signed her married name promising to notify the bank at once."
+
+"And you cashed the check?"
+
+"No, sir; I am not in such immediate need of money as that. I have it
+still, but I shall endeavor to cash it to-morrow. Some question may come
+up as to her sanity, and I do not choose to lose the only money she has
+ever been in a position to give me."
+
+"Mr. Hazen, you harp on the irresponsible condition of her mind. Did you
+see any tokens of this in the interview you had together?"
+
+"No; she seemed sane enough then; a little shocked and troubled, but
+quite sane."
+
+"You knew that she had stolen away from me--that she had resorted to a
+most unworthy subterfuge in order to hold this conversation with you?"
+
+"No; I had asked her to come, and on that very afternoon if possible, but
+I never knew what means she took for doing so; I didn't ask and she
+didn't say."
+
+"But she talked of her marriage? She must have said something about an
+event which is usually considered the greatest in a woman's life."
+
+"Yes, she spoke of it."
+
+"And of me?"
+
+"Yes, she spoke of you."
+
+"And in what terms? I cannot refrain from asking you, Mr. Hazen, I am
+in such ignorance as to her real attitude towards me; her conduct is so
+mysterious; the reasons she gives for it so puerile."
+
+"She said nothing against you or her marriage. She mentioned both, but
+not in a manner that would add to your or my knowledge of her intentions.
+My sister disappointed me, sir. She was much less open than I wished. All
+that I could make out of her manner and conversation was the overpowering
+shock she felt at seeing me again and seeing me so changed. She didn't
+even tell me when and where we might meet again. When she left, she was
+as much lost to me as she was to you, and I am no less interested in
+finding her than you are yourself. I had no idea she did not mean to
+return to you when she went away from this hotel."
+
+Mr. Ransom sprang upright in an agitation the other may have shared, but
+of which he gave no token.
+
+"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you cannot tell me where the woman
+you call your sister is now?"
+
+"No more than you can give me the same necessary information in regard to
+your wife. I am waiting like yourself to hear from her--and waiting with
+as little hope."
+
+Had he seen Ransom's hand close convulsively over the pocket in which her
+few strange words to him were lying, that a slight tinge of sarcasm gave
+edge to the last four words?
+
+"But this is not like my wife," protested Ransom, hesitating to accuse
+the other of falsehood, yet evidently doubting him from the bottom of his
+heart. "Why deceive us both? She was never a disingenuous woman."
+
+"In childhood she had her incomprehensible moments," observed Hazen, with
+an ambiguous lift of his shoulders; then, as Ransom made an impatient
+move, added with steady composure: "I have candidly answered all your
+questions whether agreeable or otherwise, and the fact that I am as much
+shocked as yourself by these mad and totally incredible statements of
+hers about a newly recovered sister should prove to you that she is not
+following any lead of mine in this dissemination of a bare-faced
+falsehood."
+
+There was truth in this which both Mr. Ransom and Gerridge felt obliged
+to own. Yet they were not satisfied, even after Mr. Hazen, almost against
+Mr. Ransom's will, had established his claims to the relationship he
+professed, by various well-attested documents he had at hand. Instinct
+could not be juggled with, nor could Ransom help feeling that the mystery
+in which he found himself entangled had been deepened rather than
+dispelled by the confidences of this new brother-in-law.
+
+"The maze is at its thickest," he remarked as he left a few minutes later
+with the perplexed Gerridge. "How shall I settle this new question? By
+what means and through whose aid can I gain an interview with my wife?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LAWYER
+
+
+The answer was an unexpectedly sensible one.
+
+"Hunt up her man of business and see what he can do for you. She cannot
+get along without money; nor could that statement of hers have got into
+the papers without somebody's assistance. Since she did not get it from
+the fellow we have just left, she must have had it from the only other
+person she would dare confide in."
+
+Ransom answered by immediately hailing a down-town car.
+
+The interview which followed was certainly a remarkable one. At first Mr.
+Harper would say nothing, declaring that his relations with Mrs. Ransom
+were of a purely business and confidential nature. But by degrees, moved
+by the persuasive influence of Mr. Ransom's candor and his indubitable
+right to consideration, he allowed himself to admit that he had seen Mrs.
+Ransom during the last three days and that he had every reason to believe
+that there was a twin sister in the case and that all Mrs. Ransom's
+eccentric conduct was attributable to this fact and the overpowering
+sense of responsibility which it seemed to have brought to her--a result
+which would not appear strange to those who knew the sensitiveness of her
+nature and the delicate balance of her mind.
+
+Mr. Ransom recalled the tenor of her strange letter on this subject, but
+was not convinced. He inquired of Mr. Harper if he had heard her say
+anything about the equally astounding fact of a returned brother, and
+when he found that this was mere jargon to Mr. Harper, he related what he
+knew of Hazen and left the lawyer to draw his own inferences.
+
+The result was some show of embarrassment on the part of Mr. Harper. It
+was evident that in her consultations with him she had entirely left out
+all allusion to this brother. Either the man had advanced a false claim
+or else she was in an irresponsible condition of mind which made her see
+a sister where there was a brother.
+
+Ransom made some remark indicative of his appreciation of the dilemma in
+which they found themselves, but was quickly silenced by the other's
+emphatic assertion:
+
+"I have seen the girl; she was with Mrs. Ransom the day she came here.
+She sat in the adjoining room while we talked over her case in this one."
+
+"You saw her--saw her face?"
+
+"No, not her face; she was too heavily veiled for that. Mrs. Ransom
+explained why. They were too absurdly alike, she said. It awoke comment
+and it gave her the creeps. But their figures were identical though their
+dresses were different."
+
+"So! there _is_ some one then; the girl is not absolutely a myth."
+
+"Far from it. Nor is the will which Mrs. Ransom has asked me to draw up
+for her a myth."
+
+"Her will! she has asked you to draw up her will!"
+
+"Yes. That was the object of her visit. She had entered the married
+state, she said, and wished to make a legal disposition of her property
+before she returned to you. She was very nervous when she said this; very
+nervous through all the interview. There was nothing else for me to do
+but comply."
+
+"And you have drawn up this will?"
+
+"According to her instructions, yes."
+
+"But she has not signed it?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"But she intends to?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then you will see her again?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"_Is the time set?_"
+
+The lawyer rose to his feet. He understood the hint implied and for an
+instant appeared to waver. There was something very winsome about Roger
+Ransom; some attribute or expression which appealed especially to men.
+
+"I wish I might help you out of your difficulty," said he. "But a
+client's wishes are paramount. Mrs. Ransom desired secrecy. She had every
+right to demand it of me."
+
+Mr. Ransom's face fell. Hope had flashed upon him only to disappear
+again. The lawyer eyed him out of the corner of his eye, his mouth
+working slightly as he walked to and fro between his desk and the door.
+
+"Mrs. Ransom will not always feel herself hampered by a sister, or, if
+you prefer it, a brother who has so inconveniently come back from the
+dead. You will have the pleasure of her society some day. There is no
+doubt about her affection for you."
+
+"But that isn't it," exclaimed the now thoroughly discouraged husband.
+"I am afraid for her reason, afraid for her life. There is something
+decidedly wrong somewhere. Don't you see that I must have an immediate
+interview with her if only to satisfy myself that she aggravates her own
+danger? Why should she make a will in this underhanded way? Does she fear
+opposition from me? I have a fortune equal to her own. It is something
+else she dreads. What? I feel that I ought to know if only to protect her
+against herself. I would even promise not to show myself or to speak."
+
+"I am sorry to have to say good afternoon, Mr. Ransom. Have you any
+commands that I can execute for you?"
+
+"None but to give her my love. Tell her there is not a more unhappy man
+in New York; you may add that I trust her affection."
+
+The lawyer bowed. Mr. Ransom and Gerridge withdrew. At the foot of the
+stairs they were stopped by the shout of a small boy behind them.
+
+"Say, mister, did you drop something?" he called down, coming meanwhile
+as rapidly after them as the steepness of the flight allowed. "Mr. Harper
+says, he found this where you gentlemen were sitting."
+
+Mr. Ransom, somewhat startled, took the small paper offered him. It was
+none of his property but he held to it just the same. In the middle of a
+torn bit of paper he had read these words written in his own wife's hand:
+
+    Hunter's Tavern,
+          Sitford, Connecticut.
+    At 9 o'clock April the 15th.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "no one will ever hear me say again that lawyers
+are devoid of heart?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+RAIN
+
+
+Mr. Ransom had never heard of Sitford, but upon inquiry learned that it
+was a small manufacturing town some ten miles from the direct route of
+travel, to which it was only connected by a stage-coach running once a
+day, late in the afternoon.
+
+What a spot for a meeting of this kind! Why chosen by her? Why submitted
+to by this busy New York lawyer? Was this another mystery; or had he
+misinterpreted Mr. Harper's purpose in passing over to him the address of
+this small town? He preferred to think the former. He could hardly
+contemplate now the prospect of failing to see her again which must
+follow any mistake as to this being the place agreed upon for the signing
+of her will.
+
+Meantime he had said nothing to Gerridge. This was a hope too personal to
+confide in a man of his position. He would go to Sitford and endeavor to
+catch a glimpse of his wife there. If successful, the whole temper of his
+mind might change towards the situation, if not toward her. He would at
+least have the satisfaction of seeing her. The detective had enough to do
+in New York.
+
+April the fifteenth fell on Tuesday. He was not minded to wait so long
+but took the boat on Monday afternoon. This landed him some time before
+daylight at the time-worn village from which the coach ran to Sitford. A
+railway connected this village with New York, necessitating no worse
+inconvenience than crossing the river on a squat, old-fashioned ferry
+boat; but he calculated that both the lawyer and Mrs. Ransom would make
+use of this, and felt the risk would be less for him if he chose the
+slower and less convenient route.
+
+He had given his name on the boat as Roger Johnston, which was true so
+far as it went, and he signed this same name at the hotel where he put
+up till morning. The place was an entirely unknown one to him and he was
+unknown to it. Both fortuitous facts, he thought, in the light of his own
+perplexity as to the position in which he really stood towards this
+mysterious wife of his.
+
+The coach, as I have said, ran late in the afternoon. This was to
+accommodate the passengers who came by rail. But Mr. Ransom had not
+planned to go by coach. That would be to risk a premature encounter with
+his wife, or at least with the lawyer. He preferred to hire a team, and
+be driven there by some indifferent livery-stable man. Neither prospect
+was pleasing. It had been raining all night, and bade fair to rain all
+day. The river was clouded with mist; the hills, which are the glory of
+the place, were obliterated from the landscape, and the road--he had
+never seen such a road, all little pools and mud.
+
+However, there was no help for it. The journey must be made, and seeing
+a livery-stable sign across the road, lost no time in securing the
+conveyance he needed. At nine o'clock he started out.
+
+The rain drove so fiercely from the northwest,--the very direction in
+which they were traveling,--that enjoyment of the scenery was impossible.
+Nor could any pleasure be got out of conversation with the man who drove
+him. Rain, rain, that was all; and the splash of mud over the wheels
+which turned all too slowly for his comfort. And there were to be ten
+miles of this. Naturally he turned to his thoughts and they were all of
+her.
+
+Why had he not known her better before linking his fate to hers? Why had
+he never encouraged her to talk to him more about herself and her early
+life? Had he but done so, he might now have some clew to the mystery
+devouring him. He might know why so rich and independent a woman had
+chosen this remote town on an inaccessible road, for the completion of
+an act which was in itself a mystery. Why could not the will have been
+signed in New York? But he was not inquisitive in those days. He had
+taken her for what she seemed--an untrammeled, gay-hearted girl, ready
+to love and be his happy wife and lifelong companion; and he had been
+contented to keep all conversation along natural lines and do no probing.
+And now,--this brother whom all had thought dead, come to life with
+menace in his acts and conversation! Also a sister,--but this sister he
+had no belief in. The coincidence was too startlingly out of nature for
+him to accept a brother and a sister too. A brother or a sister; but not
+both. Not even Mr. Harper's assurances should influence his credulity to
+this extent. "Money! money is at the bottom of it all," was his final
+decision. "She knows it and is making her will, as a possible protection.
+But why come here?"
+
+Thus every reflection ended.
+
+Suddenly a vanished, half-forgotten memory came back. It brought a gleam
+of light into the darkness which had hitherto enveloped the whole matter.
+She had once spoken to him of her early life. She had mentioned a place
+where she used to play as a child; had mentioned it lovingly, longingly.
+There were hills, she had said; hills all around. And woods full of
+chestnut-trees, safe woods where she could wander at will. And the
+roads--how she loved to walk the roads. No automobiles then, not even
+bicycles. One could go miles without meeting man or horse. Sometimes a
+heavily-laden cart would go by drawn by a long string of oxen; but they
+were picturesque and added to the charm. Oxen were necessary where there
+was no railroad.
+
+As he repeated these words to himself, he looked up. Through the downpour
+his eyes could catch a glimpse of the road before him, winding up a long
+hillside. Down this road was approaching a dozen yoke of oxen dragging a
+wagon piled with bales of some sort of merchandise. One question in his
+mind was answered. This spot was not an unknown one to her. It was
+connected with her childhood days. There was reason back of her choice
+of it as a place of meeting between her and her lawyer, or if not reason,
+association, and that of the tenderest kind. He felt himself relieved of
+the extreme weight of his oppression and ventured upon asking a question
+or two about Sitford, which he took pains to say he was visiting for the
+first time.
+
+The information he obtained was but meager, but he did learn that there
+was a very fair tavern there and that the manufactures of the place were
+sufficient to account for a stranger's visit. The articles made were
+mostly novelties.
+
+This knowledge he meant to turn to account, but changed his mind when
+they finally splashed into town and stopped before the tavern which had
+been so highly recommended by his driver. The house, dripping though it
+was from every eave, had such a romantic air that he thought he could
+venture to cite other reasons for his stay there than the prosaic one of
+business. That is, if the landlady should give any evidence of being at
+all in accord with her quaint home and picturesque surroundings.
+
+She showed herself and he at once gave her credit for being all he could
+wish in the way of credulity and good-nature, and meeting her with the
+smile which had done good execution in its day, he asked if she had a
+room for a writer who was finishing a book, and who only asked for quiet
+and regular meals before his own cosy fire. This to rouse her imagination
+and make her amenable to his wishes for secrecy.
+
+She was a simple soul and fell easily into the trap. In half an hour Mr.
+Ransom was ensconced in a pleasant room over the porch, a room which he
+soon learned possessed many advantages. For it not only overlooked the
+main entrance, but was so placed as to command a view of all the rooms on
+his hall. In two of those rooms he bade fair to be greatly interested,
+Mrs. Deo having remarked that they were being prepared for a lady who was
+coming that night. As he had no doubt who this lady was, he encouraged
+the good woman to talk, and presently had the satisfaction of hearing her
+say that she was very happy over this lady's coming, as she was a Sitford
+girl, one of the old family of Hazens, and though married now and very
+rich was much loved by every one in town because she had never forgotten
+Sitford or Sitford people.
+
+She was coming! He had made no mistake. And this was the place of her
+birth, just as he had decided when he saw that long line of oxen! He
+realized how fortunate he was, or rather how indebted he was to Mr.
+Harper, since in this place only could he hope to gain satisfaction on
+the mooted point raised by that same gentleman. If she had been born
+here, so had her twin sister; so had the brother whose claims lay counter
+to that sister's. Both must have been known to these people, their
+persons, their history and the circumstances of their supposed deaths.
+The clews thus afforded must prove invaluable to him. From them he must
+soon be able to ascertain in which story to place faith and which
+claimant to believe. He might have interrogated his hostess, but feared
+to show his interest in the supposed stranger. He preferred to wait a few
+hours and gather his facts from other lips.
+
+Meantime it rained.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ELIMINATION
+
+
+At about three o'clock in the afternoon Mr. Ransom left his room. He had
+been careful almost from his first arrival to sit with his door ajar. He
+had, therefore, only to give it a slight push and walk out when he heard
+the bustle of preparation going on in the two rooms in whose future
+occupancy he was so vitally interested. A maid stood in the hall. A man
+within was pushing about furniture. The landlady was giving orders. His
+course down-stairs did not lead him so far as those rooms, so he called
+out pleasantly:
+
+"I have written till my head aches, Mrs. Deo. I must venture out
+notwithstanding the rain. In which direction shall I find the best
+walking?"
+
+She came to him all eagerness and smiles. "It's all bad, such a day,"
+said she, "but it's muddiest down by the factories. You had better climb
+the hill."
+
+"Where the cemetery is?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; do you object to cemeteries? Ours is thought to be very
+interesting. We have stones there whose inscriptions are a hundred and
+fifty years old. But it's a bad day to walk amongst graves. Perhaps you
+had better go east. I'm sorry we should have such a storm on your first
+day. Must you go out?"
+
+He forced a suffering look into his eyes, and insisting that nothing but
+outdoor air would help him when he had a headache, hastened down-stairs
+and so out. A blinding gust seized him as he faced the hill, but he drew
+down his umbrella and hurried on. He had a purpose in following her
+suggestion as to a walk in this direction. Dark as the grasses were, he
+meant to search the cemetery for the graves of the Hazens and see what he
+could learn from them.
+
+He met three persons on his way, all of whom turned to look at him.
+This was in the village. On the hillside he met nobody. Wind and rain
+and mud were all; desolation in the prospect and all but desolation in
+his heart. At the brow he first caught sight of the broken stone wall
+which separated the old burying place from the road. There lay his path.
+Happily he could tread it unnoticed and unwatched. There was no one
+within sight, high or low.
+
+He spent a half hour among the tombs before
+he struck the name he was looking for.
+Another ten minutes before he found those
+of his wife's family. Then he had his reward.
+On a low brown shaft he read the names of
+father and mother, and beneath them the following
+lines:
+
+      Sacred to the memory of
+         Anitra
+         Died June 7, 1885
+     Aged 6 years and one day.
+_Of such is the Kingdom of heaven._
+
+The twin! Georgian was mad. This record showed that her little sister lay
+here. Anitra,--yes, that was the name of her other half. He remembered it
+well. Georgian had mentioned it to him more than once. And this child,
+this Anitra, had been buried here for fifteen years.
+
+Deeply indignant at his wife's duplicity, he took a look at the opposite
+side of the shaft where still another surprise awaited him. Here was the
+record of the brother; the brother he had so lately talked to and who had
+seemingly proven his claim to the name he now read:
+
+           Alfred Francesco
+                 only son of
+  Georgian Toritti afterwards Georgian Hazen.
+          Lost at sea February, 1895.
+            Aged twenty-five years.
+
+An odd inscription opening up conjectures of the most curious and
+interesting nature. But it was not this fact which struck him at the
+time, it was the possibility underlying the simple statement, Lost
+at sea. This, as the wry-necked man had said, admitted of a possible
+resurrection. Here was no body. A mound showed where Anitra had been laid
+away; a little mound surmounted by a headstone carved with her name. But
+only these few words gave evidence of the young man's death, and
+inscriptions of this nature are sometimes false.
+
+The conclusion was obvious. It was the brother and not the sister who had
+reappeared. Georgian was not only playing him false but deceiving the
+general public. In fact, knowingly or unknowingly, she was perpetrating
+a great fraud. He was inclined to think unknowingly. He began to regard
+with less incredulity Hazen's declaration that the shock of her brother's
+return had unsettled her mind.
+
+Distressed, but no longer the prey of distracting doubt, he again
+examined the inscription before him and this time noticed its
+peculiarities. _Alfred Francesco, only son of Georgian Toritti afterwards
+Georgian Hazen._ Afterwards! What was meant by that _afterwards_? That
+the woman had been married twice, and that this Alfred Francesco was the
+son of her first husband rather than of the one whose name he bore? It
+looked that way. There was a suggestion of Italian parentage in the
+Francesco which corresponded well with the decidedly Italian Toritti.
+
+Perplexed and not altogether satisfied with his discoveries, he turned to
+leave the place when he found himself in the presence of a man carrying a
+kit of tools and wearing on his face a harsh and discontented expression.
+As this man was middle-aged and had no other protection from the rain
+than a rubber cape for his shoulders, the cause of his discontent was
+easy enough to imagine; though why he should come into this place with
+tools was more than Mr. Ransom could understand.
+
+[Illustration: "I cut them letters there fifteen years ago. Now I'm to
+cut 'em out."]
+
+"Hello, stranger." It was this man who spoke. "Interested in the Hazen
+monument, eh? Well, I'll soon give you reason to be more interested yet.
+Do you see this inscription--On June 7, 1885; Anitra, aged six, and the
+rest of it? Well, I cut them letters there fifteen years ago. Now I'm to
+cut 'em out. The orders has just come. The youngster didn't die it seems,
+and I'm commanded to chip the fifteen-year-old lie out. What do you think
+of that? A sweet job for a day like this. Mor'n likely it'll put me under
+a stone myself. But folks won't listen to reason. It's been here fifteen
+years and seventeen days and now it must come out, rain or shine, before
+night-fall. 'Before the sun sets,' so the telegram ran. I'll be blessed
+but I'll ask a handsome penny for this job."
+
+Mr. Ransom, controlling himself with difficulty, pointed to the little
+mound. "But the child seems to have been buried here," he said.
+
+"Lord bless you, yes, a child was buried here, but we all knew years ago
+that it mightn't be Hazen's. The schoolhouse burned and a dozen children
+with it. One of the little bodies was given to Mr. Hazen for burial. He
+believed it was his Anitra, but a good while after, a bit of the dress
+she wore that day was found hanging to a bush where some gipsies had
+been. There were lots of folks who remembered that them gipsies had
+passed the schoolhouse a half hour before the fire, and they now say
+found the little girl hiding behind the wood-pile, and carried her off.
+No one ever knew; but her death was always thought doubtful by every one
+but Mr. and Mrs. Hazen. They stuck to the old idee and believed her to be
+buried under this mound where her name is."
+
+"But one of the children was buried here," persisted Ransom. "You must
+have known the number of those lost and would surely be able to tell if
+one were missing, as must have been the case if the gipsies had carried
+off Anitra before the fire."
+
+"I don't know about that," objected the stone-cutter. "There was, in
+those days, a little orphan girl, almost an idiot, who wandered about
+this town, staying now in one house and now in another as folks took
+compassion on her. She was never seen agin after that fire. If she was in
+the schoolhouse that day, as she sometimes was, the number would be made
+up. No one was left to tell us. It was an awful time, sir. The village
+hasn't got over it yet."
+
+Mr. Ransom made some sympathetic rejoinder and withdrew towards the
+gateway, but soon came strolling back. The man had arranged his tools and
+was preparing to go to work.
+
+"It seems as if the family was pretty well represented here," remarked
+Ransom. "Is it the girl herself,--Anitra, I believe you called her,--who
+has ordered this record of her death removed?"
+
+"Oh, no, you don't know them Hazens. There's one of 'em who has quite a
+story; the twin of this Anitra. She lived to grow up and have a lot of
+money left her. If you lived in Sitford, or lived in New York, you'd know
+all about her; for her name's been in the papers a lot this week. She's
+the great lady who married and left her husband all in one day; and for
+what reason do you think? We know, because she don't keep no secrets from
+her old friends. _She's found this sister_, and it's her as has ordered
+me to chip away this name. She wants it done to-day, because she's coming
+here with this gal she's found. Folks say she ran across her in the
+street and knew her at once. Can you guess how?"
+
+"From her name?"
+
+"Lord, no; from what I hear, she hadn't any name. _From her looks!_ She
+saw her own self when she looked at her."
+
+"How interesting, how very interesting," stammered Mr. Ransom, feeling
+his newly won convictions shaken again. "Quite remarkable the whole
+story. And so is this inscription," he added, pointing to the words
+_Georgian Toritti_, etc. "Did the woman have two husbands, and was the
+Alfred Hazen, whose death at sea is commemorated here, the son of Toritti
+or of Hazen?"
+
+"Of Toritti," grumbled the man, evidently displeased at the question. "A
+black-browed devil who it won't do to talk about here. Mrs. Hazen was
+only a slip of a gal when she married him, and as he didn't live but a
+couple o' months folks have sort o' forgiven her and forgotten him. To us
+Mrs. Hazen was always Mrs. Hazen; and Alf--well, he was just Alf Hazen
+too; a lad with too much good in him to perish in them murderous waters a
+thousand miles from home."
+
+So they still believed Hazen dead! No intimation of his return had as yet
+reached Sitford. This was what Ransom wanted to know. But there was still
+much to learn. Should he venture an additional question? No, that would
+show more than a stranger's interest in a topic so purely local. Better
+leave well enough alone and quit the spot before he committed himself.
+
+Uttering some commonplace observation about the fatality attending
+certain families, he nodded a friendly good-by and made for the entrance.
+
+As he stepped below the brow of the hill he heard the first click of the
+workman's hammer on the chisel with which he proposed to eliminate the
+word _Anitra_ from the list of the Hazen dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HUNTER'S INN
+
+
+When Mr. Ransom re-entered the hotel, which he did under a swoop of wind
+which turned his umbrella inside out and drenched him through in an
+instant, it was to find the house in renewed turmoil, happily explained
+by the landlady, whom he ran across on the stairs.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Johnston!" she cried as she edged by him with a pile of
+bed-linen on her arm. "Please excuse all this fuss. Another guest is
+coming--I have just got a telegram. A famous lawyer from New York. Our
+house will be full to-night."
+
+"Where will you put him?" inquired Mr. Ransom with a good-natured air.
+"There seem to be no unoccupied rooms on this hall."
+
+"More's the pity," she sighed, with a half-inquiring, half deprecatory
+look at this fortunate first comer. "I shall have to put him below, poor
+man. I'm afraid he won't like it, but--" Mr. Ransom remained silent.
+"But," she went on with sudden cheerfulness, "I will make it up in the
+supper. That shall be as good a one as our kitchen will provide. Four
+city guests all in one day! That's a good many for this quiet hotel."
+
+"Four!" retorted Mr. Ransom as he turned towards his own door. "The
+number has grown by two since I went out."
+
+"Oh, I didn't tell you. The lady--her name's Mrs. Ransom--brings her
+sister with her. The little girl who--yes, I am coming." This latter to
+some perplexed domestic down the hall, who had already called her twice.
+"I mustn't stand talking here," she apologized as she hurried away. "But
+do take care of yourself. You are dreadful wet. How I wish the weather
+would clear up!"
+
+Mr. Ransom wished the same. To say nothing of his own inconvenience,
+it was a source of anxiety to him that she should have to ride these
+inevitable ten miles in such a chilling downpour. Besides, a storm of
+this kind complicated matters; gave him less sense of freedom, shut him
+in, as it were, with the mystery he was there to unravel, but which for
+some reason, hardly explainable to himself, filled him with such a sense
+of foreboding that he had moments in which he thought only of escape. But
+his part must be played and he prepared himself to play it well. Having
+changed his clothes and warmed himself with a draft of whisky, he sat
+down at his table and was busy writing when the maid came in to ask if he
+would wait for his supper till the coach came, or have it earlier and
+served in his own room.
+
+With an air of petulance, he looked up, rapped on the table, and replied:
+
+"Here! here! I'm too busy to meet strangers. An early supper and an early
+bed. That's the way I get through _my_ work."
+
+The girl stared and went softly out. Work!--that? Sitting at a table and
+just putting words on paper. If it was beds he had to drag around now, or
+a dozen hungry, clamoring men to feed all at once, and all with the best
+cuts, or stairs to run up fifty times a day, or--but I need not fill out
+her thought. It made her voluble in the kitchen and secured him the
+privacy which his incognito demanded.
+
+His supper over, he waited feverishly for the coach, which ordinarily was
+due at seven in the evening. To-night it bade fair to be late, owing to
+the bad condition of the roads and the early darkness. The wind had gone
+down, but it still rained. Not quite so tempestuously as when he roamed
+the cemetery, but steadily enough to keep eaves and branches dripping.
+The sound of this ceaseless drip was eerie enough to his strained senses,
+waiting as he was for an event which might determine the happiness or the
+misery of his life. He tried to forget it and wrote diligently, putting
+down words whose meaning he did not stop to consider, so that he had
+something to show to prying eyes if such should ever glance through his
+papers. But the sound had got on his brain, and presently became so
+insistent that he rose again and flung his window up to see if he were
+deceived in thinking he heard a deep roar mingling with the incessant
+patter, a roar which the wind had hitherto prevented him from separating
+from the general turmoil, but which now was apparent enough to call for
+some explanation.
+
+He had made no mistake; a steady sound of rushing water filled the
+outside air. A fall was near, a fall by means of which, no doubt, the
+factories were run.
+
+Why had he not thought of this? Why had its sound held a note of menace
+for him, awakening feelings he did not understand and from which he
+sought to escape? A factory fall swollen by the rain! What was there
+in this to make his hand shake and cause the deepening night to seem
+positively hateful to him? With a bang he closed the window; then he
+softly threw it up again. Surely he had heard the noise of wheels
+splashing through the pools of the highway. The coach was coming! and
+with it--what?
+
+His room was in the gable end facing the road. From it he could look
+directly down on the porch of entrance, a fact which he had thankfully
+noted at his first look. As he heard the bustle which now broke out
+below, and caught the gleam of a lantern coming round the corner of the
+house, he softly stepped to his lamp and put it out, then took his stand
+at the window. The coach was now very near; he could hear the straining
+of the harness and the shouts of the driver. In another moment it drew
+lumberingly up. A man from the hotel advanced with an umbrella; a young
+lady was helped out who, standing one moment in the full glare of the
+lights thrown upon her from the open door, showed him the face and form
+he knew so well and loved--yes, loved for all her mystery, as he knew by
+the wild beating of his heart, and the irresistible impulse he felt to
+rush down and receive her in his arms, to her great terror doubtless, but
+to his own boundless satisfaction and delight. But strong as the
+temptation was, he did not yield to it. Something in her attitude, as she
+stood there, talking earnestly to the driver, held him spellbound and
+alert. All was not right; there was passion in her movements and in her
+voice. What she said drew the heads of landlady and maid from the open
+door and caused the man with the lantern to peer past her into the coach
+and backward along the road. What had happened? Nothing that concerned
+the lawyer. Mr. Ransom could see him disentangling himself from the
+coverings in front where he had ridden with the driver, but the sister
+was not there. No other lady got out of the coach even after his young
+wife had finished her conversation with the driver and disappeared into
+the house.
+
+"How can I stand this?" thought Mr. Ransom as the coach finally rattled
+and swished away towards the stable. "I must hear, I must see, I must
+_know_ what is going on down there."
+
+This because he heard voices in the open hall. Crossing to his own
+doorway, he listened. His wife and Mr. Harper had stepped into the office
+close by the front door. He could hear now and then a word of what they
+said, but not all. Venturing a step further, he leaned over the
+balustrade which extended almost up to his own door. This was better; he
+could now catch most of the words and sometimes a sentence. They all
+referred to the sister. "Temper--her own way--deaf--_would_ walk in all
+the rain and slush.--A strange character--you can't imagine," and other
+similar phrases, uttered in a passionate and half-angry voice. Then
+ejaculations from Mrs. Deo, and a word or two of caution or injunction in
+the polished tones of the lawyer, followed by a sudden rush towards the
+staircase, over which he was leaning.
+
+"Show me my room," rang up in Georgian's bell-like tones; "then I'll tell
+you what to do about _her_. She isn't easily managed."
+
+"But she'll get her death!" expostulated Mrs. Deo; "to say nothing of her
+losing her way in this dreadful darkness. Let me send--"
+
+"Not yet," broke in his young wife's voice, with just the hint of
+asperity in it. "She must trudge out her tantrum first. I think her idea
+was to show that she remembered the old place and the lane where she used
+to pick blackberries. You needn't worry about her getting cold. She's
+lived a gipsy life too many years to mind wind and wet. But it's
+different with _me_. I'm all in a shiver. Which is my room, please?"
+
+She was now at the head of the stairs. Mr. Ransom had closed his door,
+but not latched it, and as she turned to go down the hall, followed by
+the chattering landlady, he swung it open for an instant and so caught
+one full glimpse of her beloved figure. She was dressed in a long
+rain-coat and had some sort of modish hat on her head, which, in spite of
+its simplicity, gave her a highly fashionable air. A woman to draw all
+eyes, but such a mystery to her husband! Such a mystery to all who knew
+her story, or rather her actions, for no one seemed to know her story.
+
+Events did not halt. He heard her give this and that order, open a door
+and look in; say a word of commendation, ask if the key was on her side
+of the partition, then shut the door again and open another.
+
+"Ah, this looks comfortable," she exclaimed in great satisfaction. "Is
+that my bag? Put it down, please. I'll open it. Now, if you'll leave me a
+moment alone, I'll soon be ready. But you mustn't expect me to eat till
+Anitra comes. I couldn't do that. Oh, she's a dreadful trial, Mrs. Deo;
+you have a motherly face, and I can tell you that the girl is just eating
+up my life. If she weren't my very self, deafened by hard usage, and
+rendered coarse and wilful by years of a miserable and half-starved life,
+I couldn't bear it, especially after what I've sacrificed for her. I've
+parted with my husband--but I can't talk, I can't. I would not have said
+so much if you hadn't looked so kind."
+
+All this her husband heard, followed by a sob or two, quickly checked,
+however, by a high strained laugh and the gay remark:
+
+"I'm wet enough, but she'll be dripping. I'm afraid she'll have to have
+her supper in her room. She got out at the new schoolhouse and started
+to come through the lane. It must be a weltering pool. If I'm dressed in
+time I'll come down and meet her at the door. Meanwhile don't wait for
+us; give Mr. Harper his supper."
+
+Her door closed, then suddenly opened again. "If she don't come in ten
+minutes, let some one go to the head of the lane. But be sure it's a
+careful person who won't startle her. I've got to put on another dress,
+so don't bother me. I'll hear her when she enters her own room and will
+speak to her then--if I dare; I'm not sure that I shall." And the door
+shut to again, this time with a snap of the lock. Quiet reigned once more
+in the hall save for Mrs. Deo's muttered exclamations as she made her
+laborious way down-stairs. Had this good woman been less disturbed and
+not in so much of a hurry, she might have noted that the door of her
+literary guest's room was ajar, and stopped to ask why the lamp remained
+unlit.
+
+For five minutes, for ten minutes, he watched and listened, passing
+continually to and fro from door to window. But his vigilance remained
+unrewarded by any further movement in the hall, or by the sight of an
+approaching figure up the road. He began to feel odd, and was asking
+himself what sort of fool-work this was, when a clatter of voices rose
+below, followed by heavy steps on the veranda. One or two men were going
+out, and as it seemed to him the landlady too, for he heard her say just
+as the door closed:
+
+"Let me on ahead; she must see a woman's kind face first, poor child, or
+we shall not succeed in getting her in. I know all about these wild
+ones."
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+The Call of the Waterfall
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+TWO DOORS
+
+
+The enthusiasm, the expectation in Mrs. Deo's voice were unmistakable.
+This good woman believed in this rescued waif of turbulent caprices and
+gipsy ways, and from this moment he began to believe in her too, and
+consequently to share some of the excitement which had now become
+prevalent all through the house.
+
+His suspense was destined to be short. While he was straining his eyes to
+see what might be going on down the road, a small crowd of people came
+round the corner of the house. In their midst walked a woman with a shawl
+or cape over her head--a fierce and wilful figure which shook off the
+hand kind Mrs. Deo laid on her arm, and shrank as the great front door
+fell open, sending forth a flood of light which, to one less wedded to
+wild ways and outdoor living, promised a hospitable cheer.
+
+"Georgian's form!" muttered Ransom involuntarily to himself. "And
+Georgian's face!" he felt obliged to add, as the light fell broadly
+across her. "But not Georgian's ways and not Georgian's nature," he
+impetuously finished as she slipped out of sight.
+
+Then the mystery of _the brother_ came rushing over him and he yielded
+himself again to the wonder of the situation till he was reawakened to
+realities by the shuffling of feet on the stairway and the raised tones
+of Mrs. Deo as she tried to make herself understood by her new and
+somewhat difficult guest. A maid followed in their wake, and from some
+as yet unexplored region below there rose the sound of clattering dishes.
+
+It was a trying moment for him. He longed for another glimpse of the
+girl, but feared to betray his own curiosity to the two women who
+accompanied her. Should he be forced to allow her to enter her room
+unseen? Might he not better run some small risk of detection? He had
+escaped discovery before; wasn't it possible for him to escape it again?
+He finally compromised matters by first flinging his door wide open and
+then retreating to the other end of the room where the shadows appeared
+heavy enough to hide him. From this point he cast a look down the hall
+which was in a direct line from his present standpoint, and was fortunate
+enough to catch a glimpse of the girl with her face turned in his
+direction. Her companions, on the contrary, were standing with their
+backs to him, one beside the door she had just thrown open, the other
+at his wife's door on which she had just given a significant rap.
+
+Such was the picture.
+
+The girl absorbed all his attention. The shawl--a gay one with colors in
+it--had fallen from her head and was trailing, wet and bedraggled, over
+an equally bedraggled skirt. Soused with wet, her hair disheveled, and
+all her garments awry with the passion of her movements, she yet made his
+heart stand still, as, with a sullen look at those about her, she rushed
+into the room prepared for her use and slammed the door behind her with a
+quick cry of mingled rage and relief. For with all these drawbacks of
+manner and appearance she was the living picture of Georgian; so like
+her, indeed, that he could well understand now the shock which his
+darling received when, in the unconsciousness of possessing a living
+sister, she had encountered in street or store, or wherever they had
+first met, this living reproduction of herself.
+
+"No wonder she became confused as to her duty," he muttered. "I even feel
+myself becoming confused as to mine."
+
+"Bring me up something to eat," he now heard this latest comer shout from
+her doorway. "I don't want tea and I don't want soup; I want meat, meat.
+And I shan't go down afterward, either. I'm going to stay right here.
+I've seen enough of people I don't know. And of my sister too. She was
+cross to me because I hated the coach and wanted to walk, and she shan't
+come into my room till I tell her to. Don't forget; it's meat I want,
+just meat and something sweet. Pudding's good."
+
+All shocking to Mr. Ransom's taste, but more so to his heart. For
+notwithstanding the coarseness of the expressions, the voice was
+Georgian's and laden with a hundred memories.
+
+He was still struggling with the agitation of this discovery when he
+heard Mrs. Deo give another tap on his wife's door. This time it was
+unlocked and pushed softly open, and through the crack thus made some
+whispered orders were given. These seemed to satisfy Mrs. Deo, for she
+called the maid to her and together they hurried down the hall to a rear
+staircase, communicating with the kitchen. This was fortunate for him,
+for if they had turned his way he would have had to issue from his room
+and take open part in the excitement of the moment.
+
+A few minutes of quiet now supervened. During these he decided that if
+he must keep up this watch--and nothing now could deter him from doing
+so--he must take a position consistent with his assumed character.
+Detection by Georgian was what he now feared. Whatever happened, she must
+not get the smallest glimpse of him or be led by any indiscretion on his
+part to suspect his presence under the same roof as herself. Yet he must
+see all, hear all that was possible to him. For this a continuance of the
+present conditions, an open door and no light, were positively requisite.
+But how avert the comment which this unusual state of things must awaken
+if noticed? But one expedient suggested itself. He would light a cigar
+and sit in the window. If questioned he would say that he was engaged
+in deciding how he would end the story he was writing; that such
+contemplation called for darkness but above all for good air; that had
+the weather been favorable he would have obtained the latter by opening
+the window; but it being so bad he could only open the door. Certain
+eccentricities are allowable in authors.
+
+This settled, he proceeded to take a chair and envelope himself in smoke.
+With eyes fixed on the dimly-lighted vista of the hall before him, he
+waited. What would happen next? Would his wife reappear? No; supper was
+coming up. He could hear dishes rattling on the rear stairway, and in
+another moment saw the maid coming down the hall with a large tray in her
+hands. She stopped at Anitra's door, knocked, and was answered by the
+harsh command:
+
+"Set it down. I'll get it for myself."
+
+The maid set it down.
+
+Next instant Mrs. Ransom's door opened.
+
+"Don't be too generous with me," he heard her call softly out. "I can't
+eat. I'm too upset for much food. Tea," she whispered, "and some nice
+toast. Tell Mrs. Deo that I want nothing else. She will understand."
+
+The maid nodded and disappeared down the hall just as a bare arm was
+thrust out from Anitra's door and the tray drawn in. A few minutes later
+the other tray came up and was carried into Mrs. Ransom's room. The
+contrast in the way the two trays had been received struck him as showing
+the difference between the two women, especially after he had been given
+an opportunity, as he was later, of seeing the ferocious way in which the
+food brought to Anitra had been disposed of.
+
+But I anticipate. The latter tray had not yet been pushed again into the
+hall, and Mr. Ransom was still smoking his first cigar when he heard the
+lawyer's voice in the office below asking to have pen and ink placed in
+the small reception-room. This recalled him to the real purpose of his
+wife's presence in the house, and also assured him that the opportunity
+would soon be given him for another glimpse of her before the evening was
+over. It was also likely to be a full-face one, as she would have to
+advance several steps directly towards him before taking the turn leading
+to the front staircase.
+
+He awaited the moment eagerly. The hour for signing the will had been set
+at nine o'clock, but it was surely long past that time now. No, the clock
+in the office is striking; it is just nine. Would she recognize the
+summons? Assuredly; for with the last stroke she lifts the latch of her
+door and comes out.
+
+She has exchanged her dark dress for a light one and has arranged her
+hair in the manner he likes best. But he scarcely notes these changes in
+the interest he feels in her intentions and the manner in which she
+proceeds to carry out her purpose.
+
+She does not advance at once to the staircase, but creeps first to her
+sister's door, where she stands listening for a minute or so in an
+attitude of marked anxiety. Then, with a gesture expressive of repugnance
+and alarm, she steps quickly forward and disappears down the staircase
+without vouchsafing one glance in his direction.
+
+His vision of her as she looked in that short passage from room to
+staircase was momentary only, but it left him shuddering. Never before
+had he seen resolve burning to a white heat in the human countenance.
+There was something abnormal in it, taken with his knowledge of her face
+in its happier and more wholesome aspects. The innocent, affectionate
+young girl, whose soul he had looked upon as a weeded garden, had become
+in a moment to his eyes a suffering, determined, deeply concentrated
+woman of unsuspected power and purpose. A suggestion of wildness in her
+air added to the mysterious impression she made; an impression which
+rendered this instant memorable to him and set his pulses beating to
+a tune quite new to them. What was she going to do? Sign away all her
+property? Beggar her heirs for--He could not say what. No; even such
+a resolution could not account for her remarkable expression of
+concentrated will. There was in her distracted mind something of more
+tragic import than this; and he dared not question what; dared not even
+approach this woman who, less than a week before, had linked herself to
+him for life. The uneasy light in those fixed and gleaming eyes betrayed
+a reason too lightly poised. He feared any additional shock for her.
+Better that she should go down undisturbed to her adviser, who bore a
+reputation which insured a judicious use of his power. What if she were
+about to will away her fortune to the man she called brother? He himself
+had no use for her wealth. Her health and happiness were all that
+concerned him, and these possibly depended on her being allowed to go her
+own way without interference. But oh, for eyes to see into the room into
+which she had withdrawn with the lawyer! For eyes to see into her heart!
+For eyes to see into the future!
+
+His suspense presently became so great that he could no longer control
+himself. Throwing up the window, he thrust his head out into the rain and
+felt refreshed by the icy drops falling on his face and neck. But the
+roar of the waterfall rang too persistently in his ears and he hastily
+closed the window again. There was something in the incessant boom of
+that tumbling water which strangely disturbed him. He could better stand
+suspense than that. If only the wind would bluster again. That, at least,
+was intermittent in its fury and gave momentary relief to thoughts
+strained to an unbearable tension.
+
+Afterwards, only a short time afterwards, he wondered that he had given
+himself over to such extreme feeling at this especial moment. Her
+appearance when she came quietly back, with Mrs. Deo chatting and smiling
+behind her, was natural enough, and though she did not speak herself, the
+tenor of the landlady's remarks was such as to show that they had been
+conversing about old days when the two little girls used to ransack her
+cupboards for their favorite cookies, and when their united pranks were
+the talk of the town.
+
+As they passed down the hall, Mrs. Deo garrulously remarked:
+
+"You were never separated except on that dreadful day of the schoolhouse
+burning. That day you were sick and--"
+
+"Please!" The word leaped from Georgian in terror, and she almost threw
+her hand against the other's mouth. "I--I can't bear it."
+
+The good lady paused, gurgled an apology, and stooped for the tray which
+disfigured the sightliness of the neatly kept hall. Then, nodding towards
+a maid whom she had placed on watch at the extreme end of the hall, she
+muttered some assurances as to this woman's faithfulness, and turned away
+with a cordial good night. Georgian watched her go with a strange and
+lingering intentness, or so it seemed to Ransom; then slowly entered her
+room and locked the door.
+
+The incidents of the day, so far as she was concerned, appeared to be at
+an end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+HALF-PAST ONE IN THE MORNING
+
+
+Nothing now held Mr. Ransom to his room. The two women in whose fate he
+was so nearly concerned, his sister-in-law and his wife, had both retired
+and there was no other eye he feared. Indeed, he courted an interview
+with the lawyer, if only it could be naturally obtained; and he had
+little reason to think it could not. So he went down-stairs.
+
+In a moment he seemed to have passed from the realm of dreams to that of
+reality. Here was no mystery. Here was life as he knew it. Walking boldly
+into the office, he ran his eye over the half-dozen men who sat there
+and, picking out the lawyer from the rest, sauntered easily up to him and
+sat down.
+
+"My name is Johnston," said he. "I'm from New York; like yourself, I
+believe."
+
+The lawyer, with a twinkle in his light-blue eye, answered with a cordial
+nod; and in two minutes a lively conversation had begun between them on
+purely impersonal subjects suited to the intelligence of the crowd they
+were in. This did not last, however. An opportunity soon came for them to
+stroll off together, and presently Mr. Ransom found himself closeted with
+this man who he had reason to believe was the sole holder of the key to
+the secret which was devouring him.
+
+A bottle of wine was on the table between them, and some cigars. As Mr.
+Ransom filled the two glasses, he spoke:
+
+"I have to thank you--" he began, but saw immediately that he had made a
+wrong start.
+
+"For what, _Mr. Johnston_?" asked the other coldly.
+
+"For giving me this opportunity to speak alone with you," Ransom
+explained with a nervous gesture. "An hour of unrestrained gossip is so
+necessary to me after a day of hard work. Perhaps you don't know that I
+am an author--have been one for seven whole hours. I find it exhausting.
+You could give me great relief by talking a little on some foreign
+subject, say on the one now engrossing every one in the house, the twin
+ladies from New York. You were in the same coach with them. Did they
+quarrel and did the most wilful of the two insist on getting out at the
+foot of the hill and walking up through the lane?"
+
+"I doubt if I have anything to say to Mr. Johnston on this subject," was
+the wary reply.
+
+"What if he added another name to the Johnston?"
+
+"It would make no appreciable difference. The driver is a loquacious
+fellow, talk to him."
+
+Mr. Ransom felt his heart fail him. He surveyed closely the mouth which
+had uttered this off-hand sentence and saw that it was set in a line
+there was no mistaking. Little enlightenment was to be got from this man.
+Yet he made one more effort.
+
+"Did my wife sign the will?" he asked. "All pretense aside, this is a
+very important matter to me, Mr. Harper; not on account of the money
+involved, but because the doing of this simple act seemed to require such
+an effort on her part."
+
+"You are mistaken," was the quick reply, harshly accentuated. "She did
+just what she wanted to do. She was not in the least coerced, unless it
+was by circumstances."
+
+"Circumstances! But that is what I mean. They seem to have been too much
+for her. I want to understand these circumstances."
+
+The lawyer honored him with his first direct look.
+
+"I don't understand them myself," said he.
+
+"You don't?"
+
+"No."
+
+Mr. Ransom set down the wineglass he had raised half-way to his lips.
+
+"You have simply followed her orders?"
+
+"You have said it. Your wife is a woman of much more character than you
+think. She has amazed me."
+
+"She is amazing me. I am here; she is here; only a few boards separate
+us. But iron bars could not be more effectual. I dare not approach her
+door; dare not ask her to accept from me the natural protection of a
+lover and husband. Instinct holds me back, or her will, which may not
+be stronger than mine but is certainly more dominant."
+
+"Lawyers do not believe much in instinct as a usual thing, but I should
+advise confidence in this one. A woman with a tremendous will like that
+of Mrs. Ransom should be allowed a slack tether. The day will arrive when
+she will come to you herself. This I have said before; I can say nothing
+more to you to-night."
+
+"Then there is nothing in the will you have drawn up to show that she has
+lost her affection for me?"
+
+The lawyer drained his glass.
+
+"I have not been given permission to declare its terms," said he, when
+his glass was again upon the table.
+
+"In other words, I am to know nothing," exclaimed his exasperated
+companion.
+
+"Not from me."
+
+And this ended the conversation. Ransom withdrew immediately up-stairs.
+
+At ten o'clock he retired. The last look he cast down the hall had shown
+him the drowsy figure of the maid still sitting at her watch. It seemed
+to insure a peaceful night. But he had little expectation of sleep.
+Though the wind had quieted down and the rain fell with increasing
+gentleness, the roar of the waterfall surged through all his thoughts,
+which in themselves were turbulent. He did sleep, however, slept
+peacefully till half-past one, when he and all in the house were startled
+by a wild and piercing cry rising from one of the rooms. Terror was in
+the sound and in an instant every door was open save the two which were
+shut upon Georgian and her twin sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+"GEORGIAN!"
+
+
+Mr. Ransom was the first one in the hall. He had not undressed himself,
+expecting a totally sleepless night. It was his figure, then, that the
+maid encountered as she came running from her post at the end of the
+corridor.
+
+"Which room? which?" he gasped out, ignoring every precaution in his
+blind terror.
+
+"This one. I am sure it came from this one," she declared, knocking
+loudly on Anitra's door.
+
+There was a rustle within, a cry which was half a sob, then the sound of
+a hand fumbling with the lock. Meanwhile, Mr. Ransom had bent his ear to
+his wife's door.
+
+"All still in here," he cried. "Not a sound. Something dreadful has
+happened--"
+
+Just then Anitra's door fell back and a wild image confronted him and
+such others as had by this time collected in the passageway. With only a
+shawl covering her nightdress, the gipsy-like creature stood clawing the
+air and answering the looks that appealed to her, with wild gurgles, till
+suddenly her hot glances fell on Roger Ransom, when she instantly became
+rigid and stammered out:
+
+"She's gone! I saw her black figure go by my window. She called out that
+the waterfall drew her. She went by the little balcony and the roof. The
+roof was slippery with the rain and she fell. That's why I screamed. But
+she got up again. What is she going to do at the waterfall? Stop her!
+stop her! She hasn't steady feet like me, and I wasn't really angry. I
+liked her; I liked her."
+
+Sobs choked the rest. Her terror was infectious. Mr. Ransom reeled, then
+flung himself at Georgian's door. It resisted but the silence within told
+him that she was not there. Neither was she in Anitra's room. They could
+all look in and see it bare to the window.
+
+"You saw her climbing past there?" he cried, forgetting she was deaf.
+
+"Yes, yes," she chattered, catching his meaning from his pointing finger.
+"There's a balcony. She must have jumped on it from her own window. She
+didn't come in here. See! the door is locked on her side."
+
+This was true.
+
+"I woke and saw her. My eyes are like lynx's. I got out of bed to watch.
+She fell--"
+
+The noise of a breaking lock snapped her words in two. One of the men
+present had flung himself against this communicating door. Immediately
+they all crowded into the adjoining room. It was empty and bitterly cold
+and wet. An open window explained why, and possibly the letter lying on
+the bureau inscribed with her husband's name would explain the rest. But
+he stopped to read no letters now.
+
+"Show me the way to those falls," he cried, pocketing the letter as he
+rushed by the disheveled Anitra into the open hall. "I'm her husband,
+Roger Ransom. Who goes with me? He who does is my friend for life."
+
+The clerk and one or two others rushed for their coats and lanterns. He
+waited for nothing. The roar of the waterfall had told him too many tales
+that day. And the will! Her will just signed!
+
+"Georgian!"
+
+They could hear his cry.
+
+"Georgian! Georgian! Wait! wait! hear what I have to say!" thrilled back
+through the mist as he stumbled on, followed by the men waving their
+lanterns and shouting words of warning he probably never heard. Then his
+cry further off and fainter. "Georgian! Georgian!" Then silence and the
+slow drizzle of rain on the soggy walk and soaked roofs, with the far-off
+boom of the waterfall which Mrs. Deo and the trembling maids gazing at
+the wide-eyed Anitra shivering in the center of her deserted room, tried
+to shut out by closing window and blind, forgetting that she was deaf and
+only heard such echoes as were thundering in her own mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHERE THE MILL STREAM RUNS FIERCEST
+
+
+Two o'clock.
+
+Three o'clock.
+
+Two men were talking below their breaths in the otherwise empty office.
+"That 'ere mill stream never gives up anything it has once caught,"
+muttered one into the ear of the other. "It's swift as fate and in
+certain places deep as hell. Dutch Jan's body was five months at the
+bottom of it, before it came up at Clark's pool."
+
+The man beside him shivered and his hand roamed nervously towards his
+breast.
+
+"Did Jan, the Dutchman you speak of, fall in by accident, or did
+he--throw himself over--from homesickness, or some such cause?"
+
+"Wa'al we don't say; on account of his old mother, you know, we don't
+say. It was called accident."
+
+The other man rose and walked restlessly to the window.
+
+"Half the town is up," he muttered. "The lanterns go by like fire-flies.
+Poor Ransom! It's a hopeless job, I fear." And again his hand wandered to
+that breast pocket where the edge of a document could be seen. "I have
+half a mind to go out myself; anything is better than sitting here."
+
+But he sat down just the same. Mr. Harper was no longer a young man.
+
+"The storm's bating," observed the one.
+
+"But not the cold. Throw on a stick; I'm freezing."
+
+The other man obeyed; then looking up, stared. A girl stood before them
+in the doorway. Anitra, with cheeks ablaze and eyes burning, her
+traveling dress flapping damp about her heels, and on her head the red
+shawl she preferred to any hat. Behind her shoulder peered the anxious
+face of Mrs. Deo.
+
+"I'm going out," cried the former in the loud and unmodulated voice of
+the deaf. "He don't come back! he don't come back! I'm going to see why."
+
+The lawyer rose and bowed; then resolutely shook his head. He did not
+know whether she had appealed to him or not. She had not looked at him,
+had not looked at any one, but he felt that he must protest.
+
+"I beg you not to do so," he began. "I really beg you to remain here and
+wait with me. You can do no good and the result may be dangerous." But he
+knew he was talking to deaf ears even before the landlady murmured:
+
+"She doesn't hear a word. I've talked and talked to her. I've used every
+sign and motion I could think of, but it's done no good. She would dress
+and she will go out; you'll see."
+
+The next minute her prophecy came true; the wild thing, with a quick
+whirl of her lithe body, was at the front door, and in another instant
+had flashed through it and was gone.
+
+"It is my duty to follow her," said the lawyer. "Help me on with my coat;
+I'll find some one to guide me."
+
+"Here is a lantern. Excuse me for not going with you," pleaded Mrs. Deo,
+"but some one must watch the house."
+
+The New Yorker nodded, took the lantern offered him, and went stoically
+out.
+
+He met a man on the walk in front. He was faced his way and was panting
+heavily.
+
+"Hello," said he, "what news?"
+
+"They haven't found her; but there's no doubt she went over the fall. The
+fellow who calls himself her husband has just been reading a letter they
+say she left on her bureau for him. It was a good-by, I reckon, for you
+can't tear him from the spot. He says he'll stay there till daylight. I
+couldn't stand the sight of his misery myself. Besides, it's mortal cold;
+I've just been running to get warm. Who was the girl who just went
+scurrying by out of here? It's no place for wimmen down there. One lost
+gal is enough."
+
+"That's what I think," muttered the lawyer, hurrying on.
+
+He was not a very imaginative man; some of his best friends thought him a
+cold and prosaic one, but he never forgot that walk or the sensations
+accompanying it. Dark as it still was, the way would have been impassable
+for a stranger, had it not been for the guidance given by the noisy
+passing to and fro of the awakened townspeople. Those coming from the
+river approached in a direct line from one spot; those going to it
+advanced in the same line and to the same spot. A ring of lanterns marked
+it. It was near, very near where the heavy waters fell into a deep pool.
+No one now spoke of Anitra; she had evidently been warned by her first
+encounter to move with less precipitancy.
+
+As he approached the place of central interest, he moved more warily too.
+The ground was very bad; he had never walked in such slush. Once and
+again he tripped; once he came down upon his face. The boom of the waters
+was now very near; he could see nothing but the flicker of the lanterns,
+but he felt the near rush of the stream, and presently was at its very
+edge. Startled by the nearness of his escape, for he had almost lost
+his footing by his sudden halt, he started back, looked again at the
+lanterns, took a turn and came upon the dozen or more men bending over
+the edge of the stream where the waters ran most swiftly. But he did not
+join them. Another sight attracted his eyes and presently himself. This
+was the sight of Ransom crouched on the wet earth, staring down at a slip
+of paper he held in his hands. A lantern set in the sand at his feet sent
+its feeble rays over his face and possibly over the paper; but he was no
+longer reading it, he was simply so lost in its sorrowful contents that
+all power of movement had deserted him.
+
+Harper approached to his side, but he did not address him. Something
+stirred in his own breast and kept him silent. But there was another
+person near who was not so deterred. As Harper stood watching Ransom's
+crouched, almost insensible figure, he perceived a slight dark form steal
+from the shadows and lay a hand on the stooping man's shoulder, then as
+he failed to move or give any token of feeling this touch, he heard
+Anitra's voice say in accents almost musical:
+
+"You will get ill here; you are not used to the cold and the night air.
+Come back to the house; Georgian would wish it."
+
+The name roused him and he looked up. Their eyes met and a strange
+gleam--a shock, perhaps, of sympathetic feeling, flashed upon either
+face. The lawyer saw and instinctively retreated from out the circle of
+light cast by the lantern; but the men at the stream's edge heard
+nothing. The flash of something white had caught their eyes and one man
+was reaching for it.
+
+"Georgian," came in astonished repetition from the bereaved man's lips.
+
+"She would wish it," persisted the other with still deeper and more
+urgent meaning.
+
+[Illustration: A slight, dark form stole from the shadows and laid a
+hand on the stooping man's shoulder.]
+
+Then in a whisper so penetrating that even Mr. Harper caught its least
+inflection through all the thunder of the waterfall, "She loved you."
+
+Ah! the enchantment, the feminine persuasiveness, the heart-moving
+sincerity which breathed through that simple phrase! From lips so
+untutored, it seemed marvelous. Ransom was not insensible to its power,
+for he quivered under her hand and his eyes took on a look of wonder. But
+he made no attempt to answer, even by a sign. He seemed content for that
+one instant just to listen and to look.
+
+The man hanging over the stream drew back his arm. He had been deceived
+by a bit of froth; some of it clung yet to his fingers.
+
+"Come," entreated the girl, her face emerging softly into the light, as
+she stooped lower over the lantern. "Come!" she had taken him by the hand
+and was drawing him gently upward.
+
+With a leap he was on his feet and had thrown her off. Some memory had
+come to make her entreaty hateful.
+
+"No," he cried, "no! Here is my place and here will I stay. You are a
+stranger to me! You drove her to this act, and you shall not cajole me
+into forgetting it."
+
+He had spoken loudly; not so much because he remembered her affliction,
+but because of the roar of the fall and his own overwhelming passion. The
+result was that the lawyer caught every word; possibly the workers at the
+water-edge did also; for some of them quickly turned their heads. But
+she, though she stopped short in the spot where he had pushed her, gave
+no evidence of hearing his words or even of resenting his manner.
+
+"Won't you come?" she falteringly pleaded, pointing towards the house
+with its twinkling lights. "You are cold; you are shuddering; they will
+do the searching who don't mind night or wet. Follow Anitra, Anitra who
+is so sorry."
+
+"No!" he shouted. His tone, his look, were almost those of a madman. He
+even put out his hands towards her in repulsion. He seemed to cast her
+away. This gesture, if not his words, reached her understanding. The
+lawyer saw her sway, fling back her young head with its disheveled locks
+to the night, and fall moaning pitifully to the ground. Here she lay
+still, with the wet grass all about her and the last lingering drops of
+rain beating on her huddled form.
+
+Mr. Harper started to raise her, for Ransom stood petrified. But no
+sooner had the lawyer made his presence known by this impetuous movement,
+than Ransom woke from his trance and, darting down, lifted the girl in
+his arms and began moving with her towards the house. As he passed the
+lawyer he muttered between set teeth:
+
+"She's caused me all my misery. But she looks too much like Georgian for
+me to see another man touch her. God will care for my poor darling's
+body."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A DETECTIVE'S WORK
+
+
+Morning.
+
+The living household was about its tasks for all the horror of the night
+before, and the still unrelieved suspense as to the fate of one of its
+members.
+
+The maid, who had sat on watch in the upper hall for so many hours the
+evening before, was again at her post, but this time with her eye fixed
+only on one door, the door behind which slept the exhausted Anitra.
+Ransom's room was empty; he was in the sitting-room below, closeted with
+the lawyer.
+
+Some one had been there before them. The tray of bottles and glasses had
+been removed from the table, and in their place were to be seen a woman's
+damaged hat and a small tortoise-shell comb. Mr. Harper's hand was on the
+former, which was wound about with a wet veil.
+
+"I think I recognize this," said he. "At least I have a distinct
+impression of having seen it before."
+
+"It was picked up with the veil still on it near the entrance of the
+lane," explained Ransom.
+
+"Then there can be no doubt that it is the hat Miss Hazen wore during
+her journey. She tossed it off the moment her foot touched the ground,
+and taking the shawl from her neck pulled it over her head instead. You
+remember that she had no hat on when they brought her in."
+
+"I remember. This is Miss Hazen's hat without any doubt."
+
+The lawyer eyed the speaker with curious interest. There was something in
+his tone that he did not understand.
+
+"And this?" he ventured, laying a respectful finger on the comb.
+
+"Found in the open field between the house and the mill-stream."
+
+"Do you recognize it?"
+
+"No. Georgian wore such combs, but I cannot absolutely say that this is
+hers."
+
+"I can. You see this little gold work at the top? Well, I have an eye for
+such things and I noticed this comb in her hair last night. There were
+two of them just alike."
+
+Instinctively the two men sat with their eyes fixed for a minute on this
+comb, then, equally instinctively, they both looked up and gazed at each
+other long and hard. It was the lawyer who first spoke.
+
+"I think that we should have no further secrets between us," said he.
+"Here is Mrs. Ransom's will. There is a name mentioned in it which I do
+not know. Perhaps you do." Here he laid the document on the table.
+
+Mr. Ransom eyed it but did not take it up. Instead, he drew a crumpled
+paper from his own pocket and, handing it to the lawyer, said: "First,
+I should like you to read the letter which she left behind for me. My
+feelings as a husband would lead me to hold it as a sacred legacy from
+all eyes but my own; but there is a mystery hidden in it, a mystery which
+I must penetrate, and you are the only man who can assist me in doing
+so."
+
+The lawyer, lowering his eyes to hide their own suspicious glint, opened
+the paper, and carefully read these lines:
+
+  "Forgive. My troubles are too much for me. I'm going to a place of
+   rest, the only place and the only rest possible to one in my position.
+   I don't blame anybody. Least of all do I blame Anitra. It was not her
+   fault that she was brought up rudely, or that she knows no restraint
+   in love or in hate. Be kind to her for my sake, and if any one else
+   claims her or offers to take her from you, resist them. I give her
+   entirely to you. It's a more priceless gift than you think; much more
+   priceless than the one which I take from you by my death. I could
+   never have been happy with you; you could never have been happy with
+   me. Fate stood between us; a darker and more inexorable fate than you,
+   in your kindly experience of life, could imagine. Else, why do I
+   plunge to my death with your ring on my finger and your love in my
+   heart?
+
+  "Georgian."
+
+"Ravings?" questioned Ransom hoarsely, as Mr. Harper's eyes rose again to
+his face.
+
+"It would seem so," assented the lawyer. "Yet there is intelligence in
+all the lines. And the will--read the will. There is no lack of
+intelligent purpose there; little as it accords with the feeling she
+exhibits here for her sister. She leaves her nothing; and does not even
+mention her name. Her personal belongings she bequeaths to you; but her
+realty, which comprises the bulk of her property I believe, she divides,
+somewhat unequally I own, between you and a man named Auchincloss. It
+is he I want to ask you about. Have you ever heard her speak of him?"
+
+"Josiah Auchincloss of St. Louis, Missouri," read Mr. Ransom. "No, the
+name is new to me. Didn't she tell you anything about him when she gave
+you her instructions?"
+
+"Not a word. She said, 'You will hear from him if ever this will is
+published. He has a right to the money and I entreat you to show your
+respect for me by seeing that he gets it without any unnecessary
+trouble.' That was all she said or would say. Your wife was a woman of
+powerful character, Mr. Ransom. My little arts counted for nothing in any
+difference of opinion between us."
+
+"Auchincloss!" repeated Ransom. "Another unknown quantity in the problem
+of my poor girl's life. What a tangle! Do you wonder that I am overcome
+by it? Anitra--the so-called brother--and now this Auchincloss!"
+
+"Right, Ransom, I share your confusion."
+
+"Do you?" The words came very slowly, penetratingly. "Haven't you some
+idea--some strange, possibly half-formed notion or secret intuition which
+might afford some clew to this labyrinth? I have been told that lawyers
+have a knack of getting at the bottom of human conduct and affairs. You
+have had a wide experience; does it not suggest some answer to this
+problem which will harmonize all its discordant elements and make clear
+its various complications?"
+
+Mr. Harper shook his head, but there was a restrained excitement in his
+manner which was not altogether the reflection of that which dominated
+Ransom, and the latter, observing it, leaned across the table till their
+faces almost touched.
+
+"Do you guess my thought?" he whispered. "Look at me and tell me if you
+guess my thought."
+
+The lawyer hesitated, eying well the trembling lip, the changing color,
+the wide-open, deeply flushed eyes so near his own; then with a slow
+smile of extraordinary subtlety, if not of comprehension, answered in
+a barely audible murmur:
+
+"I think I do. I may be mad, but I think I do."
+
+The other sank back with a sigh charged with what the lawyer interpreted
+as relief. Mr. Harper reseated himself, and for a moment neither looked
+at the other, and neither spoke; it would almost seem as if neither
+breathed. Then, as a bird, deceived by the silence, hopped to the window
+sill and began its cheep, "cheep," Mr. Ransom broke the spell by saying
+in low but studiously business-like tones:
+
+"Have you thought it worth while to study the ground under her window or
+anywhere else for footprints? It might not be amiss; what do you think
+about it?"
+
+"Let us go," readily acquiesced the lawyer, rising to his feet with an
+honest show of alacrity; "after which I must telegraph to New York. I was
+expected back to-day."
+
+"I know it; but your duties there will keep; these here cannot. Your hand
+on the promise that you will respect my secret till--well, till I can
+assure you that my intuitions are devoid of any real basis."
+
+The lawyer's palm met his; then they started to go out; but before they
+had passed the door, Mr. Ransom came back, and lifting the comb from the
+table he put it in his pocket. As he did this, his eye flashed sidewise
+on the other. There were strange hints and presentiments in it which
+brought the color to the usually imperturbable lawyer's cheek.
+
+In going out they passed the office-door. A dozen men were hanging about,
+smoking and talking. Among them was a countryman who had just swallowed,
+open-mouthed, the story of the past night's tragedy. He was now speaking
+out his own mind concerning it, and this is what these two heard him say
+as they went by:
+
+"Do you know what strikes me as mighty strange? That they should clear
+that stone of the name of Anitra just in time to put Georgian's in its
+place. I call that peculiar, I do."
+
+The lawyer and the husband exchanged a glance.
+
+"Mrs. Ransom had a deep mind," the lawyer remarked, as the door slammed
+behind them. "She apparently thought of everything."
+
+Ransom, directing a look down the street towards the factories and the
+roaring mill-stream, uttered a shuddering sigh.
+
+"They are still searching," said he. "But they will never find her. They
+will never find her."
+
+The lawyer pulled him away.
+
+"That's because they search the water. We will search the land."
+
+"That's half water, too; but it cannot hide every clew. You have eyes for
+the imperceptible; use them, Mr. Harper, use them."
+
+"I will; but this is a detective's work. Do not expect too much from me."
+
+"I expect nothing. I do not dare to. Let us tread very softly, that is
+all, and be careful to talk low, if we have anything to say."
+
+By this time they had rounded the corner of the house and entered a
+narrow walk, flagged with brick, which connected the space in front
+with the rear offices and garden. This walk ran close to the walls which
+were broken on this side by an ell projecting in the direction of the
+mill-stream. It was from the roof of this ell that Anitra declared
+Georgian to have slipped and fallen.
+
+Their first care was to glance up at the roof. It was a sloping one and
+Anitra's story seemed credible enough when they noted how much easier it
+would be to drop upon it from the little balcony overhead than to
+traverse the roof itself and reach the ground beneath without slipping.
+But as they looked longer, each face betrayed doubt. The descent from the
+balcony was easy enough, but how about the passage from Georgian's window
+to the balcony? This latter was confined to the one window, and was
+surrounded by an ornamental balustrade, high enough to offer a decided
+obstacle to the adventurous person endeavoring to leap upon it from the
+adjoining window-ledge. However, this leap, made in the dark and under
+circumstances inducing the utmost recklessness, might look practical
+enough from the window-ledge itself, and Mr. Harper, making a remark to
+this effect, proposed that they should examine the ground rather than the
+house for evidences of Mrs. Ransom's slip and fall as related by Anitra.
+
+The only spot where they could hope to find such was in the one short
+stretch--the width of the ell--underlying the edge of the sloping roof.
+But this spot was all flagged, as I have already said, and when their
+eyes strayed beyond it to the untilled fields, stretching between them
+and the great rock at the verge of the waterfall from which she was
+supposed to have taken her fatal leap, it was to find them as
+unproductive of evidence as the brick walk itself. Not one pair of feet
+but many had passed that way since early morning. The ground showed a
+mass of impressions of all sizes and shapes, amid which it would have
+been impossible for them, without the necessary experience, to have
+followed up the flight of any one person. They had come to their task
+too late.
+
+"Futile," decided the lawyer. "There is no use in our going that way."
+And he turned to look again at the ground in their immediate vicinity. As
+he did so, his eye lighted on the triangular spot where the ell met the
+side of the house under the kitchen windows. Here there was no flagging,
+the walk taking a diagonal course from the corner of the ell to the
+kitchen door.
+
+"What are those?" he asked, pointing to two oblong impressions brimming
+with water which disfigured the center of this small plot.
+
+"They look like footprints," ventured Ransom.
+
+"They are footprints," decided Mr. Harper as they stooped to examine the
+marks, "and the footprints of a person dropping from a height. Nothing
+else explains their depth or general appearance."
+
+"Couldn't they be those of a person approaching the ell to converse with
+some one above? I see others similar to these in the open place over
+there beyond the kitchen door."
+
+"It is a trail. Let us follow it. It seems to lead anywhere but towards
+the waterfall. This is an important discovery, Mr. Ransom, and may lead
+to conclusions such as we might not otherwise have presumed to entertain,
+especially if we come upon an impression clear enough to point in which
+direction the person making it was going."
+
+"Here is what you want," Ransom assured him in a low and curiously
+smothered voice. He was evidently greatly excited by this result of their
+inquiries, for all his apparent quiet and precise movements. "It's a
+woman's step, and that woman was going from the ell when she left these
+tokens of her passage behind her. Going! and as you say not in the
+direction of the waterfall."
+
+"Hush! I see some one at the kitchen window. Let us move warily and be
+sure not to confound these prints with those of any other person. It
+looks as if a great many people had passed here."
+
+"Yes, this is the way to the chicken-coops and out-houses. But in the
+ground beyond I think I see a single line of steps again,--small steps
+like these. Where can they be leading? They are deep like those of a
+person running."
+
+"And straggling, like those of a person running in the dark. See how they
+waver from the direct line down there, turn, and almost come up against
+that wood-pile! Whose steps are these? Whose, Mr. Harper? Quick! I must
+see where they go. Our time will not be lost. The key to the labyrinth is
+in our hands."
+
+The lawyer was in the rear and the eyes of the other were fixed far
+ahead. For this reason, perhaps, the former allowed himself a quiet shake
+of the head, which might not have encouraged the other so very much, had
+he caught sight of it. They were now on the verge of the garden, or what
+would soon be a garden if these rains betokened spring. A path ran along
+its edge and in this path the footsteps they were following lost
+themselves; but they came upon them again among the hillocks of some old
+potato-hills beyond, and finally traced them quite across the garden
+waste to a fence, along which they ran, blundering from ploughed earth to
+spots of smoother ground, and so back again till they came upon an old
+turn-stile!
+
+Passing through this, the two men stopped and looked about them. They
+were in a road ridged with grass and flanked by bushes. One end ran east
+into a wooded valley, the other debouched on the highway a few feet to
+the right of the tavern.
+
+"The lane!" exclaimed Mr. Harper. "The lead towards the waterfall was a
+feint. It was in this direction she fled, and it is from this point that
+search must be made for her."
+
+Ransom, greatly perturbed, for this possibility of secret flight opened
+vistas of as much mystery, if not of as much suffering, as her death in
+the river, glanced at the sodden ground under their feet, and thus along
+the lane to where it lost itself from view among the trees.
+
+"No possible following of steps here," he declared. "A hundred people
+must have come this way since early morning."
+
+"It's a short cut from the Ferry. They told me last night that it
+lessened the distance by fully a quarter of a mile."
+
+"The Ferry! Can she be there? Or in the woods, or on her way to some
+unknown place far out of our reach? The thought is maddening, Mr. Harper,
+and I feel as helpless as a child under it. Shall we get detectives from
+the county-seat, or start on the hunt ourselves? We might hear something
+further on to help us."
+
+"We might; but I should rather stay on the immediate scene at present.
+Ah, there comes a fellow in a cart who should be able to tell us
+something! Stand by and I'll accost him. You needn't show your face."
+
+Mr. Ransom turned aside. Mr. Harper waited till the slow-moving horse,
+dragging a heavily jogging wagon, came alongside, and he had caught the
+eye of the low-browed, broad-faced farmer boy who sat on a bag of
+potatoes and held the reins.
+
+"Good morning," said he. "Bad news this way. Any better at the Ferry, or
+down east, as you call it?"
+
+"Eh?" was the lumbering, half-suspicious answer from the startled boy.
+"I've heard naught down yonder, but that a gal threw herself over the
+waterfall up here last night. Is that a fact, sir? I'm mighty curus to
+know. My mother knew them Hazens; used to wash for 'em years ago. She
+told me to bring up these taters and larn all I could about it."
+
+"We don't know much more than that ourselves," was the smooth and
+cautious reply. "The lady certainly is missing, and she is supposed to
+have drowned herself." Then, as he noted the fellow's eyes resting with
+some curiosity on Mr. Ransom's well-clad, gentlemanly figure, added
+gravely, and with a slight gesture towards the latter:
+
+"The lady's husband."
+
+The lad's jaw fell and he looked very sheepish.
+
+"Excuse me, misters, I didn't know," he managed to mutter, with a slash
+at his horse which was vainly endeavoring to pull the cart from the rut
+in which it had stuck. "I guess I'll go along to the hotel. I've a bag of
+taters for Mrs. Deo."
+
+But the cart didn't budge and the lawyer had time to say:
+
+"Guess you didn't hear anything said about another lady I am interested
+in. No talk down your way of a strange young woman seen anywhere on the
+highway or about any of the houses between here and the Landing?"
+
+"Jerusha! I did hear a neighbor of mine say somethin' about a stranger
+gal he saw this very mornin'. Met her down by Beardsley's. She was goin'
+through the mud on foot as lively as you please. Asked him the way to the
+Ferry. He noticed her because she was pretty and spoke in such a nice
+way--just like a city gal," he said. "Is it any one from this hotel?"
+added the fellow with a wondering look. "If so, she walked a mile before
+daylight in mud up to her ankles. A girl of powerful grit that! with a
+mighty good reason for catching the train."
+
+"Oh! there's an early train then?" asked the lawyer, ignoring the other's
+question with unmoved good-humor. "One, I mean, before the 10:50
+express?"
+
+"Yes, sir, or so I've heard. I never took it. Folks don't from here,
+except they're in an awful hurry. Will y'er say who the young woman is?
+Not--not--"
+
+"We don't know who she is," quietly objected the lawyer. "And you don't
+know who she is either," he severely added, holding the yawping
+countryman with his eye. "If you're the man I think you, you'll not talk
+about her unless you're asked by the constable or some one you are bound
+to answer. And what's more, you'll earn a five-dollar bill by going back
+the road you've come and bringing here, without any talk or fuss, the man
+you were just telling us about. I want to have a talk with him, but I
+don't want any one but you and him to know this. You can tell him it's
+worth money, if he don't want to come. Do you understand?"
+
+"You bet," chuckled the grinning lad. "A five-dollar bill is mighty
+clearing to the mind, sir. But must I turn right back before going on to
+the hotel and hearing the news?"
+
+"We'll help you turn the cart," grimly suggested Mr. Harper. "Get up
+there, Dobbin, or whatever your name is. Here, Ransom, lend a hand!"
+
+There was nothing for the fellow to do but to accept the help proffered,
+and turn his cart. With one longing look towards the hotel he jerked at
+the rein and shouted at the horse, which, after a few feeble efforts,
+pulled the cart about and started off again in the desired direction.
+
+"Sooner done, sooner paid," shouted the lawyer, as lad and cart went
+jolting off. "Remember to ask for Lawyer Harper when you come back. I
+won't be far from the office."
+
+The fellow nodded; gave one grinning look back and whipped up his nag.
+The lawyer and Ransom eyed one another. "It's only a possibility,"
+emphasized the former. "Don't lay too much stress upon it."
+
+"Let us speak plainly," urged Ransom. "Mr. Harper, are you sure that you
+know just what my thought is?"
+
+"The time has not come for discussing that question. Let us defer it.
+There is a fact to be settled first."
+
+"Whether the girl--"
+
+"No; this! Whether your wife could have jumped from her window to the
+balcony, as Anitra said. It did not look feasible from below, but as I
+then remarked to you, our opinion may change when we consider it from
+above. Will you go up-stairs with me to your wife's room?"
+
+"I will go anywhere and do anything you please, so that we learn the
+exact truth. But spare me the curiosity of these people. The crowd on
+this side is increasing."
+
+"We will go in by the kitchen door. Some one there will show us the way
+up-stairs."
+
+And in this manner they entered; not escaping entirely all curious looks,
+for human nature is human nature, whether in the kitchen or parlor.
+
+In the hall above Mr. Ransom took the precedence. As they neared the
+fatal room he motioned the lawyer to wait till he could ascertain if Miss
+Hazen would be disturbed by their intrusion. The door, which had been
+broken in between the two rooms, could not have been put back very
+securely, and he dreaded incommoding her. He was gone but a minute.
+Almost as soon as the lawyer started to follow him, he could be seen
+beckoning from poor Georgian's door.
+
+"Miss Hazen is asleep," whispered Ransom, as the other drew near. "We can
+look about this room with impunity."
+
+They both entered and the lawyer crossed at once to the window.
+
+"Your wife could never have taken the leap ascribed to her by the woman
+you call Anitra," he declared, after a minute's careful scrutiny of the
+conditions. "The balustrade of the adjoining balcony is not only in the
+way, but the distance is at least five feet from the extreme end of this
+window-ledge. A woman accustomed to a life of adventure or to the feats
+of a gymnasium might do it, but not a lady of Mrs. Ransom's habits. If
+your wife made her way from this room to the balcony outside her sister's
+window, she did it by means of the communicating door."
+
+"But the door was found locked on this side. There is the key in the lock
+now."
+
+"You are sure of this?"
+
+"I was the first one to call attention to it."
+
+"Then," began the lawyer judicially, but stopped as he noted the peculiar
+eagerness of Ransom's expression, and turned his attention instead to the
+interior of the room and the various articles belonging to Mrs. Ransom
+which were to be seen in it. "The dress your wife wore when she signed
+her will," he remarked, pointing to the light green gown hanging on the
+inside of the door by which they had entered.
+
+Ransom stepped up to it, but did not touch it. He could see her as she
+looked in this gown in her memorable passage through the hall the evening
+before, and, recalling her expression, wondered if they yet understood
+the nature of her purpose and the determination which gave it such
+extraordinary vigor.
+
+Mr. Harper called his attention to two other articles of dress hanging in
+another part of the room. These were her long gray rain-coat and the hat
+and veil she had worn on the train.
+
+"She went out bare-headed and in the plain serge dress in which she
+arrived," remarked Mr. Harper with a side glance at Ransom. "I wonder if
+the girl met on the highway was without hat and dressed in black serge."
+
+Ransom was silent.
+
+"Anitra's hat is below and here is Mrs. Ransom's. She who escaped from
+this house last night went out bare-headed," repeated the lawyer.
+
+Mr. Ransom, moving aside to avoid the probing of the other's eye, merely
+remarked:
+
+"You noticed my wife's dress very particularly it seems. It was of serge,
+you say."
+
+"Yes. I am learned in stuffs. I remarked it when she got into the coach,
+possibly because I was struck by its simplicity and conventional make.
+There was no trimming on the bottom, only stitching. Her sister's was
+just like it. They had the look of being ready-made."
+
+"But Anitra had no rain-coat. I remember that her shoulders were wet when
+she came in from the lane."
+
+"No, she had no protection but her blouse, black like her dress. I
+presume that her hot blood resented every kind of wrap."
+
+Again that sidelong glance from his keen eye. "She wore a checked silk
+handkerchief about her neck--the one she afterwards put over her head."
+
+"You were on the same train with my wife and sister-in-law," Ransom now
+said. "Did you sit near them? Converse with them, that is, with Mrs.
+Ransom?"
+
+"I have no reason for deceiving you in that regard," replied Mr. Harper.
+"I did not come up from New York on the same train they did. They must
+have come up in the morning, for when I arrived at the place they call
+the Ferry, I saw them standing on the hotel steps ready to step into the
+coach. I spoke to Mrs. Ransom then, but only a word. My grip-sack had
+been put under the driver's seat, and I saw that I was expected to ride
+with him, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather. Mrs. Ransom saw
+it too and possibly my natural hesitation, for she turned to me after she
+had seen her sister safely ensconced inside, and said something about her
+regret at having subjected me to such inconvenience, but did not offer to
+make room for me in the body of the coach, though there was room enough
+if the other had been the quiet lady she was herself. But she was not,
+and possibly this was Mrs. Ransom's excuse for her apparent lack of
+consideration for me. Before we reached the point where the lane cuts in,
+I became aware of some disturbance behind me, and when we really got
+there, I heard first the coach door opening, then your wife's voice,
+raised in entreaty to the driver, calling on him to stop before her
+sister jumped out and hurt herself. 'She is deaf and very wild' was all
+the explanation she gave after Miss Hazen had leaped into the wet road
+and darted from sight into what looked to me, in the darkness, like a
+tangled mass of bushes. Then she said something about her having had
+hard work to keep her still till we got this far; but that she was sure
+she would find her way to the hotel, and that we mustn't bother ourselves
+about it for she wasn't going to; Anitra and she had run this road too
+many times when they were children. That is all I have to tell of my
+intercourse with these ladies prior to our appearance at the hotel. I
+think it right for me to clear the slate, Ransom. Who knows what we may
+wish to write upon it next?"
+
+A slight shiver on Ransom's part was the sole answer he gave to this
+innuendo; then both settled themselves to work, the eyes of either
+flashing hither and thither from one small object to another, in this
+seemingly deserted room. In the momentary silence which followed, the
+even breathing of the woman in the adjoining room could be distinctly
+heard. It seemed to affect Mr. Ransom deeply, though he strove hard to
+maintain the business-like attitude he had assumed from the beginning
+of this unofficial examination.
+
+"She has confided nothing more to you since your return from the river
+bank?" suggested the lawyer.
+
+"No."
+
+The word came sharply, considering Mr. Ransom's usual manner. The lawyer
+showed surprise but no resentment, and turned his attention to the bag
+both had noted lying open on two chairs.
+
+"Nothing equivocal here," he declared, after a moment's careful scrutiny
+of its remaining contents. "The only comment I should make in regard to
+what I find here is that all the articles are less carefully chosen than
+you would expect from one of your wife's fondness for fine appointments."
+
+"They were collected in a hurry and possibly by telephone," returned the
+unhappy husband, after a shrinking glance into the bag. "The ones she
+provided in anticipation of her wedding are at the hotel in New York. In
+the trunks and bags there you will find articles as elegant as you could
+wish." Here he turned to the dresser, and pointed to the various objects
+grouped upon it.
+
+"These show that she arranged herself with care for her meeting with you
+last night. How did she appear at that interview? Natural?"
+
+"Hardly; she was much too excited. But I had no suspicion of what she
+was cherishing in her mind. I thought her intentions whimsical, and
+endeavored to edge in a little advice, but she was in no mood to receive
+it. Her mind was too full of what she intended to do.
+
+"Here's where she ate her supper," he added, picking up a morsel of crust
+from a table set against the wall. "And so this door was found fastened
+on this side?" he proceeded, laying his hand on the broken lock.
+
+"It had to be burst open, you see."
+
+"And the window?"
+
+"Was up. The carpet, as you can tell by look and feeling, is still wet
+with the soaking it got."
+
+Mr. Harper's air changed to one of reluctant conviction.
+
+"The evidence seems conclusive of your wife having left this room and the
+house in the remarkable manner stated by Miss Hazen. Yet--"
+
+This _yet_ showed that he was not as thoroughly convinced as the first
+phrase would show. But he added nothing to it; only stood listening,
+apparently to the even breathing of the sleeper on the other side of this
+loosely hanging door.
+
+As he did so, his eye encountered the hot, dry gaze of Mr. Ransom, fixed
+upon him in a suspense too cruel to prolong, and with a sudden change of
+manner he moved from the door, saying significantly as he led the way
+out:
+
+"Let us have a word or two in your own room. It is a principle of mine
+not to trust even the ears of the deaf with what it is desirable to keep
+secret."
+
+Had the glance with which he said this lingered a moment longer on his
+companion's face, he would undoubtedly have been startled at the effect
+of his own words. But being at heart a compassionate man, or possibly
+understanding his new client much better than that client supposed, he
+had turned quite away in crossing the threshold, and so missed the
+conscious flash which for a moment replaced the somber and feverish
+expression that had already aged by ten years the formerly open features
+of this deeply grieved man.
+
+Once in the hall, it was too dark to note further niceties of expression,
+and by the time Mr. Ransom's room was reached, purpose and purpose only
+remained visible in either face.
+
+As they were crossing the threshold, the lawyer wheeled about and cast a
+quick look behind him.
+
+"I observe," said he, "that you have a full and unobstructed view from
+here of the whole hall and of the two doors where our interest is
+centered. I presume you kept a strict watch on both last night. You let
+nothing escape you?"
+
+"Nothing that one could see from this room."
+
+With a thoughtful air, the lawyer swung to the door behind them. As it
+latched, the face of Mr. Ransom sharpened. He even put out a hand and
+rested it on a table standing near, as if to support himself in
+anticipation of what the lawyer would say now that they were again
+closeted together.
+
+Mr. Harper was not without his reasons for a corresponding agitation, but
+he naturally controlled himself better, and it was with almost a judicial
+air that he made this long-expected but long-deferred suggestion:
+
+"You had better tell me now, and as explicitly as possible, just what is
+in your mind. It will prevent all misunderstanding between us, as well as
+any injudicious move on my part."
+
+Mr. Ransom hesitated, leaning hard on the table; then, with a sudden
+burst, he exclaimed:
+
+"It sounds like folly, and you may think that my troubles have driven me
+mad. But I have a feeling here--a feeling without any reason or proof to
+back it--that the woman now sleeping off her exhaustion in Anitra's room
+is the woman I courted and married--Georgian Hazen, now Georgian Ransom,
+my wife."
+
+"Good! I have made no mistake. That is my thought, too," responded the
+lawyer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ANITRA
+
+
+A few minutes later they were discussing this amazing possibility.
+
+"I have no reason for this conclusion,--this hope," admitted Mr. Ransom.
+"It is instinct with me, an intuition, and not the result of my judgment.
+It came to me when she first addressed me down by the mill-stream. If you
+consider me either wrong or misled, I confess that I shall not be able to
+combat your decision with any argument plausible enough to hold your
+attention for a moment."
+
+"But I don't consider you either wrong or misled," protested the other.
+"That is," he warily added, "I am ready to accept the correctness of the
+possibility you mention and afterwards to note where the supposition will
+lead us. Of course, your first sensation is that of relief."
+
+"It will be when I am no longer the prey of doubts."
+
+"Notwithstanding the mystery?"
+
+"Notwithstanding the mystery. The one thing I have found it impossible to
+contemplate is her death;--the extinction of all hope which death alone
+can bring. She has become so blended with my every thought since the hour
+she vanished from my eyes and consequently from my protection, that I
+should lose the better part of my self in losing her. Anything but that,
+Mr. Harper."
+
+"Even possible shame?"
+
+"How, shame?"
+
+"Some reason very strong and very vital must underlie her conduct if what
+we suspect is true, and she has not only been willing to subject you and
+herself to a seeming separation by death, but to burden herself with the
+additional misery of being obliged to assume a personality cumbered by
+such a drawback to happiness and even common social intercourse as this
+of the supposed Anitra."
+
+"You mean her deafness?"
+
+"I mean that, yes. What could Mrs. Ransom's motive be (if the woman
+sleeping yonder is Mrs. Ransom) for so tremendous a sacrifice as this you
+ascribe to her? The rescue of her sister from some impending calamity?
+That would argue a love of long standing and of superhuman force; one far
+transcending even her natural affection for the husband to whom she has
+just given her hand. Such a love under such circumstances is not
+possible. She has known this long lost sister for a few days only. Her
+sense of duty towards her, even her compassion for one so unfortunate,
+might lead her to risk much, but not so much as that. You must look for
+some other explanation; one more reasonable and much more personal."
+
+"Where? where? I'm all at sea; blinded, dazed, almost at my wits' end. I
+can see no reason for anything she has done. I neither understand her nor
+understand myself. I ought to shrink from the poor creature there,
+sleeping off--I don't know what. But I don't. I feel drawn to her,
+instead, irresistibly drawn, as if my place were at her bedside to
+comfort and protect."
+
+At this impulsive assertion springing from a depth of feeling for which
+the staid lawyer had no measure, a perplexed frown chased all the
+urbanity from his face. Some thought, not altogether welcome, had come to
+disturb him. He eyed Mr. Ransom closely from under his clouded brows. He
+could do this now with impunity, for Mr. Ransom's glances were turned
+whither his thoughts and inclinations had wandered.
+
+"I would advise you," came in slow comment from the watchful lawyer, "not
+to be too certain of your conclusions till doubt becomes an absolute
+impossibility. Instinct is a good thing but it must never be regarded as
+infallible. It may be proved that it is your wife who has fled, after
+all. In which case it would be a great mistake to put any faith in this
+gipsy girl, Anitra."
+
+Mr. Ransom's face hardened; his eyes did not leave the direction in which
+they were set.
+
+"I will remember," said he.
+
+His companion did not appear satisfied, and continued emphatically:
+
+"Whether the woman now here is Mrs. Ransom or her wild and irresponsible
+sister, she is a person of dangerous will and one not to be lightly
+regarded nor carelessly dealt with. Pray consider this, Mr. Ransom, and
+do not allow impulse to supersede judgment. If you will take my advice--"
+
+"Speak."
+
+"I should treat her as if she were the woman she calls herself, or, at
+least, as if you thought her so. Nothing--" this word he repeated as he
+noted the incredulity with which the other listened--"would be so likely
+to make her betray herself as that."
+
+"Let us go back and listen again at her door," was Mr. Ransom's emphatic
+but inconsequent reply.
+
+The lawyer desisted from further advice, but sighed as he followed his
+new client into the hall. At the turn of the staircase they were stopped
+by the sound of wrangling voices in the office below. Mr. Harper heard
+his name mentioned and hastened to interfere. Assuring Mr. Ransom of his
+speedy return, he stepped down-stairs, and in a few minutes reappeared
+with a middle-aged man of characteristic appearance, whom he introduced
+to Mr. Ransom as Mr. Goodenough. The sight of the uncouth head of their
+youthful acquaintance of the morning peering up after him from the foot
+of the stairs was warranty sufficient that this was the man who had met
+the strange young lady on the highway early that morning.
+
+At sight of him Mr. Ransom felt that inner recoil which we all experience
+at the prospect of an immediate and definite termination of a long
+brooding doubt. In another instant and with one word this uncultured and
+hitherto unknown man would settle for him the greatest question of his
+life. And he did not feel prepared for it. He had an impulse almost of
+flight, as if in this way he could escape a certainty he feared. What
+certainty? Perhaps he could not have answered had he been asked. His mind
+was in a turmoil. He had feelings--instincts; that was all.
+
+The lawyer, noting his condition, undertook the leadership of affairs.
+Beckoning Mr. Goodenough into Mr. Ransom's room, he softly closed the
+door upon the many inquiring ears about, and, assuming the manner most
+likely to encourage the unsophisticated but straightforward looking man
+with whom he had to deal, quietly observed:
+
+"We hear that you met this morning a young girl going towards the Ferry.
+There is great reason why we should know just how this young girl looks.
+A lady disappeared from here last night, and though, from a letter she
+left behind her, we have every reason to believe that her body is
+somewhere in the river, yet we don't want to overlook the possibility
+of her having escaped alive in another direction. Can you describe the
+person you saw?"
+
+"Wa'al, I'm not much good at talk," was the embarrassed, almost halting
+reply. "I saw the gal and I remember just how she looked, but I couldn't
+put it into words to save my soul. She was pretty and chipper and walked
+along as if she was part of the mornin'; but that don't tell you much,
+does it? Yet I don't know what else to say. P'raps you could help me
+by asking questions."
+
+"We'll see. Was she light-complexioned? Yellow hair, you know, and blue
+eyes?"
+
+"No; I don't think she was. Not what I call light. My Sal's light; this
+gal wasn't like my Sal."
+
+"Dark, then, very dark, with a gipsy color and snapping black eyes?"
+
+"No, not that either. What I should call betweens. But more dark than
+light."
+
+Harper flashed a glance at Ransom before putting his next question.
+
+"What did she have on her head?"
+
+"Bless me if I can tell! It wasn't a sun-bonnet, nor was it slapped all
+over with ribbons and flowers like my darter's."
+
+"But she had some sort of hat on?"
+
+"Sartain. Did you think she was just running to the neighbors?"
+
+"But she wore no coat?"
+
+"I don't remember any coat."
+
+"Do you remember her frock?"
+
+"No, not exactly."
+
+"Don't you remember its color?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Wasn't it black? the skirt of it, at least?"
+
+"Black? Wa'al, I guess not. A gal of her age in black! No, she was as
+bright as the flowers in my wife's garden. Not a black thing on her. I
+should sooner think her clothes were red than black."
+
+Harper showed his surprise.
+
+"Not a black skirt?" he persisted.
+
+"No, sir'ee. I haven't much eye for fixin's but I've eye enough to know
+when a gal's dressed like a gal and not like some old woman."
+
+Harper's eye stole again towards Ransom.
+
+"Checkmate in four moves," he muttered. "The person we are interested in
+could have worn no such clothing as Mr. Goodenough describes. Yet
+clothing can be changed. How, I cannot see in this instance; but I will
+risk no mistake. The trail we followed led too surely in the direction of
+the highway for us to drop all inquiries because of a colored skirt and a
+hat we cannot quite account for. If the face is one we know (and I
+really believe it was), we can leave the other discrepancies to future
+explanation." And turning back to the patient countryman, he composedly
+remarked: "You are positive in your recollections of the young lady's
+features. You would have no difficulty in recognizing her if you saw her
+again?"
+
+"Not a bit. Once I get a picter in my mind of a man or a woman I see it
+always. And I can see her as plain as plain the moment I stop to think.
+She was pretty, you see, and just a little scared to speak to a stranger.
+But that went as she saw my face, and she asked me very perlite if she
+was on the right road to the Ferry."
+
+"And you told her she was?"
+
+"Sartain; and how much time she had to get there to catch the boat."
+
+"I see. So you would know her again if you saw her."
+
+"I jest would."
+
+The lawyer made a move towards the door which Mr. Ransom hastened to
+open. As the long vista of the hall disclosed itself, Mr. Harper turned
+upon the countryman with the quiet remark:
+
+"There were two ladies here, you know. Twins. Their likeness was
+remarkable. If we show you the remaining one who now lies asleep, you
+surely will be able to tell if she is like the lady you saw."
+
+"If she looks just like her you can bet beans against potatoes on that."
+
+"Come, then. You needn't feel any embarrassment, for she's not only sound
+asleep but so deaf she couldn't hear you if she were awake. You need only
+take one glance and nod your head if she looks like the other. It is very
+desirable that none of us should speak. The case is a mysterious one and
+there's enough talk about it already without the women hiding and
+listening behind every shut door you see, adding their gossip to the
+rest."
+
+A knowing look, a twitch at the corners of a good-natured mouth, and the
+man followed them down the hall, past one or two of the doors alluded to,
+till they reached the one against the panel of which Mr. Ransom had
+already laid his ear.
+
+"Still asleep," his gesture seemed to signify; and with a word of caution
+he led the way in.
+
+The room was very dark. Mrs. Deo had been careful to draw down the shade
+when she put her strange charge to bed, and at this first moment of
+entrance it was impossible for them to see more than the outline of a
+dark head upon a snowy pillow. But gradually, feature by feature of the
+sleeping woman's countenance became visible, and the lawyer, turning his
+acute gaze on the man from whose recognition he expected so much,
+impatiently awaited the nod which was to settle their doubt.
+
+But that nod did not come, not even after Mr. Ransom, astonished at the
+long pause, turned on the stranger his own haggard and inquiring eyes.
+Instead, Mr. Goodenough lifted a blank stare to either face beside him,
+and, shaking his head, stumbled awkwardly back in an endeavor to leave
+the room. Mr. Ransom, taken wholly by surprise, uttered some peremptory
+ejaculation, but a glance from the lawyer quieted him, and not till they
+were all shut up again in that convenient room at the head of the stairs
+did any of the three speak.
+
+And not even then without an embarrassed pause. Both the lawyer and his
+unhappy client had a deep and, in the case of the latter, a heartrending
+disappointment to overcome, and the clock on the stairs ticked out
+several seconds before the lawyer ventured to remark:
+
+"Miss Hazen's face is quite new to you, I perceive. Evidently it was not
+her twin sister you met on the high road this morning."
+
+"Nor anything like her," protested the man. "A different face entirely;
+prettier and more saucy. Such a gal as a man like me would be glad to
+call darter."
+
+"Oh, I see!" assented the lawyer. Then with the instinctive caution of
+his class, "You have made no mistake?"
+
+"Not a bit of a one," emphasized the other. "Sorry I can't give the
+gentleman any hope, but if the sisters look alike, it was not this
+woman's twin I met. I'm ready to take my oath on that."
+
+"Very well. One catches at straws in a stress like this. Here's a fiver
+to pay for your trouble, and another for the lad who brought you here.
+Good day. We had no sound reason for expecting any different result from
+our experiment."
+
+The man bowed awkwardly and went out. Mr. Harper brought down his fist
+heavily on the table, and after a short interval of silence, during which
+he studiously avoided meeting his companion's eye, he remarked:
+
+"I am as much taken aback as yourself. For all he had to say about her
+gay clothing, I expected a different result. The girl on the highway was
+neither Mrs. Ransom nor her sister. We have made a confounded mistake and
+Mrs. Ransom--"
+
+"Don't say it. I'm going back to the room where that woman lies sleeping.
+I cannot yet believe that my heart is not shut up within its walls. I'm
+going to watch for her eyes to open. Their expression will tell me what I
+want to know;--the look one gives before full realization comes and the
+soul is bare without any thought of subterfuge."
+
+"Very well. I should probably do the same if I were you. Only your
+insight may be affected by prejudice. You will excuse me if I join you
+in this watch. The experiment is of too important a character for its
+results to depend upon the correct seeing of one pair of eyes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+"LOVE!"
+
+
+She lay in the abandonment of profound slumber, one hand under her cheek,
+the other hidden by the white spread Mrs. Deo had been careful to draw
+closely about her. Both Mr. Harper and Mr. Ransom regretted this fact,
+for each instinctively felt that in her hands, if not in her sleeping
+face, they should be able to read the story of her life. If that life had
+been a hard one, such as must have befallen the waif, Anitra, her hands
+should show it.
+
+But her hands were covered. And so, or nearly so, was her face; the
+latter by her long and curling locks of whose beauty I have hitherto
+spoken. One cheek only was visible, and this cheek looked dark to Ransom,
+decidedly darker than Georgian's; but realizing that the room itself was
+dark, he forbore to draw the attention of the lawyer to it, or even to
+allow it to affect his own judgment to the extent it reasonably called
+for.
+
+His first scrutiny over, Mr. Harper crossed over to his old seat against
+the wall. Mr. Ransom remained by the bed. And thus began their watch.
+
+It was a long and solemn one; a tedious waiting. The gloom and quiet of
+the small room was so profound that both men, for all their suspense and
+absorption in the event they awaited, welcomed the sound of a passing
+whisper or the careful stepping of feet in the corridor without.
+
+If they turned to look they could just catch the outline of each other's
+countenance, but this they did not often attempt. Their attention was
+held by the silent figure on the bed, and so motionless was this figure
+in the profound slumber in which it lay enchained, and so motionless were
+they in their increasing suspense and expectation, that time seemed to
+have come to a standstill in this little room. There was one break. The
+lips which had hitherto remained mute opened in a quiet murmur, and Mr.
+Harper, watching his client, saw him clutch the headboard in sudden
+emotion before he finally rose and, with looks still fixed on the bed,
+approached him with the startling announcement:
+
+"The word she whispered was '_Love_'! It must be Georgian."
+
+Alas! the same thought struck them both. Was this a proof? Mr. Ransom
+flushed hotly and crept softly back to his post.
+
+Again time seemed to stop. Then there came a cautious rap on the door,
+followed by the hasty retreat of the person knocking. It caused Mr.
+Ransom to stir slightly, but did not affect the lawyer. Suddenly the
+former rose with every evidence of renewed agitation. This drew Mr.
+Harper from his seat.
+
+"What is it?" he cried, softly approaching the other and whispering,
+though after events proved that he might have spoken aloud with impunity.
+
+Mr. Ransom pointed to her temple from which her hair had just fallen
+away.
+
+"The veining here. I have often studied it. I recognize its every
+convolution. It is Georgian, Georgian who lies there--ah, she's stirring,
+waking! Let me go--"
+
+He dragged himself from Mr. Harper's detaining hand, bent over the bed
+and murmured softly but with the thrilling intensity of a suffering,
+hoping heart, the name which at that moment meant the whole wide world
+to him:
+
+"Georgian!"
+
+Would she greet this expression with recognition and a smile? The lawyer
+half expected her to and stepped near enough to see, but the eyes which
+had opened upon the white wall in front of her stared on, and when they
+did turn, as they did after one halting, agonizing minute, it was in
+response to some movement made by Mr. Ransom and not in reply to his
+voice.
+
+This sudden and unexpected overthrow of his secretly cherished hopes
+was terrible. As he saw her rise on one elbow and meet his gaze with
+one which revealed the astonishment and resentment of a wild creature
+suddenly entrapped, he felt, or so he afterwards declared, as if the
+viper which had hitherto clung cold and deathlike about his heart had
+suddenly sprung to life and stung him. It was the most uncanny moment
+of his life.
+
+Aghast at the effect of this upon his own mind, he reeled from the room,
+followed by the lawyer. As they passed down the hall they heard her voice
+raised to a scream in uncontrollable shame and indignation. This was
+followed by the snap of her key in the lock.
+
+They had made a great mistake, or so the lawyer decided when they again
+stood face to face in Mr. Ransom's room. That the latter made no
+immediate answer was no proof that he did not coincide in the other's
+opinion. Indeed it was only too evident that he did, for his first words,
+when he had controlled himself sufficiently to speak, were these:
+
+"I should have taken your advice. In future I will. To me she is
+henceforth Anitra, and I shall treat her as my wife's sister. Watch if
+I fail. Anitra! Anitra!" He reiterated the word as if he would fix it in
+his mind as well as accustom his lips to it. Then he wheeled about and
+faced Harper, whose eyes he doubtless felt on him. "Yet I am not so
+thoroughly convinced as to feel absolute peace here," he admitted,
+striking his breast with irrepressible passion. "My good sense tells me
+I am a fool, but my heart whispers that the sweetness in her sleeping
+face was the sweetness which won me to love Georgian Hazen. That gentle
+sweetness! Did you note it?"
+
+"Yes, I noted what you mention. But don't let that influence you too
+much. The wildest heart has its tender moments, and her dreams may have
+been pleasant ones."
+
+Mr. Ransom remembered her unconscious whisper and felt stunned, silenced.
+The lawyer gave no evidence of observing this, but remarked quite easily
+and with evident sincerity:
+
+"I am more readily affected by proof than you are. I am quite convinced
+myself, that our wits have been wool-gathering. There was no mistaking
+her look of outraged womanhood. It was not your wife who encountered your
+look, but the deaf Anitra. Of course, you won't believe me. Yet I advise
+you to do so. It would be too dreadful to find that this woman really is
+your wife."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"I know what I am saying. Nothing much worse could happen to you. Don't
+you see where the hypothesis to which you persist in clinging would land
+you? Should the woman in there prove to be your wife Georgian--" The
+lawyer stopped and, in a tone the seriousness of which could not fail to
+impress his agitated hearer, added quietly, "you remember what I said to
+you a short time ago about _guilt_."
+
+"Guilt!"
+
+"No, the word was shame. But guilt better expresses my meaning. I repeat,
+should the woman prove to be, not the lovely but ignorant girl she
+appears, but Georgian Ransom, your wife, then upon her must fall the
+onus of Anitra's disappearance if not of her possible death. No! you must
+hear me out; the time has come for plain speaking. Your wife had her
+reasons--we do not know what they were, but they were no common ones--for
+wishing this intrusive sister out of the way. Anitra, on the contrary,
+could have desired nothing so much as the preservation of her protector.
+The conclusion is not an agreeable one. Let us hope that the question it
+involves will never be presented for any man's consideration."
+
+Mr. Ransom sank speechless into a chair. This last blow was an
+overwhelming one and he sank before it.
+
+Mr. Harper altered his tone. He had real commiseration for his client and
+had provided himself with an antidote to the poison he had just so
+ruthlessly administered.
+
+"Courage!" he cried. "I only wished you to see that there were worse
+losses to consider than that of your wife's desertion, even if that
+desertion took the form of suicide. There is a reason which you have
+forgotten for acquitting Mrs. Ransom of such criminal intentions and
+of accepting as your sister-in-law the woman who calls herself Anitra.
+Recall Mrs. Ransom's will; the general terms of which I felt myself
+justified in confiding to you. In it there are no provisions made for
+this Anitra. Had Mrs. Ransom, for any inexplicable reason, planned an
+exchange of identities with her sorely afflicted sister, she would have
+been careful to have left that sister some portion of her great fortune.
+But she did not remember her with a cent. This fact is very significant
+and should give you great comfort."
+
+"It should, it should, in face of the other alternative you have
+suggested as possible. But I fear that I am past comfort. In whatever
+light we regard this tragedy, it all means woe and disaster to me. I have
+made a mess of my life and I have got to face the fact like a man." Then
+rising and confronting Mr. Harper with passionate intensity, he called
+out till the room rang again:
+
+"Georgian is dead! You hear me, Georgian is dead!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"I DON'T HEAR"
+
+
+The afternoon passed without further developments. Mr. Harper, who had
+his own imperative engagements, left on the evening train for New York,
+promising to return the next day in case his presence seemed
+indispensable to his client.
+
+That client's final word to him had been an injunction to keep an eye on
+Georgian's so-called brother and to report how he had been affected by
+the news from Sitford; and when, in the lull following the lawyer's
+departure, Mr. Ransom sat down in his room to look his own position
+resolutely in the face, this brother and his possible connection with the
+confusing and unhappy incidents of this last fatal week regained that
+prominent place in his thoughts which the doubts engendered by the
+unusual character of these incidents had for a while dispelled.
+
+What had been the hold of this strange and uncongenial man on Georgian?
+And was his reappearance at the same time with that of a supposedly long
+deceased sister simply a coincidence so startling as to appear unreal?
+
+He had not seen Anitra again and did not propose to, unless the meeting
+came about in a natural way and without any show of desire on his part.
+If any suspicion had been awakened in the house by his peculiar conduct
+in the morning, he meant it to be speedily dissipated by the careful way
+in which he now held to his rôle of despairing husband whose only
+interest in the girl left on his hands was the dutiful one of a reluctant
+brother-in-law, who doubts the kindly feelings of his strange and
+unwelcome charge.
+
+The landlady, with a delicacy he highly appreciated, cared for the young
+girl without making her conspicuous by any undue attention. No tidings
+had come in of any discovery in the mill-stream or in the river into
+which it ran, and there being nothing with which to feed gossip, the
+townsfolk who had gathered about the hotel porches gradually began to
+disperse, till only a few of the most persistent remained to keep up
+conversation till midnight.
+
+Finally these too left and the house sank into quiet, a quiet which
+remained unbroken all night; for everybody, even poor Mr. Ransom, slept.
+
+He was up, however, with the first beam entering his room. How could he
+tell but that news of a definite and encouraging nature awaited him? Some
+one might have come in early from town or river. All search had not been
+abandoned. There were certain persistent ones who had gone as far as
+Beardsley's. Some of these might have returned. He would hasten down and
+see. But it was only to find the office empty, and though the household
+presently awoke and the great front door was thrown open to all comers,
+no eager straggler came rushing in with the tidings he equally longed and
+dreaded to receive.
+
+At half-past ten the representative of the county police called on Mr.
+Ransom, but with small result. Shortly after his departure, the mail
+came in and with it the New York papers. These he read with avidity. But
+they added nothing to his knowledge. Georgian's death was accepted as
+a fact, and the peculiarities of their history since their unfortunate
+wedding-day were laid bare with but little consideration for his feelings
+or the good name of his bride. With a sorer heart than ever, he flung the
+papers from him and went out to gather strength in the open air.
+
+There was a corner of the veranda into which he had never ventured. It
+was likely to be a solitary one at this hour, and thither he now went.
+But a shock awaited him there. A lady was pacing its still damp boards.
+A lady who did not turn her head at his step, but whom he instantly
+recognized from her dress, and wilful but not ungraceful bearing, as her
+whom he was determined to call, nay recognize, as Anitra Hazen.
+
+His judgment counseled retreat, but the fascination of her presence held
+him, and in that moment of hesitation she turned towards him and flight
+became impossible.
+
+It was the first opportunity he had had of observing her features in
+broad daylight. The effect was a confused one. She was Georgian and she
+was not Georgian. Her skin was decidedly darker, her eyes more lustrous,
+her bearing less polished and at the same time more impassioned. She was
+not so tall or quite so elegantly proportioned;--or was it her rude
+method of dressing her hair and the awkward cut of her clothes which made
+the difference. He could not be sure. Resolved as he was to consider her
+Anitra, and excellent as his reasons were for doing so, the swelling of
+his heart as he met her eye roused again the old doubt and gave an
+unnatural tone to his voice as he advanced towards her with an impetuous
+utterance of her name:
+
+"Anitra!"
+
+She shrunk, not at the word but at his movement, which undoubtedly was
+abrupt; but immediately recovered herself and, meeting him half-way,
+cried out in the unnaturally loud tones of the very deaf:
+
+"They don't bring my sister back. She is drowned, drowned. But you still
+have Anitra," she exclaimed in child-like triumph. "Anitra will be good
+to you. Don't forsake the poor girl. She will go where you go and be very
+obedient and not get angry ever again."
+
+He felt his hair rise. Something in her look, something in her manner of
+making evident the indefinable barrier between them even while expressing
+her desire to accompany him, made such a disturbance in his brain that
+for the moment he no longer knew himself, nor her, nor the condition of
+things about him. If she saw the effect she produced, she gave no
+evidence of it. She had begun to smile and her smile transformed her. The
+wild look which was never long out of her eyes softened into a milder
+gleam, and dimples he had been accustomed to see around lips he had
+kissed and called the sweetest in the world flashed for a moment in the
+face before him with a story of love he dared not read, yet found it
+impossible to forget or see unmoved.
+
+"What trial is this into which my unhappy fate has plunged me!" thought
+he. "Can reason stand it? Can I see this woman daily, hourly, and not go
+mad between my doubts and my love?"
+
+His face had turned so stern that even she noticed it, and in a trice the
+offending dimples disappeared.
+
+"You are angry," she pouted. "You don't want Anitra. Nod if it is so, nod
+and I will go away."
+
+He did not nod; he could not. She seemed to gather courage at this, and
+though she did not smile again, she gave him a happy look as she said:
+
+"I have no home now, nor any friend since sister has gone. I don't want
+any if I can stay with you and learn things. I want to be like sister.
+She was nice and wore pretty clothes. She gave me some, but I don't know
+where they are. I don't like this dress. It's black and all bad round the
+bottom where I fell into the mud."
+
+She looked down at her dress. It showed, in spite of Mrs. Deo's effort at
+cleaning it, signs of her tramp through the wet lane. He looked at it
+too, but it was mechanically. He was debating in his mind a formidable
+question. Should he grasp her hand, insist that she was Georgian and
+demand her confidence and the truth? or should he follow the lawyer's
+advice and continue to accept appearances, meet her on her own ground and
+give her the answer called for by her lonely and forsaken position? He
+found after a moment's thought that he had no choice; that he could not
+do the first and must do the last.
+
+"You shall come with me," said he quietly. "I will see that you have
+every suitable protection and care."
+
+She surveyed him with the same unmoved inquiry burning in her eyes.
+
+"I don't hear," said she.
+
+He looked at her, his lips set, his eyes as inquiring as her own.
+
+"I don't believe it," he muttered just above his breath.
+
+The steady stare of her eyes never faltered.
+
+"You loved sister, love me," she whispered.
+
+He fell back from her. This was not Georgian. This was the untutored girl
+about whom Georgian had written to him. Everything proved it, even her
+hands upon which his eyes now fell. Why had he not noticed them before?
+He had meant to look at them the first thing. Now that he did, he saw
+that he might have spared himself some of the miserable uncertainties of
+the last few minutes. They were small and slight like Georgian's, but
+very brown and only half cared for. That they were cared for at all
+astonished him. But she soon explained that. Seeing where his eyes were
+fixed, she cried out:
+
+"Don't look at my hands. I know they are not real nice like sister's. But
+I'm learning. She showed me how to rub them white and cut the nails. A
+woman did it for me the first time and I've been doing it ever since, but
+they don't look like hers, for all the pretty rings she bought me. Was I
+foolish to want the rings? I always had rings when I was with the
+gipsies. They were not gold ones, but I liked them. And Mother Duda liked
+rings too and made me one once out of beads. It was on my finger when my
+sister took me home with her. That is why she brought me these. She
+didn't think the bead one was good enough. It wasn't much like hers."
+
+Ransom recalled the diamonds and the rich sapphires he had been
+accustomed to see on his bride's hand.
+
+But this did not engage him long. Some method of communication must be
+found with this girl, which could be both definite and unmistakable.
+Feeling in his pocket, he brought out pencil and a small pad. He would
+write what he had to say, and was hesitating over the words with which to
+open this communication, when he saw her hand thrust itself between his
+eyes and the pad, and heard these words uttered in a resolute tone, but
+not without a hint of sadness:
+
+"I cannot read. I have never been taught."
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+Money
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+GOD'S FOREST, THEN MAN'S
+
+
+The pencil and pad fell from Mr. Ransom's hands. He stared at the girl
+who had made this astonishing statement, and his brain whirled.
+
+As for her, she simply stooped and picked up the pad.
+
+"You feel badly about that," said she. "You want me to read. I'll learn.
+That will make me more like sister. But I know some things now. I know
+what you are thinking about. You are curious about my life, what it has
+been and what kind of a girl I am. I'll tell you. I can talk if I cannot
+hear. I heard up to two years ago. Shall I talk now? Shall I tell you
+what I told Georgian when she found me crying in the street and took me
+home to her house?"
+
+He nodded blindly.
+
+With a smile as beautiful as Georgian's--for a moment he thought more
+beautiful--she drew him to a seat. She was all fire and purpose now. The
+spark of intelligence which was not always visible in her eye burned
+brightly. She would have looked lovely even to a stranger, but he was not
+thinking of her looks, only of the hopelessness of the situation, its
+difficulties and possibly its perils.
+
+"I don't remember all that has happened to me," she began, speaking very
+fast. "I never tried to remember, when I was little; I just lived, and
+ran wild in the roads and woods like the weasels and the chipmunks. The
+gipsies were good to me. I had not a cross word in years. The wife of the
+king was my friend, and all I knew I learned from her. It was not much,
+but it helped me to live in the forest and be happy, as long as I was a
+little girl. When I grew up it was different. It was the king who was
+kind then, and the woman who was fierce. I didn't like his kindness, but
+she didn't know this, for after one day when she caught him staring at me
+across the fire, she sent me off after something she wanted in a small
+town we were camping near, and when I came back with it, the band was
+gone. I tried to follow, but it was dark and I didn't know the way;
+besides I was afraid--afraid of him. So I crept back to the town and
+slept in the straw of a barn I found open. Next day I sold my earrings
+and got bread. It didn't last long and I tried to work, but that meant
+sleeping under a roof, and houses smothered me, so I did my work badly
+and was turned out. Then I sold my ring. It was my last trinket, and when
+the few cents I got for it were gone, I wandered about hungry. This I was
+used to and didn't mind at first, but at last I went to work again, and
+I did better now for a little while, till one evening I saw, through the
+stable window of the inn where I was working, two black eyes staring in
+just as they stared across the dying embers of the gipsy camp. I did not
+scream, but I hid myself, and when they were gone away stole out and
+got on the cars, and gave the man my last dollar--all the money I had
+earned--for a ride to New York. I did not know any better. I knew he
+never went to New York, and I thought I would be safe from him there. But
+of the difference between the woods and a forest of brick and stone I
+never thought; of night with no shelter but the wall of some blind alley;
+of hunger in the sight of food, and wild beasts in the shape of men. I
+didn't know where to go or who to speak to. If any one stared at me long,
+I turned and ran away. I ran away once from a policeman. He thought me a
+thief, and started to run after me. But people slipped in between us and
+I got away. What happened next I don't know. Perhaps I was thrown down,
+perhaps I fell. I had come a long way and I was tired. When I did know
+anything, I was lying on my back in a narrow street, looking up at a tall
+building that seemed to go right up into the sky like the great rocks I
+had sometimes slept under when I was with the gipsies. Only there were
+windows in the rock, out of which looked faces, and I got looking back
+at one of these faces and the face looked at me, and I liked it and got
+up on my knees and held up my arms, and the face drew back out of sight,
+and I felt very sorry and cried and almost laid down again. I seemed so
+alone and hurt and hungry. But the children--there were crowds of
+children--wouldn't let me. They got in a ring and pulled at me, and some
+one cried: 'Big cheeks is coming! Big cheeks will eat her up,' and I was
+angry and got up on my feet. But I couldn't walk; I screamed when I tried
+to, which frightened the children, and they all ran away. But I didn't
+fall; an arm was round me, a good, kind arm, and though I didn't see the
+face of the woman who helped, for she had her head wrapped up in an old
+shawl, I felt that it was the same which had looked out of the window
+at me, and went willingly enough when she began to draw me toward the
+house and up the first flight of stairs, though I could hardly help
+screaming every time my foot touched the ground. At the top of the first
+flight I stopped; I could go no further. The woman heard me pant, and
+pushing the covering from her eyes, she turned my face towards the light
+and looked at it. I thought she wanted to see if I was strong enough to
+go on, but that wasn't it at all, for in a minute I heard her say, in a
+voice so sweet I thought I had never heard the like, 'Yes, you're pretty;
+I want a pretty girl to stay with me and go about selling my things. I
+love pretty girls; I never was pretty myself. Will you stay with me if I
+take you up to my room and take care of you? I'll be good to you, little
+duckling, everybody about here will tell you that; everybody but the
+children, they don't like me.' I moaned, but it was from happiness. It
+seemed too good to hear that cooing voice in my ear. I thought of my
+mother--a dream--and my arms went up as they had in the street below. 'I
+will stay,' I said. She caught my hands and that is all I remember till I
+found myself in bed, with my ankle bound up and a gentle hand smoothing
+my hair. It was a month before I walked again. All the time this woman
+tended me, but always from behind. I did not see her face--not well--only
+by glimpses and then only partly, for the shawl was always over her head,
+covering everything but her eyes and mouth. These were small, the
+smallest I ever saw, little pig eyes, and little screwed up mouth; but
+the look of them was kindly and that was all I cared about then; that and
+her talk, which made me cry one minute and laugh the next. I have never
+cried so much or laughed so much in my life as I did that one month. She
+told such sad things and she told such funny ones. She made me glad to
+see her come in and sorry to see her go out. She let no one else come
+near me. I did not care; I liked her too well. I was never tired of
+listening to her praises and she praised me a great deal. I even did not
+mind sleeping under a roof as much as I had before, perhaps because we
+were so near it; perhaps because the room was so full of all sorts of
+things, I never got tired of looking at them. Pretty things she called
+them, but when I saw more things, things outside in shop windows and the
+houses I afterwards went into, I knew they were very cheap things and not
+always pretty. But she thought they were, and used to talk about them by
+the hour and tell me stories she had made up about the pictures she had
+cut out of newspapers. And I learned something; I could not help it, and
+even began to think a bit--something I had never done before. But when I
+got on my feet again, and was given the choice of staying there all the
+time, I did not know at first whether I wanted to or not. For Mother Duda
+had been very honest with me, and the minute she found that I could walk
+again had told me that I would have to have great patience if I lived
+with her, and endure a very disagreeable sight. Then she pulled off her
+shawl and I saw her as she was and almost screamed, she looked so horrid
+to me, but I didn't quite, for her eyes wouldn't let me. They seemed to
+ask me not to care, but to love her a little though she was a fright to
+look at, and I tried but I couldn't, I could only keep from screaming.
+
+"She had a goitre; that is what she called it, and the great pocket of
+flesh hanging down on either side of her neck frightened me. It
+frightened everybody; she was used to that, but she said she loved me and
+felt my fear more than she did others. Could I bear to live with her,
+knowing what her shawl hid? If I could she would be good to me, but if I
+couldn't she would do what she could to get me honest work in some other
+place. I didn't answer at first, but I did before she had put her shawl
+on again. I told her that I would forget everything but her good smile,
+and stay with her a little while. I stayed three years, helping her by
+going about and selling the tatting work she made.
+
+"She could make beautiful patterns and so neat, but she couldn't sell
+them, on account of her awful appearance. So I was very useful to her,
+and felt I was earning my meat and drink and the kind looks and words
+which made them taste good. It taught me a lot, going around. I saw
+people and how they lived and what was nice and what wasn't. I was only
+sorry that Mother Duda couldn't go too. She loved pretty things so. But
+she never went out except at a very early hour in the morning, so early
+that it was still dark. It seemed a terrible hour to me, but she always
+came in with a smile, and when one day I asked her why, she said, because
+she saw so many other poor creatures out at this same hour, who were
+worse to look at than she was. This didn't seem possible to me, and once
+I went out with her to see. But I never went again. Such faces as we met;
+such deformity--men who never showed themselves by day--women who loved
+beauty and were hideous. We saw them on street corners--coming up cellar
+steps, slinking in and out of blind alleys--never where it was light--and
+they shrank from each other, but not from the policeman. They were not
+afraid of his eye; they were used to him and he to them. After I had
+passed a dozen such miserable creatures, I felt myself one of them and
+never wanted to go out at this hour again.
+
+"Don't you believe this part of my story," she suddenly asked, looking up
+into Mr. Ransom's troubled face? "Ask the policeman who tramps about
+those streets every night; he'll tell you."
+
+The question on Ransom's lips died. What use of asking what she could not
+hear.
+
+"I wish I knew what you were thinking," she now murmured softly, so
+softly that he hardly caught the words. "But I never shall, I never
+shall. I will tell you now how I became deaf," she promised after a
+moment of wistful gazing. "Is there any one near? Can anybody hear me?"
+she continued, with a suspicious look about her.
+
+He shook his head. It was the first movement he had made since she began
+her story.
+
+This apparently reassured her, for she proceeded at once to say:
+
+"Mother Duda had never told me anything about herself. It scared me then
+when one morning I found sitting at the breakfast table a man who she
+said was her son. He was big and pale looking, and had a slight swelling
+on one side of his neck which made me sick; but I tried to be polite,
+though I did not like him at all and had a sudden feeling of having no
+home any more. That was the first day. The next two were worse. For he
+didn't hate me as I did him, and wouldn't leave the house while I was
+there, saying he could not bear to be away from his mother. But he
+skipped out quick enough after I was gone, so the neighbors said, and
+sometimes I think he followed me. Mother Duda wasn't like her old self at
+all. She loved him, he was her son, but she didn't like all he did. She
+wanted him to work; he wouldn't work. He sat and stared at me as the
+gipsy king used to stare, and if I grew red and hot it was from shame and
+fear and horror of the great throat I saw growing from day to day, and
+which would some time be like his mother's. He knew I didn't like him,
+but he wasn't good like Mother Duda, and told me one day that he was
+going to make me his wife, whether I wanted him to or not, and talked
+about a great secret, and the big man he would be some day. This made me
+angry, and I said that all the bigness he would ever have would be in his
+neck. At which he struck me, right across the ear, hard, so hard that I
+fell on the floor with a scream, and Mother Duda came running. He was
+sorry then and threw down the thing he had in his hand; but the harm had
+been done and I was sick a month and had doctors and awful pain, and when
+I was well again I couldn't hear a sound with that ear. Hans wasn't there
+while I was ill; I shouldn't have got well if he had been; but he came
+back when I was up again and was very meek though he didn't stop looking
+at me. I thought I would run away one day, and went out without my
+basket, but after I had tried two whole days to get work and couldn't, I
+went back. Mother Duda almost squeezed the heart out of me for joy, and
+Hans went down on his knees and promised not to do or say anything more
+that I didn't like. He even promised to go to work, but his work was of a
+queer kind. It kept him in his little room and meant spending money, and
+not getting it. Men came to see him and were locked up with him in his
+little room. And if he went out, he locked the door and took the key
+away, and said great times were coming and that I would be glad to marry
+him some day, whether his neck was big or small. But I knew I shouldn't
+and kept very close to Mother Duda and begged her to get me a new home,
+and she promised and I was feeling happier, when one day Hans was called
+out by a man and went away so fast that he forgot to lock his door, and
+Mother Duda and I went into the room, and it was then that the thing
+happened which spoiled all my life. I don't understand it. I never did,
+for no one could tell me anything after that day. Mother Duda had gone
+up to a table and was moving things about, trying to see what they were,
+when everything turned black, the room shook, and I was whirling all
+about, trying to take hold of things which seemed to be falling about me,
+till I too fell. When I knew anything, there was lots of people looking
+at me; people of the house, men, women, and children, but what was
+strangest of all was the awful stillness. No one made any sound--nothing
+made any sound, though I saw an old book-shelf tumble down from the wall
+while I was looking, and people moved about and opened their lips and
+seemed to be talking. Had Hans struck me again? I began to think so, and
+got up from the floor where I was lying and tried to call out, but my
+voice made no noise though people looked around as if it had, and I felt
+an awful fright, not only for myself but for Mother Duda, who was being
+carried out of the door by two men, and who did not move at all and who
+never moved again. Poor Mother Duda, she was killed and I was deaf. I
+knew it after a little while, but I don't know what did it; something
+that Hans had; something that Mother Duda touched--a square something--I
+had just caught a glimpse of it in Mother Duda's hand when the room flew
+into a wreck and I became what I am now."
+
+"Dynamite," murmured Ransom; then paused and had a small struggle with
+his heart, for she was looking up into his face, demanding sympathy with
+Georgian's eyes; and being close together on the short seat, he could not
+help but feel her shudders and share the intense excitement which choked
+her.
+
+"Oh," she cried, as he laid his hand a moment on her arm and then took it
+away again, "one minute to hear! the next to find the world all still,
+always still,--a poor girl--not knowing how to read or write! But you
+cannot care about that; you cannot care about me. It's sister you want
+to hear about, how she came to find me; how we came here for new and
+terrible things to happen; always for new and terrible things to happen
+which I don't understand.
+
+"Hans never came back. All sorts of policemen came into the house,
+doctors came, priests came, but no Hans. Mother Duda was buried, I rode
+in a coach at the funeral, but still no Hans. The old life was over, and
+when the food was all gone from the shelves, I took my little basket and
+went out, not meaning to come back again. And I did not. I sold my basket
+out; got a handful of pennies and went to the market to get something to
+eat. Then I went into a park, where there were benches, and sat down to
+rest. I did not know of any place to go to and began to cry, when a lady
+stopped before me, and I looked up and saw myself.
+
+"I thought I was dreaming or had the fever again, as when I was sick with
+my ear, and I thought it was myself as I would look in heaven, for she
+had such beautiful clothes on and looked so happy. But when she talked, I
+could see her lips move and I couldn't hear; and I knew that I was just
+in the park with my empty basket and my onion and bread, and that the
+lady was a lady and no one I knew, only so like what I had seen of myself
+in the glass that I was shaking all over, and she was shaking all over,
+and neither of us could look away. And still her lips moved, and seeing
+her at last look frightened and angry that I didn't answer, I spoke and
+said that I was deaf; that I was very sorry that I couldn't hear because
+we looked so much alike, though she was a great lady and I was a very,
+very poor girl who hadn't any home or any friends, or anything to wear or
+eat but what she saw. At this her eyes grew bigger even than before, and
+she tried to talk some more, and when I shook my head she took hold of my
+arm and began drawing me away, and I went and we got on the cars, and she
+took me to a house and into a room where she took away my basket and put
+me in a chair, and took off first her hat, then my own, and showed me the
+two heads in a glass, and then looked at me so hard that I cried out,
+'Sister,' which made her jump up and put her hand on her heart, then look
+at me again harder and harder, till I remembered way back in my life, and
+I said:
+
+"'When I was a little girl I had a sister they called my twin. That was
+before I lived in the woods with the gipsies. Are you that sister grown
+up? The place where we played together had a tall fence with points at
+the top. There were flowers and there were bushes with currants on them
+all round the fence.'
+
+"She made a sudden move, and I felt her arms about my neck. I think she
+cried a little. I didn't, I was too glad. I knew she was that sister the
+moment our faces touched, and I knew she would care for me, and that I
+needn't go back into the streets any more. So I kissed her and talked a
+good deal and told her what I've been telling, and she tried to answer,
+tried as you did to write, but all I could understand was that she meant
+to keep me, but not in the place where we were, and that I was to go out
+again. But she fixed me up a little before we went out, and she bought
+me some things, so that I looked different. Then we went into another
+house, where she talked with a woman for a long time, and then sat down
+with me and moved her lips very patiently, motioning me to watch and try
+to understand. But I was frightened and couldn't. So she gave up and,
+kissing me, made motions with her hands which I understood better; she
+wanted me to stay there while she went away, and I promised to if she
+would come back soon. At this she took out her watch. I was pleased with
+the watch, and she let me look at it, and inside against the cover I saw
+a picture. You know whose it was."
+
+The depths to which her voice sank, the trembling of her tones, startled
+Ransom. Had she been less unfortunate, he would have moved to a different
+seat, but he could not show her a discourtesy after so pitiful a tale.
+But the nod he gave her was a grave one, and her cheek flushed and her
+head fell, as she softly added: "It was the first time I ever saw a face
+I liked--you won't mind my saying so,--and I wanted to keep the watch,
+but sister carried it away. She didn't tell me what it meant, her having
+your picture where she could see it all the time, but when she came again
+she made me know that you and she were married, by pointing at the
+picture and then throwing something white over her head; I didn't ask for
+the watch after that, but--"
+
+A far-away look, a trembling of her whole body, finished this ingenuous
+confession. Ransom edged himself away and then was sorry for it, for her
+lip quivered and her hands, from being quiet, began that nervous
+interlacing of the fingers which bespeaks mental perturbation.
+
+"I am very ignorant," she faltered; "perhaps I have said something wrong.
+I don't mean to, I want to be a good girl and please you, so that you
+won't send me away now sister is gone. Ah, I know what you want," she
+suddenly broke out, as he seized her by the arm and looked inquiringly at
+her. "You want me to tell why I jumped out of the carriage that night and
+vexed Georgian and was naughty and wouldn't speak to her. I can't, I
+can't. You wouldn't like it if I did. But I'm sorry now, and will never
+vex you, but do just what you want me to. Shall I go up-stairs now?"
+
+He shook his head. How could he let her go with so much unsaid? She had
+talked frankly till she had reached the very place where his greatest
+interest lay. Then she had suddenly shown shyness of her subject and
+leaped the gap, as it were, to the present moment. How recall her to the
+hour when she had seen Georgian for the second time? How urge her into a
+description of those days succeeding his wife's flight from the hotel, of
+which he had no account, save the feverish lines of the letter she had
+sent him. He was racking his brain for some method of communicating his
+wishes to Anitra, when he heard steps behind him, and, turning, saw the
+clerk approaching him with a telegram.
+
+He glanced at her slyly as he took it. Somehow he couldn't get used to
+her deafness, and expected her to give some evidence of surprise or
+curiosity. But she was still studying her hands, and as his eyes lingered
+on her downcast face he saw a tear well from her lids and wet the cheek
+she held partly turned from him. He wanted to kiss that tear, but
+refrained and opened his telegram instead. It was from Mr. Harper, and
+ran thus:
+
+   Expect a visitor. The man we know has left the St. Denis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IN MRS. DEO'S ROOM
+
+
+A prey to fresh agitation, he stepped back to Anitra's side. Surely she
+must understand that it was Georgian and not herself about whom he was
+most anxious to hear. But she did not seem to. The smile with which she
+greeted him suggested nothing of the past. It spoke only of the future.
+
+"I will learn to be like sister," she impulsively cried out, rising and
+beaming brightly upon him. "I will forget the old gipsy ways and Mother
+Duda's ways, and try to be nice and pretty like my sister. And you shall
+learn me to read and write. I've known deaf people who learned. Then I
+shall know what you think; now I only know how you feel."
+
+He shook his head, a little sadly, perhaps. There were people who could
+teach her these arts, but not he. He had neither the ability, the
+courage, nor the patience.
+
+"Then some one shall learn me," she loudly insisted, her cheek flushing
+and her eye showing an angry spark. "I will not be ignorant always; I
+will not, I will not." And turning, she fled from his side, and he was
+left to think over her story and ask himself for the hundredth time what
+it all meant, what his own sensations meant, and what would be the
+outcome of conditions so complicated.
+
+The possibly speedy appearance on the scene of Georgian's so-called
+brother did not detract from his difficulty. He felt helpless without
+the support of Mr. Harper's presence, and spent a very troubled forenoon
+listening to the mingled condolences and advice of people who had no
+interest in his concerns save such as sprang from curiosity and a morbid
+craving for excitement.
+
+At two o'clock occurred the event of which he had been forewarned. A
+carriage drove up to the hotel and from it stepped two travelers; one
+of them a stranger, the other the man with the twisted jaw. Mr. Ransom
+advanced to meet the latter. He was anxious to listen to his first
+inquiries and, if possible, be the person to answer them.
+
+He was successful in this. Mr. Hazen no sooner saw him than he accosted
+him without ceremony.
+
+"What is this I hear and read about Georgian and her so-called twin?" he
+cried. "Nothing that I can believe, I want you to know. Georgian may have
+drowned herself. That is credible enough. But that the girl we read about
+in the papers and whom she evidently induced to come to this place with
+her should be the dead girl we called Anitra--why, that is all bosh--a
+tale to deceive the public, and possibly you, but not one to deceive me.
+The coincidence is much too improbable."
+
+"'There are stranger things in heaven and earth'"--quoted Ransom; but
+Hazen was already in conversation with the group of hotel idlers who had
+crowded up at sound of his loud voice.
+
+After a careful look which had taken in all of their faces, he had
+approached one young fellow, covering the lower part of his face as he
+did so.
+
+"Halloo! Yates," he called out. "Don't you remember the day we tied two
+chickens together, leg to leg, and sent them tumbling down the hill back
+of old Wylie's barn?"
+
+"Alf Hazen!" shouted the fellow, thus accosted. "Why, I thought you--"
+
+"Dead, eh? Of course you did. So did everybody else. But I've come to
+life, you see. With sad marks of battle on me," he continued, dropping
+his hand. "You all recognize me?"
+
+"Yes, yes," rose in one acclaim from a dozen or more throats after a
+moment of awkward uncertainty.
+
+"I know the eyes," vigorously asserted one.
+
+"And the voice," chimed in another. After which rose a confused babel of
+ejaculations and exclamatory questions, among which one could detect:
+
+"How did it happen, Alf?" "What took off your jaw?" and other equally
+felicitous expressions.
+
+"I'll tell you all about that later," he replied, after silence had in a
+measure been restored. "What I want to say now is this. Is it believable
+that simultaneously with my own return from the grave another member of
+my family should reappear before you from an older and much more certain
+burying? I tell you no. The riddle is one which calls for quite another
+solution and I have come to assist you in finding it."
+
+Here he cast a sinister glance at Ransom.
+
+The latter met the implied accusation with singular calmness.
+
+"Any assistance will be welcome," said he, "which will enable us to solve
+this very serious problem." Then, as Hazen's lip curled, he added with
+dignified candor, "I scorn to retort by throwing any doubt on your
+assertion of relationship to my lost wife, or the possibility of these
+good people being misled by your confident bearing and a possible
+likeness about the eyes to the boy they knew. But one question I will
+hazard, and that before we have gone a step further. Why does it seem so
+credible to you that Georgian, a much loved and loving woman, should have
+leaped to a watery death within a week of her marriage? You have just
+stated that you found no difficulty in that. Does not that statement call
+for some explanation? All your old friends here must see that this is my
+due as well as hers."
+
+For an instant the man hesitated, but in that instant his hand slipped
+from his mouth over which he had again laid it, and his whole face, with
+its changed lines and the threatening, almost cruel expression which
+these gave it, appeared in all its combined eagerness and force. A murmur
+escaped the watchful group about him, but this affected him little. His
+eyes, which he had fixed on Ransom, sharpened a trifle, perhaps, and his
+tone grew a thought more sarcastic as he finally retorted:
+
+"I will explain myself to you but not to this crowd. And not to you till
+I am sure of the facts which as yet have reached me only through the
+newspapers. Let me hear a full account of what has transpired here since
+you all came to town. I have an enormous interest in the matter;--a
+family interest, as you are well aware for all your badly hidden
+insinuations."
+
+"Follow me," was the quiet reply. "There is a room on this very floor
+where we can talk undisturbed."
+
+Mr. Hazen cast a quick glance behind him at the man who had driven up
+with him and whom nobody had noticed till now. Then without a word he
+separated himself from the chattering group encircling him and stepped
+after Mr. Ransom into the small room where the latter had held his first
+memorable conversation with the lawyer.
+
+"Now," said he as the door swung to behind them, "plain language and not
+too much of it. I have no time to waste, but the truth about Georgian I
+must know."
+
+Ransom settled himself. He felt bound to comply with the other's request,
+but he wished to make sure of not saying too much, or too little. Hazen's
+attack had startled him. It revealed one of two things. Either this man
+of mystery had assumed the offensive to hide his own connection with this
+tragedy, or his antagonism was an honest one, springing from an utter
+disbelief in the circumstances reported to him by the press and such
+gossips as he had encountered on his way to Sitford.
+
+With the first possibility he felt himself unable to cope without the aid
+of Mr. Harper; the second might be met with candor. Should he then be
+candid with this doubter, relate to him the facts as they had unrolled
+themselves before his own eyes;--secret facts--convincing ones--facts
+which must prove to him that whether Georgian did or did not lie at the
+bottom of the mill-stream, the woman now in the house was his sister
+Anitra, lost to him and the rest of the family for many years, but now
+found again and restored to her position as a Hazen and Georgian's twin.
+The discovery might not prove welcome. It would have a tendency to throw
+Mr. Hazen's own claim into the disrepute he would cast on hers. But this
+consideration could have no weight with Mr. Ransom. He decided upon
+candor at all costs. It suited his nature best, and it also suited the
+strange and doubtful situation. Mr. Harper might have concluded
+differently, but Mr. Harper was not there to give advice; and the matter
+would not wait. Little as he understood this Hazen, he recognized that he
+was not a man to trifle with. Something would have to be said or done.
+
+Meeting the latter's eye frankly, he remarked:
+
+"I have no wish to keep anything back from you. I am as much struck
+as you are by the mystery of this whole occurrence. I was as hard to
+convince. This is my story. It involves all that is known here with the
+exception of such facts as have been kept from us by the three parties
+directly concerned--of which three I consider you one."
+
+As the last four words fell from his lips he looked for some change,
+slight and hardly perceptible perhaps, in the other's expression. But he
+was doomed to disappointment. The steady regard held, nothing moved about
+the man, not even the hand into which the poor disfigured chin had
+fallen. Ransom suppressed a sigh. His task was likely to prove a blind
+one. He had a sense of stumbling in the dark, but the gaze he had hoped
+to see falter compelled him to proceed, and he told his story without
+subterfuge or suppression.
+
+One thing, and only one thing, caused a movement in the set figure before
+him. When he mentioned the will which Georgian had made a few hours prior
+to her disappearance, Hazen's hand slipped aside from the wound it had
+sought to cover, and Ransom caught sight of the sudden throb which
+deepened its hue. It was the one infallible sign that the man was not
+wholly without feeling, and it had sprung to life at an intimation
+involving _money_.
+
+When his tale was quite finished, he rose. So did Hazen.
+
+"Let us see this girl," suggested the latter.
+
+It was the first word he had spoken since Ransom began his story.
+
+"She is up-stairs. I will go see--"
+
+"No, _we_ will go see. I particularly desire to take her unawares."
+
+Ransom offered no objection. Perhaps he felt interested in the experiment
+himself. Together they left the room, together they went up-stairs. A
+turmoil of questions followed them from the throng of men and boys
+gathered in the halls, but they returned no answer and curiosity remained
+unsatisfied.
+
+Once in the hall above, Ransom stopped a moment to deliberate. He could
+not enter Anitra's room unannounced, and he could not make her hear by
+knocking. He must find the landlady.
+
+He knew Mrs. Deo's room. He had had more than one occasion to visit it
+during the last two days. With a word of explanation to Hazen, he passed
+down the hall and tapped on the last door at the extreme left. No one
+answered, but the door standing ajar, he pushed it quietly open, being
+anxious to make sure that Mrs. Deo was not there.
+
+The next moment he was beckoning to Hazen.
+
+"Look!" said he, holding the door open with one hand and pointing with
+the other to a young girl sitting on a low stool by the window, mending,
+or trying to mend, a rent in her skirt.
+
+"Why, that's Georgian!" exclaimed Hazen, and hastily entering he
+approached the anxious figure laboriously pushing her needle in and out
+of the torn goods, and pricking herself more than once in the attempt.
+
+"Georgian!" he cried again and yet more emphatically, as he stepped up in
+front of her.
+
+The young girl failed to notice. Awkwardly drawing her thread out to its
+extreme length, she prepared to insert her needle again, when her eye
+caught sight of his figure bending over her, and she looked up quietly
+and with an air of displeasure, which pleased Ransom,--he could hardly
+tell why. This was before her eyes reached his face; when they had, it
+was touching to see how she tried to hide the shock caused by its
+deformity, as she said with a slight gesture of dismissal:
+
+"I'm quite deaf. I cannot hear what you say. If it is the landlady you
+want, she has gone down-stairs for a minute; perhaps, to the kitchen."
+
+He did not retreat, if anything he approached nearer, and Ransom was
+surprised to observe the force and persuasive power of his expression
+as he repeated:
+
+"No nonsense, Georgian," opening and shutting his hands as he spoke, in
+curious gesticulations which her eye mechanically followed but which
+seemed to convey no meaning to her, though he evidently expected them to
+and looked surprised (Ransom almost thought baffled) when she shook her
+head and in a sweet, impassive way reiterated:
+
+"I cannot hear and I do not understand the deaf and dumb alphabet. I'm
+sorry, but you'll have to go to some one else. I'm very unfortunate. I
+have to mend this dress and I don't know how."
+
+Hazen, who could hardly tear his eyes from her face, fell slowly back as
+she painfully and conscientiously returned to her task. "Good God!" he
+murmured, as his eye sought Ransom's. "What a likeness!" Then he looked
+again at the girl, at the wave of her raven black hair breaking into
+little curls just above her ear; at the smooth forehead rendered so
+distinguished by the fine penciling of her arching brows; at the delicate
+nose with nostrils all alive to the beating of an over-anxious heart; at
+the mouth, touching in its melancholy so far beyond her years; and lastly
+at the strong young figure huddled on the little stool; and bending
+forward again, he uttered two or three quick sentences which Ransom could
+not catch.
+
+His persistence, or the near approach of his face to hers, angered her.
+Rising quickly to her feet, she vehemently cried out:
+
+"Go away from here. It is not right to keep on talking to a deaf girl
+after she has told you she cannot hear you." Then catching sight of
+Ransom, who had advanced a step in his sympathy for her, she gave a
+little sigh of relief and added querulously:
+
+"Make this man go away. This is the landlady's room. I don't like to have
+strangers talk to me. Besides--" here her voice fell, but not so low as
+to be inaudible to the subject of her remark, "he's not pretty. I've seen
+enough of men and women who are--"
+
+At this point Ransom drew Hazen out into the hall.
+
+"What do you think now?" he demanded.
+
+Hazen did not reply. The room they had just left seemed to possess a
+strange fascination for him. He continued to look back at it as he
+preceded Ransom down the hall. Ransom did not press his questions, but
+when they were on the point of separating at the head of the stairs, he
+held Hazen back with the words:
+
+"Let us come to some understanding. Neither of us can desire to waste
+strength in wrong conclusions. Can that woman be other than your own
+sister?"
+
+"No." The denial was absolute. "She is my sister."
+
+"Anitra?" emphasized Ransom.
+
+The smile which he received in reply was strangely mirthless.
+
+"I never rush to conclusions," was Hazen's remark after a moment of
+possibly mutual heart-beat and unsettling suspense. "Ask me that same
+question to-morrow. Perhaps by then I shall be able to answer you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+BETWEEN THE ELDERBERRY BUSHES
+
+
+"No."
+
+The word came from Ransom. He had reached the end of his patience and was
+determined to have it out with this man on the spot.
+
+"Come into my room," said he. "If you doubt her, you doubt me; and in the
+present stress of my affairs this demands an immediate explanation."
+
+"I have no time to enter your room, and I cannot linger here any longer
+talking on a subject which at the present moment is not clear to either
+of us," was the resolute if not quite affable reply. "Later, when my
+conclusions are made, I will see you again. Now I am going to eat and
+refresh myself. Don't follow me; it will do you no good."
+
+He turned to descend. Ransom had an impulse to seize him by his twisted
+throat and drag from him the secret which his impassive features refused
+to give up. But Ransom was no fool and, stepping back out of the way of
+temptation, he allowed him to escape without further parley.
+
+Then he went to his room. But, after an hour or two spent with his own
+thoughts, his restlessness became so great that he sought the gossips
+below for relief. He found them all clustered about Hazen, who was
+reeling off stories by the mile. This was unendurable to him and he was
+striding off, when Hazen burst away from his listeners and, joining
+Ransom, whispered in his ear:
+
+"I saw her go by the window just now on her way up-street. What can she
+find there to interest her? Where is she going?"
+
+"I don't know. She doesn't consult me as to her movements. Probably she
+has gone for a walk. She looks as if she needs it."
+
+"So do you," was the unexpected retort given by Hazen, as he stepped back
+to rejoin his associates.
+
+Ransom paused, watching him askance in doubt of the suggestion, in doubt
+of the man, in doubt of himself. Then he yielded to an impulse stronger
+than any doubt and slipped out into the highway, where he turned, as she
+had turned, up-street.
+
+But not without a struggle. He hated himself for his puppet-like
+acceptance of the hint given him by a man he both distrusted and
+disliked. He felt his dignity impaired and his self-confidence shaken,
+yet he went on, following the high road eagerly and watching with wary
+eye for the first glimpse of the slight figure which was beginning to
+make every scene alive to him.
+
+It had rained heavily and persistently the last time he came this way,
+but to-day the sun was shining with a full radiance, and the trees
+stretching away on either side of the road were green with the tender
+tracery of early leafage; a joy-compelling sight which may have accounted
+for the elasticity of his step as he ascended one small hill after
+another in the wake of a fluttering skirt.
+
+It was the cemetery road, and odd as the fancy was, he felt that he
+should overtake her at the old gate, behind which lay so many of her
+name. Here he had seen her name before its erasement from the family
+monument, and here he should see--could he say Anitra if he found her
+bending over those graves; the woman who could not hear, who could not
+read,--whose childish memory, if she had any in connection with this
+spot, could not be distinct enough or sufficiently intelligent to guide
+her to this one plot? No. Human credulity can go far, but not so far as
+that. He knew that all his old doubts would return if, on entering the
+cemetery, he found her under the brown shaft carved with the name of
+Hazen.
+
+The test was one he had not sought and did not welcome. Yet he felt
+bound, now that he recognized it as such, to see it through and accept
+its teaching for what it surely would be worth. Only he began to move
+with more precaution and studied more to hide his approach than to give
+any warning of it.
+
+The close ranks of the elderberry bushes lining the fences on the final
+hill-top lent themselves to the concealment he now sought. As soon as he
+was sure of her having left the road he drew up close to these bushes and
+walked under them till he was almost at the gate. Then he allowed himself
+to peer through their close branches and received an unexpected shock at
+seeing her figure standing very near him, posed in an uncertainty which,
+for some reason, he had not expected, but which restored him to himself,
+though why he had not the courage, the time, nor the inclination to ask.
+
+She was babbling in a low tone to herself, an open sesame to her mind,
+which Ransom hailed with a sense of awe. If only he might distinguish the
+words! But this was difficult; not only was her head turned partly away,
+but she spoke in a murmur which was far from distinct. Yet--yes, that one
+sentence was plain enough. She had muttered musingly, anxiously, and with
+a searching look among the graves:
+
+"It was on this side. I know it was on this side."
+
+Watching her closely lest some chance glance of hers should stray his
+way, he listened still more intently and was presently rewarded by
+catching another sentence.
+
+"A single grave all by itself. I fell over it and my mother scolded me,
+saying it was my father's. There was a bush near it. A bush with white
+flowers on it. I tried to pick some."
+
+Ransom's heart was growing lighter and lighter. She did not even know
+that there had been placed over that grave a monument with her name on it
+and that of the mother who had scolded her for tripping over her father's
+sod. Only Anitra could be so ignorant or expect to find a grave by means
+of a bush blooming with flowers fifteen years ago. As she went wandering
+on, peering to right and left, he thought of Hazen and his doubts, and
+wished that he were here beside him to mark her perplexity.
+
+When quite satisfied that she would never find what she sought without
+help, Ransom stepped from his hiding-place and joined her among the
+grassy hillocks. The start of pleasure she gave and her almost childish
+look of relief warmed his heart, and it was with a smile he waited for
+her to speak.
+
+"My father's grave!" she explained. "I was looking for my father's grave.
+I remember my mother taking me to it when I was little. There was a bush
+close by it--oh! I see what you think. The bush would be big now--I
+forgot that. And something else! You are thinking of something else. Oh,
+I know, I know. He wouldn't be lying alone any more. My mother must have
+died, or sister would have taken me to her. There ought to be two
+graves."
+
+He nodded, and taking her by the hand led her to the family monument. She
+gazed at it for a moment, amazed, then laid her finger on one of the
+inscriptions.
+
+"My father's name?" she asked.
+
+He nodded.
+
+She hung her head thoughtfully for a moment, then slipping to the other
+side of the stone laid her hand on another.
+
+"My mother's?"
+
+Again he signified yes.
+
+"And this? Is this sister's name? No, she's not buried yet. I had a
+brother. Is it his?"
+
+Ransom bowed. How tell her that it was a false inscription and that the
+man whose death it commemorated was not only alive but had only a little
+while before spoken to her.
+
+"I didn't like my brother. He was cruel and liked to hurt people. I'm
+glad he's dead."
+
+Ransom drew her away. Her frankness was that of a child, but it produced
+an uncomfortable feeling. He didn't like this brother either, and in this
+thoughtless estimate of hers he seemed to read a warning to which his own
+nature intuitively responded.
+
+"Come!" he motioned, leading the way out.
+
+She followed with a smile, and together they entered the highway. As they
+did so, Ransom caught sight of a man speeding down the hill before them
+on a bicycle. He had not come front the upper road, or they would have
+seen him as he flew past the gateway. Where had he come from, then? From
+the peep-hole where Ransom himself had stood a few minutes before. No
+other conclusion was possible, and Ransom felt both angry and anxious
+till he could find out who the man was. This he did not succeed in doing
+till he reached the hotel. There a bicycle leaning against a tree gave
+point to his questions, and he learned that it belonged to a clerk in one
+of the small stores near by, but that the man who had just ridden it up
+and down the road on a trial of speed was the stranger who had just come
+to town with Mr. Hazen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+ON THE CARS
+
+
+This episode, which to Ransom's mind would bear but one interpretation,
+gave him ample food for thought. He decided to be more circumspect in the
+future and to keep an eye out for inquisitive strangers. Not that he had
+any thing to conceal, but no man enjoys having his proceedings watched,
+especially where a woman is concerned.
+
+That Hazen was antagonistic to him he had always known; but that he was
+regarded by him with suspicion he had not realized till now. Hazen
+suspicious of _him_! that meant what? He wished that he had Mr. Harper
+at his side to enlighten him.
+
+It was now five o'clock and he was sitting in his room awaiting the usual
+report from the river, when a quick tap at his door was followed by the
+entrance of the very man he was thinking about. He rose eagerly to
+receive him, determined, however, to allow no inconsiderate impulse to
+drive him into unnecessary speech.
+
+"I have already said too much," he reminded himself in self-directed
+monition. "It's time he did some of the talking."
+
+Hazen seemed willing enough to do this. Taking the seat proffered him, he
+opened the conversation as follows:
+
+"Mr. Ransom, I have been doing you an injustice. I do not consider it
+necessary to tell you just how I have found this out, but I am now
+convinced that you are as much in the dark as myself in regard to this
+unfortunate affair, and are as willing as I am to take all justifiable
+means to enlighten yourself. I own that at first I thought it more than
+probable you were in collusion with the girl here to deceive me. That I
+wouldn't stand. I'm glad to find you as truly a victim of this mystery as
+myself."
+
+Ransom straightened himself.
+
+"If this is an apology," he returned, "I am willing to accept it in the
+spirit in which it is proffered. But I should like something more than
+apology from you. Candor for candor;--your whole story in return for
+mine."
+
+"I'm afraid it would be a trifle tedious,--my whole story," smiled Hazen.
+"If you mean such part of it as concerns Georgian's peculiar actions and
+the complications with which we are at this moment struggling, I can only
+repeat what I have already told you, both at the St. Denis in New York
+and here. I am Georgian's returned brother, saved from the jaws of hell
+to see my own country again. I arrived in New York on the tenth.
+Naturally, after securing a room at the hotel, I took up the papers. They
+were full of the approaching marriage of Miss Hazen. I recognized my
+sister's name, though not her splendor, for we were the sole survivors of
+a poor country family and I knew nothing of the legacy I am now told she
+received. Anxious to see her, I attended the ceremony. She recognized me.
+I had not expected this, and feeling old affections revive, I followed
+her friends to the house and was presented to them and to you. What
+I whispered to her on this occasion were my assumed name and the place
+where I was to be found. My changed countenance called for explanations,
+for which a bridal reception offered no opportunity. Besides, as I have
+already said, I stood in sore need of a definite amount of money. I meant
+her to come and see me, but I did not expect her to play a trick on you
+in order to do so. This had its birth in the to me unaccountable mystery
+embodied in the girl you call Anitra, but whom I'm not ready yet to name.
+For when I do, action must follow conviction and that without mercy or
+delay."
+
+"Action?" repeated Ransom, with quick suspicion and a confused rush of
+contradictory visions in his mind. "What do you mean by that?"
+
+Hazen covered his chin with his hand.
+
+"I will try and explain," he replied. "If I am abrupt in my language, it
+is owing to the exigencies of the case. I have no time to waste and no
+disposition to whitewash a rough piece of work. To speak to the point, I
+have an intense interest in my sister Georgian. I have little or none in
+my sister Anitra. Georgian's intelligence, good-will, and command of
+money would be of inestimable benefit to me. Anitra, on the contrary,
+could be nothing but a burden, unless--" here he cast a very sharp glance
+at Ransom--"unless Georgian should have been sufficiently considerate to
+leave her a good share of her fortune in the will you say she made just
+before her disappearance and supposed death."
+
+"That I can say nothing about," rejoined Ransom in answer to this feeler.
+"The will is in the hands of her lawyer, but if it will help your
+argument any we will suppose that she left her sister to the care of her
+friends without any especial provision for her in the way of money."
+
+The steady fingers clutching the scarred neck loosed their grip to wave
+this supposition aside.
+
+"A hardly supposable case," was the cold comment with which he
+supplemented this disclaimer; "but one which would make the girl a burden
+indeed; a burden which for many reasons I could not assume." Here he
+struck himself sharply on the neck, with the first display of passion he
+had shown. "My advantages are not such as to make it easy for me to
+support myself. It would be simply impossible for me to undertake the
+care of any girl, least of all of one with a manifest infirmity."
+
+"Anitra will prosper without your care," replied Ransom, overlooking the
+heartlessness of the man in the mad, unaccountable sense of relief with
+which he listened to his withdrawal from concerns for which he showed so
+little sympathy. "There are others who will be glad to do all that can be
+done for Georgian's forsaken sister."
+
+"Yes. That is all right, but--" Here Hazen squared himself across the top
+of the table before which he had been sitting; "I must be made sure that
+the facts have been rightly represented to me and that the girl now in
+this house _is_ Georgian's deserted sister. I'm not yet satisfied that
+she is, and I must be convinced not only on this point but on many
+others, before this day is over. Business of great importance calls me
+back to the city and, it may be, out of the country. I may never be able
+to spend another day on purely personal affairs, so this one must tell. I
+have a scheme (it is a very simple one) which, if carried out as I have
+planned, will satisfy me as nothing else will as to the identity of the
+girl we will call, from lack of positive knowledge, Anitra. Will you help
+me in its furtherance? It lies with you to do so."
+
+"First, your reasons for doubting the girl," retorted Ransom. "They must
+be excellent ones for you to resist the evidence of such conclusive
+proofs as you have yourself been witness to since entering this house. I
+am Georgian's husband. I have the strongest wish in the world to see her
+again at my side; yet with the exception of her wonderful likeness to my
+wife, I find nothing in this raw if beautiful girl, of the polished,
+highly trained woman I married. I have not even succeeded in startling
+her ear--something which I should have been able to do if she were not
+the totally deaf woman she appears. Confide to me then your reasons for
+demanding additional proofs of her identity. If they carry conviction
+with them, I will aid you in any scheme you can propose which will
+neither frighten nor afflict her."
+
+Hazen rose to his feet. Narrow as the room was, he yielded to his
+restless desire to move about and began pacing up and down the restricted
+quarters bounded by the edge of the table and the door. Not until he had
+made the second turning did he speak; then it was with seeming openness.
+
+"It's like putting the torch to my last ship," said he; "but this is no
+time to hesitate. Mr. Ransom, I do not trust my eyes, I do not trust my
+ears, nor your eyes, nor your ears, nor those of any one here, because I
+have talked with a man who was on the same train with my sisters. He
+noticed them because of their similar appearance and close intimacy.
+They were not dressed alike, but they were veiled alike and one did not
+move without the other. More than that, they not only walked about the
+various stations where they waited, arm in arm, but they sat thus closely
+joined in the cars all the way from New York. This interested him
+especially as he noted great anxiety and incessant movement in the one,
+and complete passiveness in the other. She who sat in the outer seat was
+watchful, busy, and ready to press the other's arm at the least
+provocation, but if either spoke it was always the other. It was not till
+the quick rush and shrill whistle of a passing train made one start and
+not the other, that he got the idea that one of them was deaf. As this
+was the one by the window, he felt that their peculiar actions were now
+accounted for, and indeed thus far it all tallied with what we might
+expect from Georgian traveling with the hapless Anitra. But there
+remained a fact to be told, which rouses doubt. When they reached
+G---- and he saw from their quick rising that they were about to leave
+the train, he naturally glanced their way again, and this time he caught
+a glimpse of the inner one's neck. Her veil had become slightly
+disarranged, exposing the whole nape. It was unexpectedly dark, almost
+brunette in color, and quite devoid of delicacy; such a skin as one might
+look for in the gipsy Anitra after years of outdoor living and a long
+lack of nice personal attention, but not such as I saw and admired a few
+hours ago on the neck of the woman bending over her work in the
+landlady's room. Oh, I recognized the difference; I have an eye for
+necks."
+
+He paused, coming to a standstill in the middle of the room, to see what
+effect his words had had on Ransom.
+
+"I have that man's name," he continued, "and can produce him if I have
+time and it seems to be necessary. But I had rather come to my own
+decision without any outside interference. This is not an affair for
+public gossip or newspaper notoriety. It is a question of justice to
+myself. If this girl is Georgian--" His whole face changed. For a moment
+Ransom hardly knew him. The quiet, self-contained man seemed to have
+given way to one of such unexpected power and threat that Ransom rose
+instinctively to his feet in recognition of a superiority he could no
+longer deny.
+
+The action seemed to recall Hazen to himself. He wheeled about and
+recommenced his quiet pacing to and fro.
+
+"I beg pardon," he quietly finished. "If it is Georgian, she must stand
+my friend. That is all I was going to say. If it is, against all reason
+and probability, her strangely restored twin, I shall leave this house by
+midnight, never probably to see any of you again. So you perceive that it
+is incumbent upon us to work promptly. Are you ready to hear what I have
+to propose?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Hazen paused again, this time in front of the door. Laying his hand
+lightly on one of the panels, he glanced back at Ransom.
+
+"You are nicely placed here for observation. Your door directly faces the
+hall she must traverse in returning to her room."
+
+"That's quite true."
+
+"She's in her room now. Ah, you know that?"
+
+"Yes." Ransom seemed to have no other word at his command.
+
+"Will she come out again before night to eat or to visit?"
+
+"There's no telling. She's very fitful. No one can prophesy what she
+will do. Sometimes she eats in the landlady's room, sometimes in her
+own, sometimes not at all. If you have frightened her, or she has been
+disturbed in any way by your companion who shows such interest in her
+and in me, she probably will not come out at all."
+
+"But she must. I expect you to see that she does. Use any messenger, any
+artifice, but get her away from this hall for ten minutes, even if it is
+only into Mrs. Deo's room. When she returns I shall be on my knees before
+this keyhole to watch her and observe. To see what, I do not mean to tell
+you, but it will be something which will definitely settle for me this
+matter of identity. Does this plan look sufficiently harmless to meet
+with your approval?"
+
+"Yes, but looks cannot always be trusted. I must know just what you mean
+to do. I will leave nothing to a mind and hand I do not trust any more
+fully than I do yours. You are too eager for Georgian's money; too little
+interested in herself; _and you are too sly in your ways_. I overlooked
+this when you had the excuse of a possible distrust of myself. But now
+that your confidence is restored in me, now that you recognize the fact
+that I stand outside of this whole puzzling affair and have no other wish
+than to know the truth about it and do my duty to all parties concerned,
+secrecy on your part means more than I care to state. If you persist in
+it I shall lend myself to nothing that you propose, but wait for time to
+substantiate her claim or prove its entire falsity."
+
+"You will!"
+
+The words rang out involuntarily. It almost seemed as if the man would
+spring with them straight at the other's throat. But he controlled
+himself, and smiling bitterly, added:
+
+"I know the marks of human struggle. I have read countenances from my
+birth. I've had to, and only one has baffled me--_hers_. But we are going
+to read that too and very soon. We are going to learn, you and I, what
+lies behind that innocent manner and her rude, uncultivated ways. We are
+going to sound that deafness. I say _we_," he impressively concluded,
+"because I have reconsidered my first impulse and now propose to allow
+you to participate openly, and without the secrecy you object to, in all
+that remains to be done to make our contemplated test a success. Will
+that please you? May I count on you now?"
+
+"Yes," replied Ransom, returning to his old monosyllable.
+
+"Very well, then, see if you can make a scrawl like this."
+
+Pulling a piece of red chalk from his pocket, he drew a figure of a
+somewhat unusual character on the bare top of the table between them;
+then he handed the chalk over to Ransom, who received it with a stare of
+wonder not unmixed with suspicion.
+
+"I'm not an adept at drawing," said he, but made his attempt,
+notwithstanding, and evidently to Hazen's satisfaction.
+
+"You'll do," said he. "That's a mystic symbol once used by Georgian
+and myself in place of our names in all mutual correspondence, and
+on the leaves of our school-books and at the end of our exercises. It
+meant nothing, but the boys and girls we associated with thought it did
+and envied us the free-masonry it was supposed to cover. A ridiculous
+make-believe which I rate at its full folly now, but one which cannot
+fail to arouse a hundred memories in Georgian. We will scrawl it on
+her door, or rather you shall, and according to the way she conducts
+herself on seeing it, we shall know in one instant what you with your
+patience and trust in time may not be able to arrive at in weeks."
+
+Ransom recalled some of the tests he had himself employed, many of which
+have been omitted from this history, and shrugged his shoulders mentally,
+if not physically. If Hazen noted this evidence of his lack of faith, he
+remained entirely unaffected by it, and in a few minutes everything had
+been planned between them for the satisfactory exercise of what Hazen
+evidently regarded as a crucial experiment. Ransom was about to proceed
+to take the first required step, when they heard a disturbance in front,
+and the coach came driving up with a great clatter and bang and from it
+stepped the lean, well-groomed figure of Mr. Harper.
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Hazen with a violent gesture of disappointment. "There
+comes your familiar. Now I suppose you will cry off."
+
+"Not necessarily," returned Ransom. "But this much is certain. I shall
+certainly consult him before hazarding this experiment. I am not so sure
+of myself or--pardon me--of yourself as to take any steps in the dark
+while I have at hand so responsible a guide as the man whom you choose to
+call my familiar."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A SUSPICIOUS TEST
+
+
+"Let him make his experiment. It will do no harm, and if it rids us of
+him, well and good."
+
+Such was Mr. Harper's decision after hearing all that Mr. Ransom had to
+tell him of the present situation.
+
+"His disappointment when he learns that he has nothing to hope for from
+his sister's generosity calls for some consideration from us," proceeded
+the lawyer. "Go and have your little talk with the landlady or take
+whatever other means suggest themselves for luring this girl from her
+room. I will summon Hazen and hold him very closely under my eye till the
+whole affair is over. He shall get no chance for any hocus-pocus
+business, not while I have charge of your interests. He shall do just
+what he has laid out for himself and nothing more; you may rely on that."
+
+Ransom expressed his satisfaction, and left the room with a lighter heart
+than he had felt since Hazen came upon the scene. He did not know that
+all he had been through was as nothing to what lay before him.
+
+It was an hour before he returned. When he did, it was to find Hazen and
+the lawyer awaiting him in ill-concealed impatience. These two were much
+too incongruous in tastes and interests to be very happy in a forced and
+prolonged tête-à-tête.
+
+"Have you done it?" exclaimed Hazen, leaping eagerly to his feet as the
+door closed softly behind Ransom. "Is she out of her room? I have
+listened and listened for her step, but could not be sure of it. There
+seem to be a lot of people in the house to-night."
+
+"Too many," quoth Ransom. "That is why I couldn't get hold of Mrs. Deo
+any sooner. Anitra is having her hair brushed or something else of equal
+importance done for her in one of the rear rooms. So we can proceed
+fearlessly. Have you looked to see if you can get a good glimpse of her
+door through the keyhole of this one?"
+
+"Haven't you already made a trial of that? Then do so now," suggested
+Hazen, drawing out the key and laying it on the table.
+
+But this was too uncongenial a task for Ransom.
+
+"I shall be satisfied," said he, "if Mr. Harper tells me that it can."
+
+"It can," asserted that gentleman, falling on his knees and adjusting his
+eye to the keyhole. "Or rather, you can see plainly the face of any one
+approaching it. I don't suppose any of us expected to see the door
+itself."
+
+"No, it is not the door, but the woman entering the door, we want to see.
+Did you ask for an extra lamp?"
+
+"Yes, and saw it placed. It is on a small table almost opposite her
+room."
+
+"Then everything is ready."
+
+"All but the mark which I am to put on the panel."
+
+"Very good. Here is the chalk. Let us see what you mean to do with it
+before you risk an attempt on the door itself."
+
+Ransom thought a minute, then with one quick twist produced the
+following:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Correct," muttered Hazen, with what Harper thought to be a slight but
+unmistakable shudder. "One would think you had been making use of this
+very cabalistic sign all your life."
+
+"Then _one_ would be mistaken. I have simply a true eye and a ready
+hand."
+
+"And a very remarkable memory. You have recalled every little line and
+quirk."
+
+"That's possible. What I have made once I can make the second time. It's
+a peculiarity of mine."
+
+There was no mistaking the continued intensity of Hazen's gaze. Ransom
+felt his color rise, but succeeded in preserving his quiet tone, as he
+added:
+
+"Besides, this character is not a wholly new one to me. My attention was
+called to it months ago. It was when I was courting Georgian. She was
+writing a note one day when she suddenly stopped to think and I saw her
+pen making some marks which I considered curious. But I should not have
+remembered them five minutes, if she had not impulsively laid her hand
+over them when she saw me looking. That fixed the memory of them in my
+mind, and when I saw this combination of lines again, I remembered it.
+That is why I lent myself so readily to this experiment. I lent that what
+you said about her acquaintance with this odd arrangement of lines was
+true."
+
+Hazen's hand stole up to his neck, a token of agitation which Ransom
+should have recognized by this time.
+
+"And her account of the use we made of it tallied with mine?"
+
+"She gave me no account of any use she had ever made of it."
+
+"That was because you didn't ask her."
+
+"Just so. Why should I ask her? It was a small matter to trouble her
+about."
+
+"You are right," acquiesced Hazen, wheeling himself away towards the
+window. Then after a momentary silence, "It was so then, but it is likely
+to prove of some importance now. Let me see if the hall is empty."
+
+As he bent to open the door, the lawyer, who had not moved nor spoken
+till now, turned a quick glance on Ransom and impulsively stretched out
+his hand. But he dropped it very quickly and subsided into his old
+attitude of simple watchfulness, as Hazen glanced back with the remark:
+
+"There's nobody stirring; now's your time, Ransom."
+
+The moment for action had arrived.
+
+Ransom stepped into the hall. As he passed Hazen, the latter whispered:
+
+"Don't forget that last downward quirk. That was the line she always
+emphasized."
+
+Ransom gave him an annoyed look. His nerves as well as his feelings were
+on a keen stretch, and this persistence of Hazen's was more than he could
+bear.
+
+"I'll not forget the least detail," he answered shortly, and passed
+quickly down the hall, while Hazen watched him through the crack of the
+door, and the lawyer watched Hazen.
+
+Suddenly Mr. Harper's brow wrinkled. Hazen had uttered such a sigh of
+relief that the lawyer was startled. In another moment Ransom re-entered
+the room.
+
+"She's coming," said he, striving to hide his extreme emotion. "I heard
+her voice in the hall beyond."
+
+Hazen sprang to the door which Ransom had carefully closed, and was about
+to fall on his knees before the keyhole when he suddenly stiffened
+himself and, turning towards the lawyer, cried with a new strain of
+loftiness in his tone:
+
+"You. You shall do the looking, only promise to be very minute in your
+description of her behavior. It's a great trust I repose in you. See that
+you honor it."
+
+The revulsion of feeling caused in the lawyer by this show of confidence
+was not perceptible. But it softened his step as well as his manner as he
+crossed to do the other's bidding.
+
+The remaining two stood at his side breathless, waiting for his first
+word.
+
+It came in a whisper:
+
+"She's approaching her room. She looks tired. Her eyes are stealing this
+way;--no, they are resting on her own door. She sees the sign. She stands
+staring at it, but not like a person who has ever seen it before. It's
+the stare of an uneducated woman who runs upon something she does not
+understand. Now she touches it with one finger and glances up and down
+the hall with a doubtful shake of the head. Now she is running to another
+door, now to another. She is looking to see if this scrawl is to be found
+anywhere else; she even casts her eye this way--I feel like leaving my
+post. If I do, you may know that she's coming--No, she's back at her own
+door and--gentlemen, her bringing up or rather coming up asserts itself.
+She has put her palm to her mouth and is vigorously rubbing off the
+marks."
+
+The next instant Mr. Harper rose. "She's gone into her room," said he.
+"Listen and you will hear her key click in the lock."
+
+Ransom sank into a seat; Hazen had walked to the window. Presently he
+turned.
+
+"I am convinced," said he. "I will not trouble you gentlemen further.
+Mr. Ransom, I condole with you upon your loss. My sister was a woman of
+uncommon gifts."
+
+Mr. Ransom bowed. He had no words for this man at a moment of such
+extreme excitement. He did not even note the latent sting hidden in the
+other's seeming tribute to Georgian. But the lawyer did and Hazen
+perceived that he did, for pausing in his act of crossing the room, he
+leaned for a moment on the table with his eyes down, then quickly
+raising them remarked to that gentleman:
+
+"I am going to leave by the midnight train for New York. To-morrow I
+shall be on the ocean. Will it be transgressing all rules of propriety
+for me to ask the purport of my sister's will? It is a serious matter to
+me, sir. If she has left me anything--"
+
+"She has _not_," emphasized the lawyer.
+
+A shadow darkened the disappointed man's brow. His wound swelled and his
+eyes gleamed ironically as he turned them upon Ransom.
+
+Instantly that gentleman spoke.
+
+"I have received but a moiety," said he. "You need not envy me the
+amount."
+
+"Who has it then?" briskly demanded the startled man. "Who? who? _She?_"
+
+Mr. Harper never knew why he did it. He was reserved as a man and,
+usually, more than reserved as a lawyer, but as Hazen lifted his hands
+from the table and turned to leave, he quietly remarked:
+
+"The chief legatee--the one she chose to leave the bulk of her very large
+fortune to--is a man we none of us know. His name is Josiah Auchincloss."
+
+The change which the utterance of this name caused in Hazen's expression
+threw them both into confusion.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me that in the beginning?" he cried. "I needn't have
+wasted all this time and effort."
+
+His eyes shone, his poor lips smiled, his whole air was jubilant. Both
+Mr. Harper and his client surveyed him in amazement. The lines so fast
+disappearing from his brow were beginning to reappear on theirs.
+
+"Mr. Harper," this hard-to-be-understood man now declared, "you may
+safely administer the estate of my sister. She is surely dead."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+A STARTLING DECISION
+
+
+Before Mr. Ransom and the lawyer had recovered from their astonishment,
+Hazen had slipped from the room. As Mr. Harper started to follow, he saw
+the other's head disappearing down the staircase leading to the office.
+He called to him, but Hazen declined to turn.
+
+"No time," he shouted back. "I shall have to make use of somebody's
+automobile now, to get to the Ferry in time."
+
+The lawyer did not persist, not at that moment; he went back to his
+client and they had a few hurried words; then Mr. Harper went below and
+took up his stand on the portico. He was determined that Hazen should not
+leave the place without some further explanation.
+
+It was light where he stood and he very soon felt that this would not
+do, so he slipped back into the shade of a pillar, and seeing, from the
+bustle, that Hazen was likely to obtain the use of the one automobile
+stored in the stable, he waited with reasonable patience for his
+reappearance in the road before him.
+
+Meanwhile he had confidence in Ransom, who he felt sure was watching
+them both from the window overhead. If he should fail in getting in
+the word he wanted, Ransom was pledged to shout it out without regard
+to appearances. But this was not likely to occur. He knew his own
+persistency to equal Hazen's. Nothing should stop the momentary interview
+he had promised himself.
+
+Ah! A well-known whirr and clatter is heard. The automobile was leaving
+the stable. Hazen was already in it and the man who had come up from New
+York was with him. This was bad; they would flash by--No; he would not be
+balked thus. Stepping out into the road, he stopped full in the glare of
+the office lights and held up his hand. They could not but see him and
+they did. The chauffeur reversed the lever and the machine stopped to
+the accompaniment of low muttered oaths from Hazen, which were rather
+disagreeable than otherwise to Harper's ear.
+
+"One word," said he, approaching to the side where Hazen sat. "I thought
+you ought to know before leaving that we can take no proceedings in the
+matter we were speaking of till we have undisputed proof that your sister
+is dead. That we may not get for a long time, possibly never. If you are
+interested in having this Auchincloss receive his inheritance, you had
+better prepare both yourself and him for a long wait. The river seems
+slow to give up its dead."
+
+The quiver of impatience which had shaken Hazen at the first word had
+settled into a strange rigidity.
+
+"One moment," he said in a command to the chauffeur at his side. Then in
+a low, strangely sounding whisper to Harper: "They think the body's in
+the Devil's Cauldron. Nothing can get it out if it is. Would some proof
+of its presence there be sufficient to settle the fact of her death?"
+
+"That would depend. If the proof was unmistakable, it might pass in the
+Surrogate's Court. What is the matter, Hazen?"
+
+"Nothing." The tone was hollow; the whole man sat like an image of death.
+"I--I'm thinking--weighing--" he uttered in scattered murmurs. Then
+suddenly, "You're not deceiving me, Harper. Some proof will be necessary,
+and that very soon, for this man Auchincloss to realize the money?"
+
+"Yes," the monosyllable was as dry as it was short. Harper's patience
+with this unnatural brother was about at an end.
+
+"And who will venture to obtain this proof for us? No one. Not even
+Ransom would venture down into that watery hole. They say it is almost
+certain death," babbled Hazen.
+
+Harper kept silence. Strange forces were at work. The head of another
+gruesome tragedy loomed vaguely through the shadows of this already
+sufficiently tragic mystery.
+
+"Go on!" suddenly shouted Hazen, leaning forward to the chauffeur. But
+the next instant his hand was on the man's sleeve. "No, I have changed my
+mind. Here, Staples," he called out as a man came running down the steps,
+"take my bag and ask the landlady to prepare me a room. I'll not try for
+the train to-night." Then as the man at his side leaped to the ground, he
+turned to Harper and remarked quietly, but in no common tone:
+
+"The steamer must sail without me. I'll stay in this place a while and
+prove the death of Georgian Ransom myself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE DEVIL'S CAULDRON
+
+
+The solemnity of Hazen's whole manner impressed Mr. Harper strongly. As
+soon as the opportunity offered he cornered the young man in the office
+where he had taken refuge, and giving him to understand that further
+explanations must pass between them before either slept, he drew him
+apart and put the straight question to him:
+
+"Who is Josiah Auchincloss?"
+
+The answer was abrupt, almost menacing in its emphasis and tone.
+
+"A trunk-maker in St. Louis. A man she was indebted to."
+
+"How indebted to--a trunk-maker?"
+
+"That I cannot, do not desire to state. It is enough that she felt she
+owed him the bulk of her fortune. Though this eliminates me from benefits
+of a wealth I had some rights to share, I make no complaint. She knew her
+business best, and I am disposed to accept her judgment in the matter
+without criticism."
+
+"You are?" The tone was sharp, the sarcasm biting. "I can understand
+that. For Auchincloss, in this will, read Hazen; but how about her
+husband? How about her friends and the general community? Do you not
+think they will ask why a beautiful and socially well-placed young woman
+like your sister should leave so large a portion of her wealth to an
+obscure man in another town, of whom her friends and even her business
+agent have never heard? It would have been better if she had left you her
+thousands directly."
+
+The smile which was Hazen's only retort was very bitter.
+
+"You drew up her will," said he. "You must have reasoned with her on this
+very point as you are now trying to reason with me?"
+
+The lawyer waved this aside.
+
+"I didn't know at that time the social status of the legatee; nor did I
+know her brother then as well as I do now."
+
+"You do not know me now."
+
+"I know that you are very pale; that the determination you have just made
+has cost you more than you perhaps are willing to state. That there is
+mystery in your past, mystery in your present, and, possibly, mystery
+threatening your future, and all in connection with your great desire for
+this money."
+
+Hazen made a forcible gesture, but whether of denial or depreciation, it
+was not easy to decide.
+
+"Would it not then be better for all parties," pursued the lawyer, "for
+you to give me some idea of the great obligation under which your sister
+lay to this man, that I may have an answer ready when people ask me why
+she passed you so conspicuously by, in order to enrich this stranger?"
+
+"The story is not mine. Had she wished you to know it, she would have
+confided it to you herself. I must decline--"
+
+Mr. Harper interrupted the other impressively. "Do you realize what a
+shadow may be thrown upon your sister's memory by this reticence on your
+part? Her death was suggestive enough without the complications you
+mention. In justice to your relationship you should speak. If, as I
+think, the money is really meant for you, say so. The subterfuge may be
+difficult of explanation, but it will not hurt her memory as much as this
+extraordinary silence on your part."
+
+"I am sorry," began Hazen. But Harper cut him short.
+
+"You expect the money--you yourself," said he. "Nothing else would force
+you into an attempt so perilous. You would risk death. Risk something
+less final; risk your place in my esteem, your standing among men, and
+confess the full truth about this matter. If it involves crime--why, I'm
+a lawyer and can see you through better than you can win through by your
+own misdirected efforts. The truth, my lad, the truth, nothing else will
+serve you."
+
+The look he received he will never forget.
+
+"You are a man of limited experience, Mr. Harper," were the words which
+accompanied it. "You would not understand the truth, Georgian or me.
+Ransom might, but I shall not even risk Ransom's discretion. Now this
+is all I am going to say about this matter. Georgian's last will and
+testament, followed though it was by suicide, was a perfectly regular
+one. The only impediment to its being so recognized and acted upon is the
+doubt as to her actual decease. If the body of my poor young sister has
+become lodged in the Devil's Cauldron, I am going there to seek it. As
+the project calls for courage and, above all, a good condition of body
+and mind, I shall be obliged to you if you will allow me the benefit of
+the sleep I most certainly need. To-morrow I may have something more to
+say to you, and I may not. Perhaps I shall want to make _my will_, who
+knows?" And with a smile full of sarcastic meaning, he pushed Mr.
+Harper's arm aside and made for the staircase, up which he presently
+vanished without another attempt on the lawyer's part to hold him back.
+
+A few minutes later the lawyer was getting what information he could
+about the so-called Devil's Cauldron.
+
+It seems that this was a very deep hole in which, on account of the rocky
+formation surrounding it, the water swept in an eddy which had the force
+of a whirlpool. No one had ever sounded its depths and nothing had ever
+been seen again which had once been sucked into its deathly hollow. That
+Georgian's body had found its everlasting grave there, many had believed
+from the first, and if the conviction had not yet been publicly expressed
+it was out of consideration for Mr. Ransom, to whose hopes it could but
+ring a final knell.
+
+"Where is the hole? How far from the waterfall?" queried Mr. Harper.
+
+"A good mile," muttered one man. "Quite around the bend of the stream.
+It's a horrid place, sir. We've always been mortal careful about rowing
+down that side of the river. Children are never allowed to. Only a man's
+strength could get him free again if he once struck the eddy."
+
+"Would anything floating down from the falls be apt to strike this eddy?"
+
+"Very apt. It would be a miracle if it didn't. That is why we all turned
+out so willingly the first day. We knew that if Mrs. Ransom's body was to
+be found at all, it would be found then; another day it would be beyond
+our reach."
+
+"You say that no one has ever sounded the depths of that hole. Has any
+one ever tried to?"
+
+"More than once. Scientific men and others."
+
+"Did they ever emerge--any of them?"
+
+"Yes, one, a powerful sort of chap with Indian blood in him. But he
+didn't advise any one to try it; said the knowledge wasn't worth the
+strain to heart and muscle."
+
+"What was the knowledge? We can imagine the strain."
+
+"Oh, he said as how the walls of the vortex--didn't he call it a
+vortex--was all stone, and he spoke of a ledge--I didn't hear what
+else."
+
+"To go down there a man would have to take his life in his hand, I see.
+Well, I don't think I will try," dryly observed the lawyer as he left the
+room.
+
+He could no longer hide his excitement at the thought that Hazen
+meditated this undertaking.
+
+"How he must want money!" thought he. That a man should face such a
+horror for another man's profit did not seem likely enough to engage his
+consideration for a moment.
+
+Lawyer Harper knew the world--or thought he did.
+
+Next day the whole town was thrown into a hubbub. Word had gone out
+through every medium possible to so small a place, that Alfred Hazen,
+Georgian's long-lost brother, was going to dare Death Eddy in a final
+attempt to recover his sister's body.
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+The Man of Mystery
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+DEATH EDDY
+
+
+It was a gray day, chill and ominous. As the three most interested in the
+event came together on the road facing the point from which Hazen had
+decided to make his desperate plunge, the dreariness of the scene was
+reflected in the troubled eye of the lawyer and that of the still more
+profoundly affected Ransom. Only Hazen gazed unmoved. Perhaps because
+the spot was no new one to him, perhaps because an unsympathetic sky,
+a stretch of rock, the swirl of churning waters without any of the
+lightness and color which glancing sunlight gives, meant for him but one
+thing--the thing upon which he had fixed his mind, his soul.
+
+The rocky formation into which the stream ran at this point as into a
+pocket, revealed itself in the bald outlines of the point which, curving
+half-way upon itself, held in its cold embrace the unseen vortex. One
+tree, and one only, disturbed the sky line. Stark and twisted into an
+unusual shape from the steady blowing of the prevalent east winds, it
+imprinted itself at once upon the eye and unconsciously upon the
+imagination. To some it was the keeper of that hell-gate; the contorted
+sentinel of bygone woes and long-buried horrors, if not the gnomish
+genius of others yet to come. To-day it was the sign-post to a strange
+deed--the courting of an uncanny death that one of the many secrets
+hidden in that hole of miseries might be unlocked.
+
+Under this tree a small group of strong and determined men was already
+collected; not as spectators but helpers in the adventurous attempt about
+to be undertaken by their old friend and playmate. The spectators had
+been barred from the point and stood lined up in the road overlooking the
+eddy. They were numerous and very eager. Hazen's brows drew together in
+his first exhibition of feeling, as he saw women and even children in the
+crowd, and caught the expression of morbid anticipation with which they
+all turned as he stepped with his two associates over the rope which had
+been stretched across the base of the out-curving head line.
+
+[Illustration: "Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast
+of death, but they will be disappointed."]
+
+"Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast of death, but
+they will be disappointed." He was almost bitter. "I shall survive this
+plunge. I have no wish for my death to be the holiday for a hundred
+gloating eyes, I am not handsome enough. When I die, it will be quietly,
+with some hand near, kind enough to cover my poor face with a napkin."
+
+Harper and Ransom both remembered this remark a little while later.
+
+"Mr. Hazen?" It was Harper who spoke. They had passed a little thicket
+of brush and were drawing near the group under the tree. "Have you duly
+considered what you are about to do? I have talked with several men of
+judgment and experience about this attempt, and they all say it can have
+but one termination."
+
+"I know. That is because they know little or nothing of the life I have
+led since I left this town. There is not a man amongst them so slight and
+seemingly frail of figure as myself, but none of them, not one, has been
+so often up to the very gates of death and escaped, as I have. My
+schooling has been long and severe, perhaps in preparation for this day.
+I have been through fire; I have been through water. The swirling of my
+own native stream does not appall me. I rather welcome it; it is but
+another experience."
+
+"But for money?" broke in Ransom. "You acknowledge it is for no other
+purpose. Will it pay? I own that in my eyes no amount of money could pay
+a man for so superhuman a risk as this. Take a few thousands from me--I
+had rather give them to you than see you leap into that water opening
+beneath us like a hungry maw."
+
+Hazen stood silent, his eye glistening, his hand almost outstretched.
+Harper thought he would yield; the offer must have struck him as generous
+and very tempting--a good excuse for a hot-headed man to withdraw from a
+very doubtful adventure. But he did not know Hazen. This latter advanced
+his hand and squeezed Ransom's warmly, but his answer, when he was ready
+to give one, conveyed no intention of a change of mind.
+
+"Will your thousands amount to a clean million?" he smiled. "That is the
+amount, I believe, bequeathed by your wife to Mr. Auchincloss. Nothing
+less will suffice. Yet I thank you, Ransom."
+
+The latter bowed and fell a little behind the others. The struggle in his
+mind had been severe; it was severe yet; he did not know but that it was
+his duty to stop this Hazen from his intended action by force. He was not
+sure but that the onus of this whole desperate undertaking would yet fall
+upon him. Certainly it would fall upon his conscience if the end was
+fatal. He had had proof of that in the long night of wakeful misery he
+had just passed; a night in which he had faced the furies; in which this
+inexorable question had forced itself upon him despite every effort on
+his part to evade it.
+
+Why had he, a humane man, consented to this attempt on the part of the
+devoted Hazen? That his mind might be free to mourn his beautiful young
+bride whose fatal and mysterious secret he was still as far from knowing
+as in the hour he turned to welcome her to their first home and found her
+fled from his arms and heart? Or had this suspense, this feeling of
+standing now, as never before, at the opening door of fate, a deeper
+significance, a more active meaning? Was this meditated test a crucial
+one, because it opened to him the only possible releasement of soul and
+conscience to the undivided care of one who had no other refuge in life
+save that offered by his devotion? The horror of this self-probing was
+still upon him as he followed Hazen's slight and virile figure across the
+rocks, but it fled as he felt the spray of the tossing waters dash its
+chilling reminder in his face.
+
+The event was upon him and he must add to his former actions that of
+a complete and determined opposition to the risk proposed or possibly
+forfeit his peace of mind forever. Quickening his pace, he reached Hazen
+and the lawyer just as the men awaiting them had advanced on their side.
+Instantly he knew it was too late. There was neither time nor opportunity
+for any weak protests on his part now. Older men were speaking; men who
+knew the river, the danger, and the man, but even they said nothing to
+him in way of dissuasion. They only pointed out what especial points of
+suction were to be avoided, and showed him the chain they had brought for
+his waist and how he was to pull upon it the very instant he felt his
+senses or his strength leaving him.
+
+He answered as a courageous man might, and making ready by taking off his
+coat and shoes he gave himself into their hands for the proper fastening
+on of the chain. Then, while the murmur of expectation rose from the
+crowd on the river bank, he stepped back to Mr. Ransom and whispered
+hurriedly in his ear:
+
+"You have a good heart, a better heart than I ever gave you credit for.
+Promise that in case I never come out of those waters alive, that you
+will put no obstacle in the way of Mr. Auchincloss inheriting his fortune
+in good time. He's a man worthy of all the assistance which money can
+bring. _You_ do not need her wealth; Anitra--well, she will be cared for,
+but Auchincloss--promise--brother."
+
+Ransom half drew back in his amazement. Then started forward again. This
+man whom he had always distrusted, whom he had looked upon as Georgian's
+possible enemy, certainly his own, was looking into his eyes with a gaze
+of trust, almost of affection. The money was not for himself; he showed
+it by the noble, almost grand look with which he waited for his answer;
+a look that carried conviction despite Ransom's prejudice and great
+dislike.
+
+"You will give me that much additional nerve for the task lying before
+me?" he added. And Ransom could only bow his head. The man's mastery was
+limitless; it had reached and moved even him.
+
+Another moment and a gasp went up from fifty or more throats. Hazen had
+taken the chain in his hand, walked to the edge of the rock and slipped
+into the quietest water he saw there.
+
+"Strike left!" called out a voice. And he struck left. The eddy seized
+him and they could see his head moving slowly about in the great circle
+which gradually grew smaller and smaller till he suddenly disappeared. A
+groan muffled with horror went up from the shore. But the man who held
+the chain lifted up his hand, and silence--more pregnant of anticipation
+than any sound--held that whole crowd rigid. The man played out the
+chain; Harper stared at the seething, tumbling water, but Ransom looked
+another way. The torture in his soul was taking shape, the shape of a
+ghost rising from those tossing waters. Suddenly the pent-in breath of
+fifty breasts found its way again to the lips.
+
+The men who held the chain were pulling it in with violent reaches. It
+dragged more slowly, stuck, loosened itself, and finally brought into
+sight a face white as the foam it rose amongst.
+
+"Dead! Drowned!" the whisper went around.
+
+But when Hazen was dragged ashore and Ransom had thrown himself at his
+feet, he saw that he yet lived, and lived triumphantly. Ransom could not
+have told more; it was for others to see and point out the smile that
+sweetened the wan lips, and the passion with which he held against his
+breast some sodden and shapeless object which he had rescued from those
+awful depths, and which, when spread out and clean of sand, betrayed
+itself as that peculiar article of woman's clothing, a small side bag.
+
+"I remember that bag," said Harper. "I saw it, or one exactly like it, in
+Mrs. Ransom's hand when she got into the coach the day we all rode up
+from the ferry. What will he have to say about it? and could he have seen
+the body from which it has evidently been torn?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+HAZEN
+
+
+"An unfathomable man," grumbled Mr. Harper, entering Mr. Ransom's room in
+marked disorder. "They say that he has not spoken yet; but the coroner is
+with him and we shall hear something from him soon. I expect--" here the
+lawyer's voice changed and his manner took on meaning--"that his report
+will be final."
+
+"Final? You mean--"
+
+"What his fainting face showed. For all its pallor and the exhaustion it
+expressed, there was triumph in its every feature. The little bag was not
+all he saw in that pit of hell. You must prepare yourself for no common
+ordeal, Ransom; it will take all your courage to listen to his story."
+
+"I know." The words came with difficulty but not without a certain manly
+courage. "I shall try not to make you too much trouble." Then after a
+moment of oppressive silence, "Did you notice, when we all came in, the
+figure of a woman disappearing up the stair way? It was Anitra's and it
+paused before it reached the top, and I saw her eyes staring down at
+Hazen's helpless figure with a wildness in its inquiry that has sapped
+all my courage. How are we to answer that girl when she asks us what has
+happened? How make her know that Hazen is her brother and that he has
+just risked his life to satisfy himself and us that Georgian was really
+lost in that dreadful pool."
+
+The lawyer, darting a keen glance at the speaker, softly shook his head.
+
+"I am not thinking of Miss Hazen," said he. "I'm wondering how far the
+proof he has obtained will go." He paused, listening, then made a gesture
+towards the hall. "There's some one there," he whispered.
+
+Ransom rose, and with a quick turn of the wrist pulled open the door.
+
+A man was standing on the threshold, a ghastly figure before which Ransom
+involuntarily stepped back.
+
+"Hazen!" he cried; then, as the other tottered, he sprang forward again
+and, reaching out his hand to steady him, drew him in with the remark,
+"We were expecting a summons from you. We are happy that you find
+yourself able to come to us."
+
+"The coroner has just gone. The doctors I dismissed. I have something to
+say to you--to both of you," he added as he caught sight of Mr. Harper.
+
+Entering slowly, he sat down in the chair proffered him by the lawyer.
+There was something strange in his air, a quiet automaton-like quality
+which attracted the latter's notice and led him to watch him very
+closely. Ransom was busy with the door, which the strong west wind
+blowing through the hall made difficult to close.
+
+"I--" The one word uttered, Hazen seemed to forget himself. Sitting quite
+still, he gazed straight before him at the open window. There was little
+to be seen there but the swaying boughs of the huge tree, but his gaze
+never left those tossing limbs, and his sentence hung suspended till the
+movement made by Ransom recrossing the room roused him, and he went on.
+
+"I have made the plunge, gentlemen, and fortune favored me. I--" here his
+voice failed him again, but realizing the fact more quickly than before,
+he shook off his apathy, and facing the two men, who awaited his slow
+words with inconceivable excitement, continued with sudden concentration
+upon his subject, "I saw what I went to see--poor Georgian's body. I have
+satisfied the coroner of this fact. The little bag I tore from her side
+proves her identity beyond a doubt. You saw it, Mr. Harper. They tell me
+that you recognized it at once as the same you saw in her hand in the
+stage-coach. But if you had not, the initials on it are unmistakable, G.
+Q. H., Georgian Quinlan Hazen. Auchincloss will get his money, and soon,
+will he not? Answer me plainly, Harper. Such an experience merits some
+reward. You will not make difficulties?"
+
+"I?" The lawyer's query had a strange ring to it. He glanced from Hazen
+to Ransom, and from Ransom back to Hazen, whose features had now become
+more composed, though they still retained their remarkable pallor.
+
+"If the proof is positive," he then went on, "you assuredly can trust
+both my client and myself to remember our promise to you."
+
+"The coroner, you say, is satisfied?"
+
+"Yes, with the proof and my sworn statement. He is obliged to be. No one
+else, least of all himself, feels any desire to go down to that whirling
+eddy for confirmation of my story. And they are wise. I do not think
+that any man with less experience than myself could sound the depths of
+that vortex and come up alive. The noise--the swirl--the sense of being
+sucked down--down in ever-increasing fury--but my purpose kept the life
+in me. I was determined not to yield, not to faint, till I had seen--and
+proved--"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+The cry was from Mr. Ransom. A sudden gust of wind had torn its way
+through the room, flinging the door wide, and strewing the floor with
+flying papers from the large stand in the window.
+
+"Nothing but wind," answered Harper, half rising to close the door, but
+immediately sitting down again with a strange look at Ransom. "Let be,"
+he whispered, as the other rose in his turn to restore order. "Keep Hazen
+talking. It's important; imperative. I'll see to the door."
+
+But it was the window he closed, not the door.
+
+Ransom, with that obedience natural to a client in presence of his most
+trusted adviser, did as he was bid, and turned his full attention back to
+Hazen instantly. That gentleman, upon whom the rushing wind and the havoc
+it created had made little if any impression, rushed again into words.
+
+"I've led an adventurous life," he declared, "and, in the last few years
+especially, passed through many perils and experienced much awful
+suffering. I have felt the pang of hunger and the pang of biting despair;
+but nothing I have ever endured can equal the horror which beclouded my
+mind and rendered powerless my body as I felt myself sliding from the
+sight of earth and heaven into the jaws of that rapacious eddy, whose
+bottom no man had ever sounded.
+
+"I went in young--I have come out old. Look at my hands--they shake like
+those of a man of ninety. Yet yesterday they could have pulled to the
+ground an ox."
+
+"You saw Mrs. Ransom's body down in that pool some fathoms below the
+surface," observed the lawyer, after waiting in vain for some word from
+the shrinking husband. "Won't you particularize, Mr. Hazen? Tell us just
+how she was lying and where. Mr. Ransom cannot but wish to know,
+difficult as he evidently finds it to ask you."
+
+"The coroner has the story," Hazen began, with the slow, painful gasp of
+the unwilling narrator. "But I will tell it again; it is your right, the
+painful duty which we cannot escape. She was lying, not on the bottom,
+but in a niche of rock into which she had been thrown and wedged by the
+force of the current. One arm was free and was washing about; I tried to
+clutch this arm as I went down, but it eluded me. When I arose, the rush
+and swirl of the water was against me and I felt my senses going, but
+enough instinct was left for me to snatch again at the arm as I passed,
+and though it eluded me again, my fingers closed on something, which I
+was just conscious enough to hold on to with a frenzied grip. We have
+spoken of this thing--a little bag which must have been fastened to her
+side, for the end of its connecting strap is torn away by the wrench I
+gave it."
+
+"Vivid enough; but I am sure you will tell me one thing more. Did you see
+the face of this body as well as the arm? It would greatly add to the
+strength of your testimony if you could describe it."
+
+Ransom, who had been watching Hazen, cast a sudden look back at the
+lawyer as he dropped these insinuating words. Something more than a
+cold-blooded desire for truth had prompted this almost brutal
+inquisition. He must know what it was, if anything in Harper's
+well-controlled countenance would tell him. The result transfixed him,
+for following the lawyer's gaze, which was fixed not on the man he was
+addressing but on a small mirror hanging on the opposite wall, he saw
+reflected in it the face and form of Anitra standing in the open
+doorway behind them.
+
+She was looking at Hazen and, as Ransom noted that look, he understood
+Harper's previous caution and all that lay behind his insistent and
+cold-blooded questions. For her gaze was no longer one of simple inquiry
+but of horrified understanding;--_the gaze of one who heard_.
+
+Meantime, Hazen was answering in painful gasps the lawyer's pointed
+question, "Did you see the face of this body as well as the arm?"
+
+"Did I see--God help me, yes. Just a glimpse, but I knew it. Eyes that my
+mother had kissed, blind--staring--glassed in awe and unspeakable fright.
+The mouth, whose every curve I had studied in the old days of perfect
+affection, drawn into a revolting grin and dripping with unwholesome
+weeds brought down from the shallows. All strange, yet all familiar--my
+sister--Georgian--dead--stark--but recognizable. Don't ask me if I saw
+it. I always see it; it is before me now, the forehead--the chin--the
+eyes--"
+
+Ransom sprang to his feet, Harper also.
+
+The girl in the doorway had gone white as death, and with outstretched
+arms and frantic, haggard eyes was striving to ward off the frightful
+vision conjured up by her brother's words. The movement made by the
+two men recalled her in an instant to herself, and she drew back--the
+hesitating, appealing, anxious-eyed girl whom they all knew. But it
+was too late. Hazen had seen as well as the others, and leaping in
+frenzy from his chair stood confronting her--a dominant and accusing
+figure--between the quietly triumphant lawyer and the crushed, almost
+unconscious Ransom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+SHE SPEAKS
+
+
+Hazen's face was frightful to see; the more so that physical weakness
+contended with the outsweep of passion, so great and overwhelming in its
+power and destructive force that to the two onlookers it seemed to spring
+from deeper sources than ordinary life and death, and have its birth, as
+well as its culmination, in the unknown and all that is most terrible
+in the human mind and human experience.
+
+Anitra's eye was spellbound by it. As it dilated upon this vision of
+unspeakable wrath and almost superhuman denunciation, her own exquisite
+face filled with a reflected horror, almost equaling his in force and
+meaning, till the two awed spectators saw in this moment of startled
+recognition and the up-gathering of two great natures, the oncoming of
+some hideous climax for which the many strange and contradictory
+experiences of the last few days had not served to prepare them.
+
+"You _hear_!"
+
+In these words Hazen loosed out his soul.
+
+The keen cry of the wind running through the house was his only answer.
+
+"You _hear_!" he repeated, advancing and laying a determined hand upon
+her arm. "You have made a mock of us with your pretended deafness. What
+does it mean--Stop! no more play-acting," he fiercely admonished her, as
+her eyes assumed a look of startled inquiry and wandered away in vague
+curiosity to the papers scattered over the floor--"we have had enough
+of that; you cannot deceive us--you cannot deceive _me_ twice. You played
+at deafness--why? Because Anitra must have some disability to distinguish
+her from Georgian? Because you are not Anitra? Because you are Georgian
+after all?"
+
+Georgian!
+
+The word fell like a plummet into the hollow of that great expectancy.
+Ransom shivered and even Harper's hard cheek changed color. Hazen only
+stood unmoved, his look, his grasp, the spirit behind that look and
+grasp, implacable and determined. Their influence was terrible; slowly
+she succumbed to it against her will and purpose, the will and purpose of
+a very strong woman. Her eyes rose in a painful and lingering struggle to
+his face. Then, with a cry her drawn and parched lips could not suppress,
+she flashed them in agony on Ransom, and this long-suffering man read in
+them the maddening truth. They were his wife's eyes; the woman before him
+was indeed Georgian.
+
+"Speak!" rang out the voice of Hazen, as Harper, realizing from Ransom's
+face what Ransom had just realized from hers, stepped to the door and
+closed it. "The time is short; I have much, very much to do. For my sake,
+for the sake of this much-abused man, whom you allowed to marry you,
+speak out, tell the truth at once. You are Georgian."
+
+"Yes," fell in almost an inaudible whisper from her lips. "I am
+Georgian." Then as he loosed his grasp from her arm and she was left
+standing there alone, some instinct of isolation, some realization of the
+mysterious pit she had dug for herself and possibly for others, in this
+avowal of her identity, wrought her brain into momentary madness, and
+flinging up her arms she fell on her knees before Hazen as under the
+stroke of some unseen thunderbolt.
+
+"You made me say it," she cried. "On your head be the punishment, not on
+mine nor on his." Then as Hazen drew slowly back, touched in his turn by
+some emotion to which neither his look nor gesture gave any clew, she
+rose to her feet, and fixing him with a look of strange defiance, added
+in milder but no less determined tones: "A tongue unloosed talks long and
+loud. You have made me give up my secret, but I shall not stop at that. I
+shall say more; tell all my dreadful history; yours--mine. I will not be
+thought wicked because I undertook so great a deception. I will not have
+this good man's opinion of me shaken; not for a minute; what I did, I
+did for him and he shall know it whatever penalty it may incur. He is
+my husband--his love to me is priceless, and I will hold it against
+you--against the Cause--against Heaven--yes, and against Hell."
+
+Here was truth. To Ransom it came like balm and a renewed life. Bounding
+across the room, he strove to seize her hand and draw her to himself.
+But Hazen would not have it. His anger, indeterminate before, was
+concentrated now, and not the white pleading of her face, nor the warning
+gesture of Ransom, could hold it back.
+
+"Traitress!" he cried, "traitress to me and to the Cause. You thought
+to escape what is inescapable. Do you know what you have done? You
+have--" The rest hung in air. A sudden weakness had seized him and he
+sank faltering back into a chair Harper pushed towards him, still
+denouncing her, however, with lifted hand and accusing eyes, the
+image--though no longer a speaking one--of the implacable and determined
+avenger.
+
+Georgian, shocked into silence, stared at him in a frenzy of complicated
+emotions to which neither of them as yet had given the key capable of
+relieving the maddening tension.
+
+"It is the pool; the pool," she finally murmured. "Its waters have beaten
+out your life." But he calmly shook his head.
+
+"It is not in water to do that," he murmured. "Give me a moment. I've a
+question to ask. I think a drop of liquor--"
+
+Harper had flask in hand almost before the word had left the other's
+mouth. The draft revived Hazen; he looked up at Georgian. "I believe you,
+so do these men believe you. But you were not alone in this plot. Where
+is Anitra? Where is the deaf and solitary one you dragged from the
+streets of New York to bolster up your plot? Tell us and tell us quickly.
+Where is Anitra?"
+
+"Anitra? Do you ask that?" cried Harper, roused to speak for the first
+time by his boundless amazement and indignation. "You have described the
+body in the pool--a description which fits either sister, and yet you
+would make this woman tell us what you have seen with your own eyes."
+
+He might as well not have spoken. Neither he nor she seemed to hear him.
+Certainly neither heeded.
+
+"Anitra?" she repeated softly and with a strange intonation. "I am
+Anitra. I am both Georgian and Anitra. There have never been two of us
+since I came into this house."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+FIFTEEN MINUTES
+
+
+"There have never been but one of us since I came into this house."
+
+Monstrous assertion! or so it seemed to Ransom as the whirl of his
+thoughts settled and reason resumed its sway. Only one! But he had
+himself seen two; so had Mrs. Deo and the maids; he could even relate the
+differences between them on that first night. Yet had he ever seen them
+together, or even the shadow of one at the same moment he saw the person
+of the other? No, and with such an actress as she had shown herself to be
+these last two days, such changes of appearance might be possible, though
+why she should engage in such a deep, almost incredible plot was a
+mystery to make the hair rise,--she, the tender, exquisite, the beloved
+woman of his dreams.
+
+She saw the maddening nature of his confusion and, springing to him, fell
+on her knees with the imploring cry:
+
+"Patience! Do not try to think--I will tell you. It can all be said in a
+word. I was bound to this brother of mine, to do his bidding, to follow
+his fortunes through life, and up to death, by promises and oaths to
+which those uttered by me at the marriage altar were but toys and empty
+air. Anitra, or the dream sister my misery took from the dead, was not
+so bound, so I strove to secure our joy by the seeming death of Georgian
+and a new life as her twin. You do not understand; you cannot. You have
+no measure with which to gauge such men as my brother. But it will be
+given you. There is no hope now. The weakness of a moment has undone us."
+
+Ransom must have heard her, after events proved that he did, but he gave
+no token of it. The visions that were whirling through his mind still
+held it engrossed. He saw her, not as she stood before him now, trembling
+and appealing, but as she had looked to him in the hall that first night,
+as she had looked to him down by the mill-stream, as she had looked when
+she told her story as Anitra, and later when she had faced the landlady
+as Georgian, and the confusion of it all left no room in his conscience
+for any other impression. But Mr. Harper, though surprised as he had
+never been before in all his professional career, lost himself in no such
+abyss. With the freedom which long-delayed insight into the truth gives
+to a man of his positive nature and training, he left speculation and all
+endeavor to reconcile events with her declaration, and plunged at once to
+the obvious question of the moment.
+
+Fixing his keen gaze on Hazen, he observed very quietly, but with an
+underlying note of sarcasm:
+
+"If this lady is your sister, Georgian Ransom, and there is no Anitra
+save the fast fading memory of the child commemorated in your family's
+monument, then your statement as to the body you saw under the ledge was
+false?"
+
+The answer came deliberately, unaffected both by the manner of the
+accusation or by the accusation itself.
+
+"Perfectly so," said he, "I saw no body. Perhaps my description would
+have been less vivid if I had. My intention you know. This woman had
+deceived me to the point of making me believe that she was indeed Anitra,
+the twin, and not my millionaire sister, and Georgian's fortune being
+necessary to her heir, I wished to cut short the law's delay by an
+apparent identification. I never doubted from the moment this woman faced
+with such well-played ignorance the mark of great meaning we had placed
+upon her door, that Georgian was in the river, as you all believed. Why
+then not give her a positive resting-place, since this would smooth out
+all difficulties and hasten the very end for which she had apparently
+sacrificed herself."
+
+If there was any irony in his heart, his tongue did not show it. Indeed
+his manner betrayed little. Immobility had again replaced all tokens of
+anger, and immobility which only yielded now and then to a slight
+contortion more expressive of physical pain than of mental agitation.
+Yet in Georgian's eyes he had lost none of his formidable qualities, for
+the dismay with which she followed his words grew as she listened, and
+reached its height as he added in final explanation:
+
+"The bag I did draw out of the pool, but only because I had taken it down
+there in my blouse front. Did you think a man could see that or anything
+else indeed in that maddening swirl of water?"
+
+"But it was Mrs. Ransom's bag," came from Harper in ill-disguised
+amazement. Even his sang-froid was leaving him before these evidences
+of a plot so deep as to awaken awe. "Where did you get it? Not from Mrs.
+Ransom herself? Her own surprise is warranty for that."
+
+"No, I got it from the river, another reason why I credited her drowning.
+It was fished up from the sand, a little way from the Fall. My man found
+it; I had sent him there in a vain hope that he might find evidence of
+the tragedy which others had overlooked. He did, but he told no one but
+me. You flung the thing too far," he remarked to Georgian. "You should
+have dropped it nearer the bank. Only such a prodder as my man Ives would
+ever have discovered it."
+
+Georgian shook her head, impatient at such banalities, in the face of the
+important matters they had to discuss. "To the point," she cried, "tell
+these men what will clear me of everything but a wild attempt at
+freedom."
+
+"I have said what I had to say," returned her brother.
+
+Georgian's head fell. For a moment her courage seemed to fail her.
+
+Mr. Harper rose and locked the door.
+
+"We must have no intruders here," said he, pausing with a certain sense
+of shock, as he noticed the faint smile, full of some sinister meaning,
+which for an instant twisted Hazen's lips at these words.
+
+But the delay was but momentary. With an odd sense of haste he rushed at
+once to the attack.
+
+Stepping in front of Hazen, he observed with force and unmistakable
+resolution:
+
+"Your devotion to the legatee Auchincloss cannot possibly be explained by
+any ordinary feeling of obligation. Your sister has mentioned a Cause.
+Can he by any possibility be the treasurer of that Cause?"
+
+But Hazen was as impervious to direct attack as he had been to a covert
+one.
+
+"Georgian will tell you," said he. "When a woman looks as she looks now,
+and is so given over to her own personal longings that she forgets the
+most serious oaths, the most binding promises, nothing can hold back her
+speech. She will talk, and since this must be, let her talk now and in
+my presence. But let it be briefly," he admonished her, "and with
+discretion. An unnecessary word will weigh heavily in the end. You know
+in what scales. You shall have just fifteen minutes."
+
+He looked about for a clock, but seeing none drew out his watch from his
+vest pocket and laid it on the table. Then he settled himself again in
+his chair, with a look and gesture of imperative command towards
+Georgian.
+
+Struck with dismay, she hesitated and he had time to add: "I shall not
+interrupt unless you pass the bounds where narrative ends and disclosure
+begins." And Harper and Ransom, glancing up at this, wondered at his
+rigidity and the almost marble-like quiet into which his restless eye and
+frenzied movements had now subsided.
+
+Georgian seemed to wonder also, for she gave him a long and piercing look
+before she spoke. But once she had begun her story, she forgot to look
+anywhere but at the man whose forgiveness she sought and for the
+restoration of whose sympathy she was unconsciously pleading.
+
+Her first words settled one point which up to this moment had disturbed
+Ransom greatly.
+
+"You must forget Anitra's story. It was suggested by facts in my own
+life, but it was not true of me or mine in any of its particulars.
+Nor must you remember what the world knows, or what my relations say
+about my life. The open facts tell little of my real history, which
+from childhood to the day I believed my brother dead was indissolubly
+bound up in his. Though our fathers were not the same and he has
+old-world blood in his veins, while I am of full American stock, we loved
+each other as dearly and shared each other's life as intimately as if the
+bond between us had been one in blood as it was in taste and habit. This
+was when we were both young. Later, a change came. Some old papers of his
+father fell into his hands. A new vision of life,--sympathies quite
+remote from those which had hitherto engrossed him, led him further and
+further into strange ways and among strange companions. Ignorant of what
+it all meant, but more alive than ever to his influence, I blindly
+followed him, receiving his friends as my friends and subscribing to such
+of their convictions as they thought wise to express before me. Another
+year and he and I were living a life apart, owning no individual
+existence but devoting brain, heart, all we had and all we were, to the
+advancement and perpetuation of an idea. I have called this idea the
+Cause. Let that name suffice. I can give you no other."
+
+Pausing, she waited for some look of comprehension from the man she
+sought to enlighten. But he was yet too dazed to respond to her mute
+appeal, and she was forced to continue without it. Indicating Hazen with
+a gesture, she said, with her eyes still fixed on those of her husband:
+
+"You see him now as he came from under the harrow; but in those days--I
+must speak of you as you were, Alfred--he was a man to draw all eyes and
+win all hearts. Men loved him, women adored him. Little as he cared for
+our sex, he had but to speak, for the coldest breast to heave, the most
+indifferent eye to beam. I felt his power as strong as the rest, only
+differently. No woman was more his slave than I, but it was a sister's
+devotion I felt, a devotion capable of being supplanted by another. But I
+did not know this. I thought him my whole world and let him engross me in
+his plans and share his passions for subjects I did not even seek to
+understand.
+
+"I was only seventeen, he twenty-five. It was for him to think, not me.
+And he did think but to my eternal undoing. The Cause needed a woman's
+help, a woman's enthusiasm. Without considering my motherless condition,
+my helplessness, the immaturity of my mind, he drew me day by day into
+the secret meshes of his great scheme, a scheme which, as I failed to
+understand till it had absorbed me, meant the unequivocal devotion of my
+whole life to the exclusion of every other hope or purpose. Favored, he
+called it, favored to stand for liberty, the advancement of men, the
+right of every human being to an untrammeled existence. And favored I
+thought myself, till one awful day when my brother, coming suddenly into
+my room, found me making plans for an innocent pleasure and told me such
+things were no longer for me, that a great and immortal duty awaited me,
+one that had come sooner than he expected, but which my youth, beauty,
+and spirit eminently fitted me to carry on to triumph.
+
+"I was frightened. For the first time in my memory of him he looked like
+his Italian father, the man we had all tried to forget. Once while
+rummaging amongst my mother's treasures I had come across a miniature of
+Signor Toritti. He was a handsome man but there was something terrible in
+his eye; something to make the ordinary heart stand still. Alfred's
+burned with the same meaning at this moment, and as I noted his manner,
+which was elevated, almost godlike, I realized the difference in our
+heredity and how natural to him were the sacrifices for which my mind and
+temper were as naturally unprepared. With difficulty I asked him to
+explain himself, and it was with terror that I listened when he did.
+He may have been made to ask, but I was not made to hear such words. He
+saw my inner rebellion and stopped in mid-harangue. He has never forgiven
+me the disappointment of that moment. I have never forgiven him for
+making me sign away my independence, my holdings, and my life to a Cause
+I did not thoroughly understand."
+
+"Your life?" echoed Ransom, roused to involuntary expression by this
+word.
+
+"Surely not your life," echoed the lawyer, with the slow credulity of the
+matter-of-fact man.
+
+"I have said it," she murmured, her head falling on her breast. At which
+token of weakness, Hazen stirred and took the words from her mouth.
+
+"The organization," said he, "is a secret one and its code is
+self-sacrifice. To the band of noble men and women, of whose integrity
+and far-reaching purpose you can judge little from the whinings of a
+love-sick girl, life and all personal gratifications are as dust in the
+balance against the preservation and advancement of universal happiness
+and the great Cause. I thought my sister, young as she was, sufficiently
+great-minded to comprehend this and sufficiently great-hearted to do the
+society's bidding with joy at the sacrifice. But I found her lacking,
+and--" He stopped and almost lost himself again, but roused and cried
+with sudden fire, "Tell what I did, Georgian."
+
+"You took my duty on yourself," she conceded, but coldly. "That was
+brotherly; that was noble, if you had not exacted a vow from me in
+return, destined to lay waste my whole life. Released from this one great
+duty, I was to hold myself ready to fulfil all others. At the lift of a
+hand--a finger--I was to leave whatever held me and go after the one who
+beckoned in the name of the Cause. No circumstances were to be
+considered; no other human duty or affection. If it were to enter upon a
+fuller and more adventurous life, well and good; if it were to encounter
+death and the cessation of all earthly things, that was well too, and a
+good to be embraced with ardor. Obedience was all, and obedience at a
+mere signal! I took the oath and then--"
+
+"Yes, _then_--" emphasized Hazen in wavering but peremptory tones.
+
+"He told me what had led to all this misery. That as yet this compact was
+between us two, and us two only. That he had considered my youth, and in
+speaking of me to the Chief had held back my name even while promising
+my assistance. That he should continue to consider it, by keeping my name
+in reserve till he had returned from his mission, and if that mission
+failed, or succeeded too well, and he did not return, I might regard
+myself as freed from the Cause, unless my enlarging nature led me to
+attach myself to it of my own free will. That said, he went, and for a
+year I lived under the dread of his return and all the obligations that
+return would entail. Then came tidings of his death, tidings for which he
+may not have been responsible, but which he never contradicted, and I
+thought myself free--free to enjoy life, and the fortune that had so
+unexpectedly come to me; free to love and, alas! free to marry. And that
+is why," she pursued, in all the anguish of a dreadful retrospect, "I
+recoiled in such horror and hung, a dead weight on your arm, when on
+turning from the altar where we had just pledged ourselves to mutual love
+and mutual life, I saw among the faces before me the changed but still
+recognizable one of my brother, and beheld him make the fatal sign which
+meant, 'You are wanted. Come at once.'"
+
+"Wretch!" issued from the frenzied lips of the half-maddened bridegroom,
+as his glance flashed on Hazen. "Had you no mercy? Have you no mercy now,
+that you should torture her young, credulous soul with these fanciful
+obligations; obligations which no human being has any right to impose
+upon another, whatsoever the Cause, holy or unholy, he represents?"
+
+"Mercy? It is the weakness of the easy soul. There is no ease here," he
+cried, touching his breast with no gentle hand.
+
+"Then you forget my money," suggested Georgian. "Can you expect mercy
+from a man who sees a million just within his grasp? I know," she
+acknowledged, as Hazen lifted that same ungentle hand in haughty protest,
+"that it was not for himself. I do not think Alfred would disturb a fly
+for his own comfort, but he would wreck a woman's hopes, a good man's
+happiness for the Cause. He admitted as much to me, _and more_, in the
+interview we held that afternoon at the St. Denis. I had to go to him at
+once, and I had to employ subterfuge in order to do so," she went on in
+rapid explanation, as she saw her husband's eye refill with doubt under a
+remembrance of the shame and anguish of that unhappy afternoon. "I had
+not the courage to leave you openly at the carriage door. Besides, I
+hoped to work on Alfred's pity in our interview together, or, if not
+that, to buy my release and return to you a free woman. But the wound
+which had changed his face for me had changed and made hard his heart. He
+had other purposes for me than quiet living with a man who could have no
+real interest in the Cause. The money I inherited, the rare and growing
+beauty which he declared me to have, were too valuable to the brethren
+for me to hope for any existence in which their interests were not
+paramount. I might return to you, subject to the same authoritative beck
+and call which had put me in my present position, or I might leave you at
+once and forever. No half measures were possible. Was I, a bride, loving
+and beloved by my husband, to listen to either of these alternatives? I
+rebelled, and then the thunderbolt fell.
+
+"I was no longer on probation, no longer subject to his will alone. I was
+a fully affiliated member. That day my name had been sent to the Chief.
+This meant obedience on my part or a vengeance I felt it impossible to
+consider. While I lived I need never hope again for freedom without
+penalty.
+
+"'While I lived'; the words rang in my ears. I did not need to weigh
+them; I knew that they were words of truth. There is no power on earth
+so inescapable as that exercised by a secret society, and this one has
+a terrible safeguard. None but he who keeps the list knows the members.
+You, Roger, might be one, and I never suspect it, unless you chose to
+give me the sign. Knowing this, I realized that my life was not worth the
+purchase if I sought to cross the will of my own brother. Nor yours,
+either. It was the last thought which held me. While I dutifully
+listened, my mind was working out the deception which was to release me,
+and when I left him it was to take the first step in the complicated plot
+by which I hoped to recover my lost happiness. And I nearly succeeded.
+You have seen what I have borne, what difficulties I have faced, what
+discoveries eluded, but this last, this greatest ordeal, was too much. I
+could not listen unmoved to a description of my own drowned body. I, who
+had calculated on all, had not calculated on this. The horror overcame
+me--I forgot--perhaps because God was weary of my many deceptions!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+"THERE IS ONE WAY"
+
+
+"Have you done?"
+
+Hazen was on his feet and, rigid still, but oscillating from side to
+side, as though his strength did not suffice to hold him quite erect, was
+surveying them with eyes sunk so deeply in his head that they looked like
+dying sparks reanimated for an instant by some passing breath.
+
+The half-fainting woman he addressed did not answer. She was looking up
+at Ransom for the sympathy and pardon he was as yet too dazed to show.
+
+Hazen made a move. It was that of physical suffering sternly endured.
+
+"Let me speak," he urged. "I have a question to ask. I must ask it now.
+Who was the woman who came up from New York with you? There were two of
+you then."
+
+Without turning her head Georgian replied:
+
+"That was Bela, my maid; the same one who personated me on the afternoon
+of my wedding."
+
+"That accounts for the coarseness of her neck," Hazen explained with a
+certain grim humor to the lawyer, who had given a slight start of
+surprise or humiliation. Then quietly to Georgian:
+
+"Was it she who threw the comb and dropped your bag where my man found
+it?"
+
+"I threw the comb; threw it from my window before I uttered that loud
+shriek. It did not go very far; but I had to be satisfied with the fact
+that it lay in the direction of the waterfall. But it was to Bela I
+entrusted the flinging of the bag. I gave it to her when she left the
+coach. I had explained to her long before just what a place she would
+find herself in when she was set down at the foot of the lane; how she
+was to make her way in the darkness till she came to where there were
+no more trees, when she was to strike across to the stream, led by the
+noise of the waterfall. I was very particular in my directions, because I
+knew the danger she incurred of slipping into the chasm. It was her fear
+of this and the more than ordinary darkness, I presume, which made her
+throw the bag hap-hazard. I simply wanted it dropped on the bank above
+the waterfall."
+
+"I saw the girl," Mr. Harper broke in. "She wore a black skirt like the
+one you now wear, a black blouse and a red-checked handkerchief knotted
+about her throat. But the young woman who was seen leaving these parts
+the next morning had on some kind of a red dress and wore a hat. Bela had
+thrown away her hat; it was picked up where the coach stopped and
+afterwards brought here."
+
+"I know. My plans went deep; I foresaw the possibility of her being
+recognized by her clothes. To guard against this, I had her skirt and
+blouse made double, the one side black, the other a bright color. She had
+simply to turn them. The extra hat she carried with her; it was small and
+easily concealed. Her neckerchief she probably tucked away. I had its
+mate in my pocket, and when I left my room by the window, as I did the
+moment after I had locked the two rooms, it was with my hair pulled down
+and this neckerchief about my shoulders. How did I dare the risk! I
+wonder now; but it was life, life I was after; life and love; nothing
+else would have made me so fearless; nothing else would have given me
+such confidence in myself or lent such speed to my feet, running as I did
+in the darkness."
+
+"You ran around the house to the lane, and entered it by the turn-stile."
+
+"Yes, and so quickly that I had time to splash myself with mud and lose
+all my natural characteristics before any one came to find me. It was
+Anitra they met, panting and disheveled, at the head of the lane; Anitra
+in appearance, Anitra in heart. I did not act a part; I _was_ Anitra;
+Anitra as I had conceived her. To me she was and is an active, living
+personality. Whenever I faced you in her character, I thought with her
+half-educated mind; felt with her half-disciplined heart. I even shut my
+ears to sounds; I would not hear; half the time I did not. Nor did I fall
+back into my old ways when I was alone. From the minute Georgian closed
+her door upon you for the last time, and I darkened my skin in
+preparation for a permanent assumption of Anitra's individuality, I
+became the imaginary twin, in thought, feeling, and action. It was my
+only safeguard. Alas! had I only gone one step further and made myself
+really deaf!"
+
+The cry was bitterness itself, but it passed unheeded. Mr. Ransom could
+not speak and Hazen had other cares in mind.
+
+"Where is this woman Bela now?" he asked.
+
+Georgian was too absorbed or too unwilling, to answer.
+
+He repeated the question, this time with an authority she could not
+resist. Rising slowly, she faced him for one impressive moment.
+
+"My God!" came from her lips in startled surprise. "How pale you are! Sit
+down or you will fall."
+
+He shook his head impatiently.
+
+"It's nothing. Answer my question. Where is this Bela now?"
+
+"I don't know. She is beyond my reach--and _yours_. I told her to lose
+herself. I think she is clever enough to do so. The money I paid her was
+worth a few years spent in obscurity."
+
+The spark lighting his eye brightened into baleful flame, but she met
+it calmly. An indomitable spirit confronted one equally indomitable, and
+his was the first to succumb. Turning from her, Hazen took out pencil
+and paper from his pocket, and, crossing to the window with that same
+peculiar and oscillating motion of which he seemed unconscious, or which
+he found it impossible to subdue, he wrote a line, folded it, and before
+even Harper was aware of his purpose threw up the sash and flung it out,
+uttering a quick, sharp whistle as he did so.
+
+"What's that you're up to?" shouted the lawyer, rushing to the window and
+peering over the other's shoulder into the open space below, from which a
+man was just disappearing.
+
+"Am I a prisoner of the police that you should ask me that?" returned
+Hazen, haughtily.
+
+"No, but you should be," retorted Harper. "I don't like your ways, Hazen.
+I don't like what you and your sister have said about the Cause and the
+conscienceless obedience exacted from its members. I don't like any of
+it; least of all this passing over of poor Bela's name to one whose duty
+it will possibly be to make trouble for her."
+
+Hazen smiled and moved from the window. No one there had ever seen such a
+smile before, and the oppression which it brought heightened Georgian's
+fear to terror.
+
+"Let be!" she cried, lifting her hands towards Harper in inconceivable
+anxiety. "A quarrel with him will not help you and it may greatly injure
+_me_. Alfred, what am I to expect? Something dreadful, I can see. Your
+face is not the face of one who forgives, or who sees in a gift of money
+an adequate recompense for a cowardly withdrawal."
+
+"You read rightly," said he. "Your fortune will be accepted by the Chief,
+but he will never forget the cowardice. What faith can he put in one who
+prefers her own happiness to the general good? You must prepare for
+punishment."
+
+"Punishment!" broke scornfully from Harper's lips.
+
+She hushed him with a look before which even he stood aghast.
+
+"You will only waste words," she cried. "If he says punishment, I may
+expect punishment." And turning back to Ransom, in a burst of longing and
+passion, she raised her eyes to him again, saying, "You do not forgive
+because you do not realize my danger. But you will realize it when I am
+gone."
+
+Ransom, under a sudden releasement of the tension of doubt and awe which
+had hitherto held him speechless, gave her one wild stare, then caught
+her to his breast.
+
+She uttered a happy sigh.
+
+"Ah!" she murmured in the soft ecstasy and boundless relief of the
+moment, "how I have learned to love you during the fears and agonies
+of this awful week."
+
+"And I you," was the whispered answer. "Too deeply," he impetuously added
+in louder tones, "to let any harm come to you now."
+
+She smiled; but desperation fought with love in that smile. Gently
+releasing herself, she cast another glance at Hazen, upon whose gray
+and distorted countenance there had settled a great gloom, and
+passionately exclaimed:
+
+"Had law or love been able to interfere with the judgment of our Chief, I
+should not have been driven into the herculean task of deceiving you and
+the whole world as to my real identity." Then with slowly drooping head,
+and the manner of one who has heard his doom pronounced, she hoarsely
+whispered; "The death-mark was scrawled upon my door last night. This is
+never done without the consent of the Chief. No one can save me now, not
+even my own brother."
+
+"False. I scrawled those lines," declared Ransom. "It was a test--"
+
+"Which _I_ commanded you to make," put in Hazen. Then in fainter and less
+strenuous tones, "She's right. Georgian Ransom is doomed; no one can save
+her."
+
+"False again!" This time it was Harper who interposed. "I can and will.
+You forget that I know the name of your Chief. Conspiracy such as you
+hint at is indictable in this country. I am a lawyer. I shall protect,
+not only your sister, but her money."
+
+The smile he received in return evinced no ordinary scorn.
+
+"Try it," said he. Then with a laugh so low as to be almost inaudible,
+yet so full of meaning that even Harper's cheek lost color, he calmly
+declared: "No one knows the name of our Chief. Auchincloss is a member
+and a valuable one--the only one whose name Georgian positively knows;
+but he's but a unit in a thousand. You cannot reach the Head or even the
+Heart of this great organization through him, and if you did and punished
+it, the Cause would grow another head and you would be as far from
+injuring us as you are now. Georgian is right. Not even I can save her
+now." Then, with a steady look into each of their faces, he smiled again
+and one and all shuddered. "But the Cause will go on," he cried in tones
+ringing with enthusiasm. "Mankind will drop its shackles and we, we shall
+have unriveted one of its chains. It is worth dying for, I, Alfred Hazen,
+say it."
+
+Slowly he sank back into his chair. The pallor which had astounded all
+from the first had now become the ghastly mask of a soul whose only token
+of life glimmered through the orbits of his fast glazing eyes. He
+breathed, but in great pants. Georgian became alarmed.
+
+"What is it?" she cried, forgetting her own fears and threats in the
+horror which his appearance excited. "This is something more than
+exhaustion from the pounding of that murderous eddy. What have you done?
+Tell me, Alfred, tell me."
+
+For the first time since his entrance into the room a suggestion of
+sweetness crept into his tone.
+
+"Simply forestalled the verdict of the Chief," said he. "I was under oath
+to leave the country to-day on no ordinary errand. I failed to keep my
+word, believing that the interests of the Cause could be better served by
+what I have here undertaken than by the fulfilment of my primal duty. But
+we are not allowed the free exercise of our own judgment, else what man
+could be depended on? With us, neglect means death, no matter what the
+excuse or the Cause's benefit. I knew this when I made my choice last
+night. I have been dying ever since, but only actually since I came into
+this room. When the doctors decided that I had received no mortal hurt in
+the eddy, I--"
+
+"Alfred!" The sister-heart spoke at last. "Not--not poison!"
+
+"That is what you may call it here," said he, with a return to his old
+imperious manner, "but later and to the world it will be kindness on your
+part to name it exhaustion--the effect of my battle with the water. The
+doctors will reconsider their diagnosis and blame my poor heart. You will
+have no trouble about it. It _is_ my heart--I feel it failing--failing--"
+
+He was sinking, but suddenly his whole nature flared up. Bounding to his
+feet, he stood before them, with eyes aflame and a passionate strength in
+his attitude which held them spellbound.
+
+"What can law, what can selfish greed, what can self-aggrandizement and
+the most pitiless ambition effect against men who own to such discipline
+as this? Nothing. The world will go on, you will try your little ways,
+your petty reforms, your slow-moving legislation and promise of justice
+to the weak, but the invincible is the ready; ready to act; ready to
+suffer, ready to die so that God is justified of his children and man
+lifted into brotherhood and equality. You cannot strive against the
+unseen and the fearless. The Cause will triumph though all else fails.
+Georgian, I am sorry--" He was tottering now, but he held them back
+with a stern gesture, "I don't think I ever knew just what love was.
+There is one way--only one--"
+
+But from those lips the explanation of this one way never came. As they
+saw the change in him and rushed to his support, his head fell forward on
+his breast and all was over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+NOT YET
+
+
+They had laid him on the bed and Mr. Harper, in his usual practical way,
+was hastening to rouse the house, when Georgian stepped before him and
+laid her hand upon the door.
+
+"Not yet," said she with authority. "He said there was a way--let us find
+it before we give up our secret and our possible safety. Mr. Harper, have
+you guessed that way?"
+
+"No, except the usual one of protection through the law which he scouts.
+I do not believe, Mrs. Ransom, in any other being necessary. Your
+brother's threats answered a very good purpose while he was alive, but
+now that he is dead they need not trouble you. I'm not even sure that I
+believe in the organization. It was mostly in your brother's brain, Mrs.
+Ransom; there's no such band, or if there is, its powers are not so
+unlimited as he would make you believe."
+
+She simply pointed to the motionless form and the distorted face which
+were slowly assuming an expression of great majesty.
+
+"There is my answer," said she. "Men of his strong attributes do not kill
+themselves from fancy. He knew what he did."
+
+"And you think--"
+
+"That I will not live a week if I pass that door under the name of
+Georgian Ransom. Mr. Harper, I am sure of it; Roger, I beg you to believe
+what I say. It may not come here--but it will come. The mark has been set
+against my name. Death only will obliterate this mark. But the name--that
+is already a dead one--shall it not stay so?--It is the one way--the way
+he meant."
+
+"Georgian!"
+
+It was a cry of infinite protest. Such a cry as one might expect from the
+long-suffering Ransom. It drew her from the door; it brought her to his
+side. As their eyes and hands met, Harper stepped back to the bedside,
+and remembering the sensitiveness of the man before him, softly covered
+his poor face. When he turned back, Mrs. Ransom was slowly shaking her
+head under her husband's prolonged look and saying softly:
+
+"No, not Georgian, Anitra. Henceforth Anitra, always Anitra. Can you
+endure the ordeal for the sake of the safety and peace of mind it will
+bring?"
+
+"I endure it! Can you? Remember the deafness that marks Anitra."
+
+"That can be cured." Her smile turned almost arch. "We will travel; there
+are great physicians abroad."
+
+"A sister--not a wife?"
+
+"Your wife in time--Ah, it will mean a new courtship and--Anitra is a
+different woman from Georgian--she has suffered--you will love her
+better."
+
+"O God! Harper, are we living, awake, sane? Help me at this crisis. I do
+not know where I am or what this is she really asks."
+
+"She asks the impossible. She asks what you can, perhaps, give, but not
+what I can. You forget that this deception calls for connivance on my
+part, and whatever you may think of me or my profession, deception is
+foreign to my nature and very repugnant to me."
+
+"And you refuse?"
+
+"Mrs. Ransom, I must."
+
+The hope which had held her up, the life which had returned to body and
+spirit since this prospect of a possible future had dawned upon her,
+faded from glance and smile.
+
+"Then good-by, Roger, we shall never have those happy days together of
+which we have often dreamt. I may stay with you a week, a month, a year,
+but the horror of a great fear will be over us, and never, never can we
+know joy."
+
+She threw herself into her husband's arms; she clung to him.
+
+"One moment," she cried, "one moment of perfect happiness before the
+shadow falls. Oh, how I must love you, Roger, to say such words, to think
+such thoughts, with the body of the brother I loved so deeply once, lying
+there dead before us, killed by his own hand."
+
+Ransom softly drew her aside where her eyes could not fall upon the bed.
+
+Harper stopped still where he was, the picture of gloom and uncertainty.
+
+"It must be settled now," said Ransom. "As we leave this room, our
+relations must remain."
+
+"I cannot but think your fears all folly," muttered Harper. "Yet the
+responsibility you force upon me is terrible. If it were not for that
+will! How can I present it to the Surrogate when I know the testator is
+still alive?"
+
+"You need not. I will do that," said Ransom.
+
+"And the property! Given to a man we none of us know. Property that is
+not legally his."
+
+"I will make it so," cried Georgian with a burst of new and
+uncontrollable hope as she saw, as she thought, this conscientious lawyer
+yielding. "There is paper here; draw up a deed of gift. I will sign it
+and you shall hold it so that whether I live or die, Auchincloss' title
+to his money shall be absolute. Thus much I wish to do, that Alfred's
+life should not have been sacrificed for nothing."
+
+"Let me think."
+
+Harper was wavering.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A half-hour later the door of Ransom's room was flung hurriedly open, and
+loud cries for Mrs. Deo and the office clerk rang through the house. And
+when they and others came running at the call, it was to find Mr. Ransom
+and the lawyer hanging over the recumbent figure of the dead Hazen, and
+the deaf girl Anitra pointing at the group, with wild and inarticulate
+cries.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+_Works by Anna Katharine Green_
+
+
+THE LEAVENWORTH CASE. A Lawyer's Story.
+
+"She has worked up a _cause célèbre_ with a fertility of device and
+ingenuity of treatment hardly second to Wilkie Collins or Edgar
+Allan Poe."--_Christian Union_.
+
+
+A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE
+
+"A most ingenious and absorbingly interesting story. The
+readers are held spellbound until the last page."--_Cincinnati
+Commercial_.
+
+
+THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. A Story of New York Life.
+
+"'The Sword of Damocles' is a book of great power, which far
+surpasses either of its predecessors from her pen, and places her
+high among American writers. The plot is complicated and is
+managed adroitly.... In the delineation of characters she has
+shown both delicacy and vigor."--_Congregationalist_.
+
+
+BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
+
+" ... She has never succeeded better in baffling the reader."--_Boston
+Christian Register_.
+
+
+HARD AND RING
+
+"It is a tribute to the author's genius that she never tires and
+never loses her readers.... It moves on clean and healthy....
+It is worked out powerfully and skilfully."--_N. Y. Independent_.
+
+
+THE MILL MYSTERY
+
+
+X. Y. Z. and 7 TO 12: DETECTIVE STORIES
+
+"Well written and extremely exciting and captivating.... She
+is a perfect genius in the construction of a plot."--_N. Y. Commercial
+Advertiser_.
+
+
+THE OLD STONE HOUSE, AND OTHER STORIES
+
+"It is a bundle of quite cleverly constructed pieces of fiction, with
+which an idle hour may be pleasantly passed."--_N. Y. Independent_.
+
+
+CYNTHIA WAKEHAM'S MONEY
+
+"'Cynthia Wakeham's Money' is a story notable even among the
+many vigorous works of Anna Katharine Green."--_New York Sun_.
+
+
+MARKED "PERSONAL."
+
+"The ingenious plot is built up with all the skill of the writer of
+'The Leavenworth Case' to the very last chapter, which contains
+the surprising solutions of several mysteries."
+
+
+MISS HURD: AN ENIGMA
+
+"A strong and interesting novel in an entirely new field of romance."
+
+
+THE DOCTOR, HIS WIFE, AND THE CLOCK
+
+"The story is entertainingly told...."--_Cincinnati Tribune_.
+
+
+DR. IZARD
+
+"Those who have read her other books will not need to be urged
+to read this; they will be eager to do so, and we assure them a very
+interesting story."--_Boston Times_.
+
+
+THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR
+
+"Startling in its ingenuity and its wonderful plot."--_Buffalo
+Enquirer_.
+
+
+LOST MAN'S LANE
+
+
+AGATHA WEBB
+
+
+ONE OF MY SONS
+
+
+THE DEFENCE OF THE BRIDE, AND OTHER POEMS
+
+
+RISIFI'S DAUGHTER
+
+
+THE FILIGREE BALL
+
+
+THE MILLIONAIRE BABY
+
+
+THE AMETHYST BOX
+
+
+THE HOUSE IN THE MIST
+
+
+THE WOMAN IN THE ALCOVE
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHIEF LEGATEE***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 17999-8.txt or 17999-8.zip *******
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+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Chief Legatee</p>
+<p>Author: Anna Katharine Green</p>
+<p>Release Date: March 18, 2006  [eBook #17999]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHIEF LEGATEE***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/cover.jpg"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h1>The Chief Legatee</h1>
+
+<h2>By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN</h2>
+
+<h4>Author of</h4>
+
+
+
+<h3><i>"The Leavenworth Case," "The Woman in the Alcove," Etc., Etc.</i></h3>
+
+<h4>Illustrated in Water-Colors by <span class="smcap">Frank T. Merrill</span></h4>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h5>Copyright, 1906, by Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs</h5>
+
+
+
+<h5>WEINSTOCK, LUBIN &amp; CO.<br />
+SPECIAL EDITION,<br />
+400 to 418 K. Street, Sacramento, Cal.</h5>
+
+
+
+<h5>New York and London<br />
+The Authors and Newspapers Association<br />
+1906</h5>
+
+
+
+<h5>Copyright, 1906, by<br />
+ANNA KATHARINE GREEN ROHLFS</h5>
+
+
+
+<h5><i>Entered at Stationers' Hall.<br />
+All rights reserved.</i></h5>
+
+<h5>Composition, Electrotyping,<br />
+Printing and Binding by<br />
+The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A.</h5>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/frontis.jpg"><img src="images/frontis.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+
+
+<h4>A young girl sitting on a low stool by the window mending a rent in her skirt.</h4>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#PART_I">PART I.&mdash;A WOMAN OF MYSTERY</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.--<span class="smcap">A Bride of Five Hours</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.--<span class="smcap">The Lady in Number Three</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.--<span class="smcap">"He Knows the Word"</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.--<span class="smcap">Mr. Ransom Waits</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.--<span class="smcap">In Corridor and in Room</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.--<span class="smcap">The Lawyer</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.--<span class="smcap">Rain</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.--<span class="smcap">Elimination</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.--<span class="smcap">Hunter's Inn</span></a><br /><br />
+
+<a href="#PART_II">PART II.&mdash;THE CALL OF THE WATERFALL</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.--<span class="smcap">Two Doors</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.--<span class="smcap">Half-Past One in the Morning</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.--<span class="smcap">"Georgian"</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.--<span class="smcap">Where the Mill Stream Runs Fiercest</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.--<span class="smcap">A Detective's Work</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.--<span class="smcap">Anitra</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.--<span class="smcap">"Love"</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.--<span class="smcap">"I Don't Hear"</span></a><br /><br />
+
+<a href="#PART_III">PART III.&mdash;MONEY</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.--<span class="smcap">God's Forest, Then Man's</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.--<span class="smcap">In Mrs. Deo's Room</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.--<span class="smcap">Between the Elderberry Bushes</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.--<span class="smcap">On the Cars</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.--<span class="smcap">A Suspicious Test</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.--<span class="smcap">A Startling Decision</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.--<span class="smcap">The Devil's Cauldron</span></a><br /><br />
+
+
+<a href="#PART_IV">PART IV.&mdash;THE MAN OF MYSTERY</a><br /><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.--<span class="smcap">Death Eddy</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.--<span class="smcap">Hazen</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.--<span class="smcap">She Speaks</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.--<span class="smcap">Fifteen Minutes</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.--<span class="smcap">"There is One Way"</span></a><br />
+<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.--<span class="smcap">Not Yet</span></a><br /><br />
+
+
+<a href="#Works_by_Anna_Katharine_Green">Works by Anna Katharine Green</a><br />
+
+
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+
+<p>A young girl sitting on a low stool by the window mending a rent in her
+skirt (<i>Frontispiece</i>)</p>
+
+<p>"I cut them letters there fifteen years ago. Now I'm to cut 'em out"</p>
+
+<p>"A slight, dark form steals from the shadows and lays a hand on the
+stooping man's shoulder"</p>
+
+<p>"Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast of death, but they
+will be disappointed"</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_CHIEF_LEGATEE" id="THE_CHIEF_LEGATEE"></a>THE CHIEF LEGATEE</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">A Woman of Mystery</span></h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>A BRIDE OF FIVE HOURS</h3>
+
+
+<p>"What's up?"</p>
+
+<p>This from the manager of the Hotel &mdash;&mdash; to his chief clerk. "Something
+wrong in Room 81?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. I've just sent for a detective. You were not to be found and
+the gentleman is desperate. But very anxious to have it all kept quiet;
+very anxious. I think we can oblige him there, or, at least, we'll try.
+Am I right, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, if&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! it's nothing criminal. The lady's missing, that's all; the lady
+whose name you see here."</p>
+
+<p>The register lay open between them; the clerk's finger, running along the
+column, rested about half-way down.</p>
+
+<p>The manager bent over the page.</p>
+
+<p>"'Roger J. Ransom and wife,'" he read out in decided astonishment. "Why,
+they are&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're right. Married to-day in Grace Church. A great wedding; the
+papers are full of it. Well, she's the lady. They registered here a few
+minutes before five o'clock and in ten minutes the bride was missing.
+It's a queer story Mr. Ransom tells. You'd better hear it. Ah, there's
+our man! Perhaps you'll go up with him."</p>
+
+<p>"You may bet your last dollar on that," muttered the manager. And joining
+the new-comer, he made a significant gesture which was all that passed
+between them till they stepped out on the second floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Wanted in Room 81?" the manager now asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, by a man named Ransom."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so. That's the door. Knock&mdash;or, rather, I'll knock, for I must hear
+his story as soon as you do. The reputation of the hotel&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, but the gentleman's waiting. Ah! that's better."</p>
+
+<p>The manager had just knocked.</p>
+
+<p>An exclamation from within, a hurried step, and the door fell open. The
+figure which met their eyes was startling. Distress, anxiety, and an
+impatience almost verging on frenzy, distorted features naturally amiable
+if not handsome.</p>
+
+<p>"My wife," fell in a gasp from his writhing lips.</p>
+
+<p>"We have come to help you find her," Mr. Gerridge calmly assured him. Mr.
+Gerridge was the detective. "Relate the circumstances, sir. Tell us where
+you were when you first missed her."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom's glance wandered past him to the door. It was partly open.
+The manager, whose name was Loomis, hastily closed it. Mr. Ransom showed
+relief and hurried into his story. It was to this effect:</p>
+
+<p>"I was married to-day in Grace Church. At the altar my bride&mdash;you
+probably know her name, Miss Georgian Hazen&mdash;wore a natural look, and was
+in all respects, so far as any one could see, a happy woman, satisfied
+with her choice and pleased with the &eacute;clat and elegancies of the
+occasion. Half-way down the aisle this all changed. I remember the
+instant perfectly. Her hand was on my arm and I felt it suddenly stiffen.
+I was not alarmed, but I gave her a quick look and saw that something had
+happened. What, I could not at the moment determine. She didn't answer
+when I spoke to her and seemed to be mainly concerned in getting out of
+the church before her emotions overcame her. This she succeeded in doing
+with my help; and, once in the vestibule, recovered herself so
+completely, and met all my inquiries with such a gay shrug of the
+shoulders, that I should have passed the matter over as a mere attack of
+nerves, if I had not afterwards detected in her face, through all the
+hurry and excitement of the ensuing reception, a strained expression not
+at all natural to her. This was still more evident after the
+congratulations of a certain guest, who, I am sure, whispered to her
+before he passed on; and when the time came for her to go up-stairs she
+was so pale and unlike herself that I became seriously alarmed and asked
+if she felt well enough to start upon the journey we had meditated.
+Instantly her manner changed. She turned upon me with a look I have been
+trying ever since to explain to myself, and begged me not to take her out
+of town to-night but to some quiet hotel where we might rest for a few
+days before starting on our travels. She looked me squarely in the eye as
+she made this request and, seeing in her nothing more than a feverish
+anxiety lest I should make difficulties of some kind, I promised to do
+what she asked and bade her run away and get herself ready to go and say
+nothing to any one of our change of plan. She smiled and turned away
+towards her own room, but presently came hurrying back to ask if I would
+grant her one more favor. Would I be so good as not to speak to her or
+expect her to speak to me till we got to the hotel; she was feeling very
+nervous but was sure that a few minutes of complete rest would entirely
+restore her; something had occurred (she acknowledged this) which she
+wanted to think out; wouldn't I grant her this one opportunity of doing
+so? It was a startling request, but she looked so lovely&mdash;pardon me, I
+must explain my easy acquiescence&mdash;that I gave her the assurance she
+wished and went about my own preparations, somewhat disconcerted but
+still not at all prepared for what happened afterward. I had absolutely
+no idea that she meant to leave me."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom paused, greatly affected; but upon the detective asking him
+how and when Mrs. Ransom had deserted him, he controlled himself
+sufficiently to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Here; immediately after that silent and unnatural ride. She entered the
+office with me and was standing close at my side all the time I was
+writing our names in the register; but later, when I turned to ask her to
+enter the elevator with me, she was gone, and the boy who was standing by
+with our two bags said that she had slipped into the reception-room
+across the hall. But I didn't find her there or in any of the adjoining
+rooms. Nor has anybody since succeeded in finding her. She has left the
+building&mdash;left me, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You want her back again?"</p>
+
+<p>This from the detective, but very dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. For she was not following her own inclinations in thus abandoning
+me so soon after the words which made us one were spoken. Some influence
+was brought to bear on her which she felt unable to resist. I have
+confidence enough in her to believe that. The rest is mystery&mdash;a mystery
+which I am forced to ask you to untangle. I have neither the necessary
+calmness nor experience myself."</p>
+
+<p>"But you surely have done something," protested Gerridge. "Telephoned to
+her late home or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, I have done all that, but with no result. She has not returned
+to her old home. Her uncle has just been here and he is as much mystified
+by the whole occurrence as I am. He could tell me nothing, absolutely
+nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! and the man, the one who whispered to her during the reception,
+couldn't you learn anything about him?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom's face took on an expression almost ferocious.</p>
+
+<p>"No. He's a stranger to Mr. Fulton; yet Mr. Fulton's niece introduced him
+to me as a relative."</p>
+
+<p>"A relative? When was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the reception. He was introduced as Mr. Hazen (my wife's maiden name,
+you know), and when I saw how his presence disturbed her, I said to her,
+'A cousin of yours?' and she answered with very evident embarrassment, 'A
+relative';&mdash;which you must acknowledge didn't locate him very definitely.
+Mr. Fulton doesn't know of any such relative. And I don't believe he is
+a relative. He didn't sit with the rest of the family in the church."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you saw him in the church."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I noticed him for two reasons. First, because he occupied an end
+seat and so came directly under my eye in our passage down the aisle.
+Secondly, because his face of all those which confronted me when I looked
+for the cause of her sudden agitation, was the only one not turned
+towards her in curiosity or interest. His eyes were fixed and vacant; his
+only. That made him conspicuous and when I saw him again I knew him."</p>
+
+<p>"Describe the man."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom's face lightened up with an expression of strong satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to astonish you," said he. "The fellow is so plain that
+children must cry at him. He has suffered some injury and his mouth and
+jaw have such a twist in them that the whole face is thrown out of shape.
+So you see," continued the unhappy bridegroom, as his eyes flashed from
+the detective's face to that of the manager's, "that the influence he
+exerts over my wife is not that of love. No one could love <i>him</i>. The
+secret's of another kind. What kind, what, what, what? Find out and I'll
+pay you any amount you ask. She is too dear and of too sensitive a
+temperament to be subject to a wretch of his appearance. I cannot bear
+the thought. It stifles, it chokes me; and yet for three hours I've had
+to endure it. Three hours! and with no prospect of release unless you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll do something," was Gerridge's bland reply. "But first I must
+have a few more facts. A man such as you describe should be easy to find;
+easier than the lady. Is he a tall man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unusually so."</p>
+
+<p>"Dark or light?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dark."</p>
+
+<p>"Any beard?"</p>
+
+<p>"None. That's why the injury to his jaw shows so plainly."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. Is he what you would call a gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I must acknowledge that. He shows the manners of good society, if
+he did whisper words into my wife's ear which were not meant for mine."</p>
+
+<p>"And Mr. Fulton knows nothing of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll drop him for the present. You have a photograph of your
+wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her picture was in all the papers to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"I noticed. But can we go by it? Does it resemble her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only fairly. She is far prettier. My wife is something uncommon. No
+picture ever does her justice."</p>
+
+<p>"She looks like a dark beauty. Is her hair black or brown?"</p>
+
+<p>"Black. So black it has purple shades in it."</p>
+
+<p>"And her eyes? Black too?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, gray. A deep gray, which look black owing to her long lashes."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. Now about her dress. Describe it as minutely as you can. It
+was a bride's traveling costume, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That is, I presume so. I know that it was all right and suitable to
+the occasion, but I don't remember much about it. I was thinking too much
+of the woman in the gown to notice the gown itself."</p>
+
+<p>"Cannot you tell the color?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was a dark one. I'm sure it was a dark one, but colors are not much
+in my line. I know she looked well&mdash;they can tell you about it at the
+house. All that I distinctly remember is the veil she had wound so
+tightly around her face and hat to keep the rice out of her hair that
+I could not get one glimpse of her features. All nonsense that veil,
+especially when I had promised not to address her or even to touch her
+in the cab. And she wore it into the office. If it had not been for that
+I might have foreseen her intention in time to prevent it."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she knew that."</p>
+
+<p>"It looks as if she did."</p>
+
+<p>"Which means that she was meditating flight from the first."</p>
+
+<p>"From the time she saw that man," Mr. Ransom corrected.</p>
+
+<p>"Just so; from the time she left her uncle's house. Your wife is a woman
+of means, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, unfortunately."</p>
+
+<p>"Why unfortunately?"</p>
+
+<p>"It makes her independent and offers a lure to irresponsible wretches
+like him."</p>
+
+<p>"Her fortune is large, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very large; larger than my own."</p>
+
+<p>Every one knew Mr. Ransom to be a millionaire.</p>
+
+<p>"Left her by her father?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, by some great-uncle, I believe, who made his fortune in the
+Klondike."</p>
+
+<p>"And entirely under her own control?"</p>
+
+<p>"Entirely so."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is her man of business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Edward Harper, of&mdash;Wall Street."</p>
+
+<p>"He's your man. He'll know sooner or later where she is."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but later won't do. I must know to-night; or, if that is
+impossible, to-morrow. Were it not for the mortification it would cause
+her I should beg you to put on all your force and ransack the city for
+this bride of five hours. But such publicity is too shocking. I should
+like to give her a day to reconsider her treatment of me. She cannot mean
+to leave me for good. She has too much self-respect; to say nothing of
+her very positive and not to be questioned affection for myself."</p>
+
+<p>The detective looked thoughtful. The problem had its difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>"Are those hers?" he asked at last, pointing to the two trunks he saw
+standing against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I had them brought up, in the hope that she had slipped away on
+some foolish errand or other and would yet come back."</p>
+
+<p>"By their heft I judge them to be full; how about her hand-bag?"</p>
+
+<p>"She had only a small bag and an umbrella. They are both here."</p>
+
+<p>"How's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"The colored boy took them at the door. She went away with nothing in her
+hands."</p>
+
+<p>Gerridge glanced at the bag Mr. Ransom had pointed out, fingered it, then
+asked the young husband to open it.</p>
+
+<p>He did so. The usual articles and indispensable adjuncts of a nice
+woman's toilet met their eyes. Also a pocketbook containing considerable
+money and a case holding more than one valuable jewel.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the officer and manager met in ill disguised alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"She must have been under the most violent excitement to slip away
+without these," suggested the former. "I'd better be at work. Give me two
+hours," were his parting words to Mr. Ransom. "By that time I'll either
+be back or telephone you. You had better stay here; she may return.
+Though I don't think that likely," he muttered as he passed the manager.</p>
+
+<p>At the door he stopped. "You can't tell me the color of that veil?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Look about the room, sir. There's lots of colors in the furniture and
+hangings. Don't you see one somewhere that reminds you of her veil or
+even of her dress?"</p>
+
+<p>The miserable bridegroom looked up from the bag into which he was still
+staring and, glancing slowly around him, finally pointed at a chair
+upholstered in brown and impulsively said:</p>
+
+<p>"The veil was like that; I remember now. Brown, isn't it? a dark brown?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And the dress?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you a thing about the dress. But her gloves&mdash;I remember
+something about them. They were so tight they gaped open at the wrist.
+Her hands looked quite disfigured. I wondered that so sensible a woman
+should buy gloves at least two sizes too small for her. I think she was
+ashamed of them herself, for she tried to hide them after she saw me
+looking."</p>
+
+<p>"This was in the cab?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Where you didn't speak a word?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word."</p>
+
+<p>"Though she seemed so very much cut up?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, she didn't seem cut up; only tired."</p>
+
+<p>"How tired?"</p>
+
+<p>"She sat with her head pressed against the side of the cab."</p>
+
+<p>"And a little turned away?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"As if she shrank from you?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little so."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she brighten when the carriage stopped?"</p>
+
+<p>"She started upright."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you help her out?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I had promised not to touch her."</p>
+
+<p>"She jumped out after you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And never spoke?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word."</p>
+
+<p>Gerridge opened the door, motioned for the manager to follow, and, once
+in the hall, remarked to that gentleman:</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to see the boy who took her bag and was with them when she
+slipped away."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LADY IN NUMBER THREE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The boy was soon found and proved to be more observing in matters of
+dress than Mr. Ransom. He described with apparent accuracy both the color
+and cut of the garments worn by the lady who had flitted away so
+mysteriously. The former was brown, all brown; and the latter was of the
+tailor-made variety, very natty and becoming. "What you would call
+'swell,'" was the comment, "if her walk hadn't spoiled the hang of it.
+How she did walk! Her shoes must have hurt her most uncommon. I never did
+see any one hobble so."</p>
+
+<p>"How's that? She hobbled, and her husband didn't notice it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he had hurried on ahead. She was behind him, and she walked like
+this."</p>
+
+<p>The pantomime was highly expressive.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a point," muttered Gerridge. Then with a sharp look at the boy:
+"Where were you that you didn't notice her when she slipped off?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I did, sir. I was waiting for the clerk to give me the
+key, when I saw her step back from the gentleman's side and, looking
+quickly round to see if any one was noticing her, slide off into the
+reception-room. I thought she wanted a drink of water out of the pitcher
+on the center-table, but if she did, she didn't come back after she had
+got it. None of us ever saw her again."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you follow Mr. Ransom when he walked through those rooms?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; I stayed in the hall."</p>
+
+<p>"Did the lady hobble when she slid thus mysteriously out of sight?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little. Not so much as when she came in. But she wasn't at her ease,
+sir. Her shoes were certainly too small."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I will take a peep at those rooms now," Gerridge remarked to the
+manager.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Loomis bowed, and together they crossed the office to the
+reception-room door. The diagram of this portion of the hotel will give
+you an idea of these connecting rooms.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/floorplan.png"><img src="images/floorplan.png" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+
+<p>There are three of them, as you will see, all reception-rooms. Mr. Ransom
+had passed through them all in looking for his wife. In No. 1 he found
+several ladies sitting and standing, all strangers. He encountered no one
+in No. 2, and in No. 3 just one person, a lady in street costume
+evidently waiting for some one. To this lady he had addressed himself,
+asking if she had seen any one pass that way the moment before. Her reply
+was a decided "No"; that she had been waiting in that same room for
+several minutes and had seen no one. This staggered him. It was as if his
+wife had dissolved into thin air. True, she might have eluded him by
+slipping out into the hall by means of door two at the moment he entered
+door one; and alert to this possibility, he hastened back into the hall
+to look for her. But she was nowhere visible, nor had she been observed
+leaving the building by the man stationed at entrance A. But there was
+another exit, that of B. Had she gone out that way? Mr. Ransom had taken
+pains to inquire and had been assured by the man in charge that no
+lady had left by that door during the last ten minutes. This he had
+insisted on, and when Mr. Loomis and the detective came in their turn
+to question him on this point he insisted on it again. The mystery seemed
+complete,&mdash;at least to the manager. But the detective was not quite
+satisfied. He asked the man if at any time that day, before or after Mrs.
+Ransom's disappearance, he had swung the door open for a lady who walked
+lame. The answer was decisive. "Yes; one who walked as if her shoes were
+tight."</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh a little while after the gentleman asked his questions."</p>
+
+<p>"Was she dressed in brown?"</p>
+
+<p>That he didn't know. He didn't look at ladies' dresses unless they were
+something special.</p>
+
+<p>"But she walked lame and she came from Room 3?"</p>
+
+<p>Yes. He remembered that much.</p>
+
+<p>Gerridge, with a nod to the manager, stepped into the open compartment of
+the whirling door. "I'm off," said he. "Expect to hear from me in two
+hours."</p>
+
+<p>At twenty minutes to ten Mr. Ransom was called up on the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>"One question, Mr. Ransom."</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gerridge."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, go ahead."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see the face of the woman you spoke to in Room No. 3?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. She was looking directly at me."</p>
+
+<p>"You remember it? Could identify it if you saw it again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; that is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all, good-by."</p>
+
+<p>The circuit was cut off.</p>
+
+<p>Another intolerable wait. Then there came a knock on the door and
+Gerridge entered. He held a photograph in his hand which he had evidently
+taken from his pocket on his way up.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at this," said he. "Do you recognize the face?"</p>
+
+<p>"The lady&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Just so; the one who said she had seen no one come into No. 3 on the
+first floor."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom's expression of surprised inquiry was sufficient answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's a pity you didn't look at her gloves instead of at her face.
+You might have had some dim idea of having seen them before. It was she
+who rode to the hotel with you; not your wife. The veil was wound around
+her face for a far deeper purpose than to ward off rice."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom staggered back against the table before which he had been
+standing. The blow was an overwhelming one.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is this woman?" he demanded. "She came from Mr. Fulton's house. More
+than that, from my wife's room. What is her name and what did she mean by
+such an outrage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her name is Bella Burton, and she is your wife's confidential maid. As
+for the meaning of this outrage, it will take more than two hours to
+ferret out that. I can only give you the single fact I've mentioned."</p>
+
+<p>"And Mrs. Ransom?"</p>
+
+<p>"She left the house at the same moment you did; you and Miss Burton. Only
+she went by the basement door."</p>
+
+<p>"She? <i>She?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Dressed in her maid's clothes. Oh, you'll have to hear worse things than
+that before we're out of this muddle. If you won't mind a bit of advice
+from a man of experience, I would suggest that you take things easy. It's
+the only way."</p>
+
+<p>Shocked into silence by this cold-blooded philosophy, Mr. Ransom
+controlled both his anger and his humiliation; but he could not control
+his surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"What does it mean?" he murmured to himself. "<i>What does it all mean?</i>"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>"HE KNOWS THE WORD"</h3>
+
+
+<p>The next moment the doubt natural to the occasion asserted itself.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know all this? You state the impossible. Explain yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Gerridge was only too willing to do so.</p>
+
+<p>"I have just come from Mr. Fulton's house," said he. "Inquiries there
+elicited the facts which have so startled you. Neither Mr. Fulton nor his
+wife meant to deceive you. They knew nothing, suspected nothing of what
+took place, and you have no cause to blame them. It was all a plot
+between the two women."</p>
+
+<p>"But how&mdash;why&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I had a fact to go upon. You had noticed that your so-called
+bride's gloves did not fit her; the boy below, that her shoes were so
+tight she hobbled. That set me thinking. A woman of Mrs. Ransom's
+experience and judgment would not be apt to make a mistake in two such
+important particulars; which, taken with the veil and the promise she
+exacted from you not to address or touch her during your short ride to
+the hotel, led me to point my inquiries so that I soon found out that
+your wife had had the assistance of another woman in getting ready for
+her journey and that this woman was her own maid who had been with her
+for a long time, and had always given evidence of an especial attachment
+for her. Asking about this girl's height and general appearance (for the
+possibility of a substitution was already in my mind), I found that she
+was of slight figure and good carriage, and that her age was not far
+removed from that of her young mistress. This made the substitution I
+have mentioned feasible, and when I was told that she was seen taking her
+hat and bonnet into the bride's room, and, though not expected to leave
+till the next morning, had slid away from the house by the basement door
+at the same moment her mistress appeared on the front steps, my
+suspicions became so confirmed that I asked how this girl looked, in the
+hope that you would be able to recognize her, through the description,
+as the woman you had seen sitting in Reception-room No. 3. But to my
+surprise, Mrs. Fulton had what was better than any description, the
+girl's picture. This has simplified matters very much. By it you have
+been able to identify the woman who attempted to mislead you in the
+reception-room, and I the person who rode here with you from Mr. Fulton's
+house. Wasn't she dressed in brown? Didn't you notice a similarity in her
+appearance to that of the very lady you were then seeking?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not observe. Her face was all I saw. She was looking directly at
+me as I stepped into the room."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. She had taken off her veil and trusted to your attention being
+caught by her strange features,&mdash;as it was. But that dress was brown;
+I'm sure of it. She was the very woman. Otherwise the mystery is
+impenetrable. A deep plot, Mr. Ransom; one that should prove to you that
+Mrs. Ransom's motive in leaving you was of a very serious character. Do
+you wish that motive probed to the bottom? I cannot do it without
+publicity. Are you willing to incur that publicity?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must." Mr. Ransom had risen in great excitement. "Nothing can hide the
+fact that my bride left me on our wedding-day. It only remains now to
+show that she did it under an influence which robbed her of her own will;
+an influence from which she shrank even while succumbing to it. I can
+show her no greater kindness, and I am not afraid of the result. I have
+perfect confidence in her integrity"&mdash;he hesitated, then added with
+strong conviction&mdash;"and in her love."</p>
+
+<p>The detective hid his surprise. He could not understand this confidence.
+But then he knew nothing of the memories which lay back of it. Not to him
+could this grievously humiliated and disappointed man reveal the secrets
+of a courtship which had fixed his heart on this one woman, and aroused
+in him such trust that even this uncalled-for outrage to his pride and
+affection had not been able to shake it. Such secrets are sacred; but the
+reflection of his trust was strong on his face as he repeated:</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect confidence, Mr. Gerridge. Whatever may have drawn Mrs. Ransom
+from my side, it was not lack of affection, or any doubt of my sincerity
+or undivided attachment to herself."</p>
+
+<p>The detective may not have been entirely convinced on the first point,
+but he was discretion itself, and responded quite cheerfully with an
+emphatic:</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. You still want me to find her. I will do my best, sir; but
+first, cannot you help me with a suggestion or two?"</p>
+
+<p>"I?"</p>
+
+<p>"There must be some clew to so sudden a freak on the part of a young and
+beautiful woman, who, I have taken pains to learn, has not only a clean
+record but a reputation for good sense. The Fultons cannot supply it.
+She has lived a seemingly open and happy life in their house, and the
+mystery is as great to them as to you. But <i>you</i>, as her lover and now
+her husband, must have been favored with confidences not given to others.
+Cannot you recall one likely to put us on the right track? Some fact
+prior to the events of to-day, I mean; some fact connected with her past
+life; before she went to live with the Fultons?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Yet let me think; let me think." Mr. Ransom dropped his face into
+his hands and sat for a moment silent. When he looked up again, the
+detective perceived that the affair was hopeless so far as he was
+concerned. "No," he repeated, this time with unmistakable emphasis,
+"she has always appeared buoyant and untrammeled. But then I have only
+known her six months."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me her history so far as you know it. What do you know of her life
+previous to your meeting her?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was a very simple one. She had a country bringing up, having been
+born in a small village in Connecticut. She was one of three children and
+the only one who has survived; her sister, who was her twin, died when
+she was a small child, and a brother some five years ago. Her fortune was
+willed her, as I have already told you, by a great-uncle. It is entirely
+in her own hands. Left an orphan early, she lived first with her brother;
+then when he died, with one relative after another, till lastly she
+settled down with the Fultons. I know of no secret in her life, no
+entanglement, not even of any prior engagements. Yet that man with the
+twisted jaw was not unknown to her, and if he is a relative, as she said,
+you should have no difficulty in locating him."</p>
+
+<p>"I have a man on his track," Gerridge replied. "And one on the girl's
+too; I mean, of course, Bela Burton's. They will report here up to twelve
+o'clock to-night. It is now half-past eleven. We should hear from one or
+the other soon."</p>
+
+<p>"And my wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"A description of the clothing she wore has gone out. We may hear from
+it. But I doubt if we do to-night unless she has rejoined her maid or the
+man with a scar. Somehow I think she will join the girl. But it's hard to
+tell yet."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom could hardly control his impatience. "And I must sit helpless
+here!" he exclaimed. "I who have so much at stake!"</p>
+
+<p>The detective evidently thought the occasion called for whatever comfort
+it was in his power to bestow.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said he. "For it is here she will seek you if she takes a notion
+to return. But woman is an uncertain quantity," he dryly added.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the telephone bell rang. Mr. Ransom leaped to answer;
+but the call was only an anxious one from the Fultons, who wanted to
+know what news. He answered as best he could, and was recrossing
+disconsolately to his chair when voices rose in the hall, and a man was
+ushered in, whom Gerridge immediately introduced as Mr. Sims.</p>
+
+<p>A runner&mdash;and with news! Mr. Ransom, summoning up his courage, waited for
+the inevitable question and reply. They came quickly enough.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you got? Have you found the man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And the lady's been to see him; that is, if the description of her
+togs was correct."</p>
+
+<p>"He means Mrs. Ransom," explained Gerridge. Then, as he marked his
+client's struggle for composure, he quietly asked, "A lady in a dark
+green suit with yellowish furs and a blue veil over her hat?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the ticket!"</p>
+
+<p>"The clothes worn by the woman who went out of the basement door, Mr.
+Ransom."</p>
+
+<p>The latter turned sharply aside. The shame of the thing was becoming
+intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>"And this woman wearing those yellow furs and the blue veil visited the
+man of the broken jaw?" inquired Gerridge.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"About six this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"And where?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the hotel St. Denis where I have since tracked him."</p>
+
+<p>"How long did she stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"About an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"In the parlor or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In the parlor. They had a great deal to say. More than one noticed them,
+but no one heard anything. They talked very low but they meant business."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is this man now?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the same place. He has engaged a room there."</p>
+
+<p>"The man with the twisted jaw?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Under what name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh Porter."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, it was Hazen only five hours ago," muttered Ransom. "Porter, did you
+say? I'll have a talk with this Porter at once."</p>
+
+<p>"I think not to-night," put in the detective, with the mingled authority
+and deference natural to one of his kind. "To-morrow, perhaps, but
+to-night it would only provoke scandal."</p>
+
+<p>This was certainly true, but Mr. Ransom was not an easy man to dominate.</p>
+
+<p>"I must see him before I sleep," he insisted. "A single word may solve
+this mystery. He has the word. I'd be a fool to let the night go by&mdash;Ah!
+what's that?"</p>
+
+<p>The telephone bell had rung again. A message from the office this time. A
+note had just been handed in for Mr. Ransom; should they send it up?</p>
+
+<p>Gerridge was at the 'phone.</p>
+
+<p>"Instantly," he shouted down, "and be sure you hold the messenger. It may
+be from your lady," he remarked to Mr. Ransom. "Stranger things than that
+have happened."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom reeled to the door, opened it and stood waiting. The two
+detectives exchanged glances. What might not that note contain!</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom opened it in the hall. When he came back into the room, his
+hand was shaking and his face looked drawn and pale. But he showed no
+further disposition to go out. Instead, he sank into a chair, with a
+motion of dismissal to the two detectives.</p>
+
+<p>"Question the boy who brought this," said he. "It is from Mrs. Ransom;
+written, as you see, at the St. Denis. She bids me farewell for a time,
+but does not favor me with any explanations. She cannot do differently,
+she says, and asks me to trust her and wait. Not very encouraging to
+sleep on; but it's something. She has not entirely forsaken me."</p>
+
+<p>Gerridge with a shrug turned sharply towards the door. "I take it that
+you wouldn't object to knowing all the messenger can tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no. Question him. Find out whether she gave this to him with her own
+hand."</p>
+
+<p>Gerridge obeyed this injunction, but was told in reply that the note had
+been given him to deliver by a clerk in the hotel lobby. He could tell
+nothing about the lady.</p>
+
+<p>This was unsatisfactory enough; but the man who had influenced her to
+this step had been placed under surveillance. To-morrow they would
+question him; the mystery was not without a promise of solution. So
+Gerridge felt; but not Mr. Ransom; for at the end of the lines whose
+purport he had just communicated to the detective were these few,
+significant words:</p>
+
+<p>"Make no move to find me. If you love me well enough to wait in silence
+for developments, happiness may yet be ours."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. RANSOM WAITS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Gerridge rose early, primed, as he said to himself, for business. But to
+his great disappointment he found Mr. Ransom in a frame of mind which
+precluded action. Indeed, that gentleman looked greatly changed. He not
+only gave evidence of a sleepless night but showed none of the spirit of
+the previous evening, and hesitated quite painfully when Gerridge asked
+him if he did not intend to go ahead with the interview they had promised
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"That's as it may be," was the hesitating reply. "I hardly think that I
+shall visit the man you mean this morning. He interests me and I hope
+that none of his movements will escape you. But I'm not ready to talk to
+him. I prefer to wait a little; to give my wife a chance. I should feel
+better, and have less to forget."</p>
+
+<p>"Just as you say," returned the detective stiffly. "He's under our thumb
+at present, I can't tell when he may wriggle out."</p>
+
+<p>"Not while your eye's on him. And your eye won't leave him as long as you
+have confidence in the reward I've promised you."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not; but you take the life out of me. Last night you were too
+hot; this morning you are too cold. But it's not for me to complain. You
+know where to find me when you want me." And without more ado the
+detective went out.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom remained alone and in no enviable frame of mind. He was
+distrustful of himself, distrustful of the man who had made all this
+trouble, and distrustful of her, though he would not acknowledge it.
+Every baser instinct in him drove him to the meeting he declined. To see
+the man&mdash;to force from him the truth, seemed the only rational thing to
+do. But the final words of his wife's letter stood in his way. She had
+advised patience. If patience would clear the situation and bring him the
+result he so ardently desired, then he would be patient&mdash;that is, for a
+day; he did not promise to wait longer. Yes, he would give her a day.
+That was time enough for a man suffering on the rack of such an
+intolerable suspense&mdash;one day.</p>
+
+<p>But even that day did not pass without breaks in his mood and more than
+one walk in the direction of the St. Denis Hotel. If Gerridge's eye was
+on him as well as on the special object of his surveillance, he must have
+smiled, more than once, at the restless flittings of his client about the
+forbidden spot. In the evening it was the same, but the next morning he
+remained steadfastly at his hotel. He had laid out his future course in
+these words: "I will extend the time to three days; then if I do not hear
+from her I will get that wry-necked fellow by the throat and twist an
+explanation from him." But the three days passed and he found the
+situation unchanged. Then he set as his limit the end of the week, but
+before the full time had elapsed he was advised by Gerridge that he
+himself was being followed in his turn by a couple of private detectives;
+and while still under the agitation of this discovery was further
+disconcerted by having the following communication thrust into his hand
+in the open street by a young woman who succeeded in losing herself in
+the crowd before he had got so much as a good look at her.</p>
+
+<p>You can judge of his amazement as he read the few lines it contained.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Read the papers to-night and forget the stranger at the St. Denis.</p></div>
+
+<p>That was all. But the writing was hers. The hours passed slowly till the
+papers were cried in the street. What Mr. Ransom read in them increased
+his astonishment, I might say his anxiety. It was a paragraph about his
+wife, an almost incredible one, running thus:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>A strange explanation is given of the disappearance of Mrs. Roger
+Ransom on her wedding-day. As our readers will remember, she
+accompanied her husband to the hotel, but managed to slip away and
+leave the house while he still stood at the desk. This act, for which
+nothing in her previous conduct has in any way prepared her friends, is
+now said to have been due to the shock of hearing, some time during her
+wedding-day, that a sister whom she had supposed dead was really alive
+and in circumstances of almost degrading poverty. As this sister had
+been her own twin the effect upon her mind was very serious. To find
+and rescue this sister she left her newly made husband in the
+surreptitious manner already recorded in the papers. That she is not
+fully herself is shown by her continued secrecy as to her whereabouts.
+All that she has been willing to admit to the two persons she has so
+far taken into her confidence&mdash;her husband and the agent who conducts
+her affairs&mdash;is that she has found her sister and cannot leave her.
+Why, she does not state. The case is certainly a curious one and Mr.
+Ransom has the sympathy of all his friends.</p></div>
+
+<p>Confused, and in a state of mind bordering on frenzy, Mr. Ransom returned
+to the hotel and sought refuge in his own room. He put no confidence in
+what he had just read; he regarded it as a newspaper story and a great
+fake; but she had bid him read it, and this fact in itself was very
+disturbing. For how could she have known about it if she had not been
+its author, and if she was its author, what purpose had she expected it
+to serve?</p>
+
+<p>He was still debating this question when he reached his own room. On the
+floor, a little way from the sill, lay a letter. It had been thrust under
+the door during his absence. Lifting it in some trepidation, he cast a
+glance at its inscription and sank staggering into the nearest chair,
+asking himself if he had the courage to open and read it. For the
+handwriting, like that of the note handed him in the street, was
+Georgian's, and he felt himself in a maze concerning her which made
+everything in her connection seem dreamlike and unreal. It was not long,
+however, before he had mastered its contents. They were strange enough,
+as this transcription of them will show.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>You have seen what has happened to me, but you cannot understand how I
+feel. <i>She looks exactly like me.</i> It is that which makes the world
+eddy about me. I cannot get used to it. It is like seeing my own
+reflected image step from the mirror and walk about doing things. Two
+of us, Roger, two! If you saw her you would call her Georgian. And she
+says that she knows <i>you</i>, admires <i>you</i>! <i>and she says it in my
+voice</i>! I try to shut my ears, but I hear her saying it even when her
+lips do not move. She is as ignorant as she is afflicted and I cannot
+leave her. She cannot hear a sound, though she can talk well enough
+about what is going on in her own mind, and she is so wayward and
+uncertain of temper, owing to her ignorance and her difficulty in
+understanding me, that I don't know what she would do if once let out
+of my sight. I love you&mdash;I love you&mdash;but I must stay right here.</p>
+
+<p>Your affectionate and most unhappy</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Georgian.</span></p></div>
+
+<p>The sheet with its tear-stained lines fell from his grasp. Then he caught
+it up again and looked carefully at the signature. It was his wife's
+without doubt. Then he studied the rest of the writing and compared it
+with that of the note which had been thrust into his hands earlier in the
+day. There was no difference between them except that there were
+evidences of faltering in the latter, not noticeable in the earlier
+communication. As he noted these tokens of weakness or suffering, he
+caught up the telephone receiver in good earnest and called out
+Gerridge's number. When the detective answered, he shouted back:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you read the evening papers? If you haven't, do so at once; then
+come directly to me. It's business now and no mistake; and our first
+visit shall be on the fellow at the St. Denis."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>IN CORRIDOR AND IN ROOM</h3>
+
+
+<p>Three quarters of an hour later Mr. Ransom and Gerridge stood in close
+conference before the last mentioned hotel. The former was peremptory in
+what he had to say.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't a particle of confidence in this newspaper story," he
+declared. "I haven't much confidence in her letter. It is this man who is
+working us. He has a hold on her and has given her this cock and bull
+story to tell. A sister! A twin sister come to light after fifteen years
+of supposed burial! I find the circumstance entirely too romantic. Nor
+does an explanation of this nature fit the conditions. She was happy
+before she saw <i>him</i> in the church. He isn't her twin sister. I tell you
+the game is a deep one and she is the sufferer. Her letters betray more
+than a disturbed mind; they betray a disturbed brain. That man is the
+cause and I mean to wring his secret from him. You are sure of his being
+still in the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was early this morning. He has lived a very quiet life these last few
+days, the life of one waiting. He has not even had visitors, after that
+one interview he held with your wife. I have kept careful watch on him.
+Though a suspected character, he has done nothing suspicious while I've
+had him under my eye."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right and I thank you, Gerridge; but it doesn't shake my
+opinion as to his being the moving power in this fraud. For fraud it
+is and no mistake. Of that I am fully convinced. Shall we go up? I want
+to surprise him in his own room where he cannot slip away or back out."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave that business to me; I'll manage it. If you want to see him in his
+room, you shall."</p>
+
+<p>But this time the detective counted without his host. Mr. Porter was not
+in his room but in one of the halls. They encountered him as they left
+the elevator. He was standing reading a newspaper. The disfigured jaw
+could not be mistaken. They stopped where they were and looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>He was intent, absorbed. As they watched, they saw his hands close
+convulsively on the sheet he was holding, while his lips muttered
+some words that made the detective look hard at his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you hear?" he cautiously inquired, as Mr. Ransom stood hesitating,
+not knowing whether to address the man or not.</p>
+
+<p>"No; what did he say? Do you suppose he is reading that paragraph?"</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't a doubt of it; and his words were, 'Here's a damned
+lie!'&mdash;very much like your own, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom drew the detective a few steps down the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>"He said that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I heard him distinctly."</p>
+
+<p>"Then my theory is all wrong. This man didn't provide her with this
+imaginary twin sister."</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently not."</p>
+
+<p>"And is as surprised as we are."</p>
+
+<p>"And about as much put out. Look at him! Nothing yellow there! We shall
+have to go easy with him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom looked and felt a recoil of more than ordinary dislike for the
+man. The latter had put the paper in his pocket and was coming their way.
+His face, once possibly handsome, for his eyes and forehead were
+conspicuously fine, showed a distortion quite apart from that given by
+his physical disfigurement. He was not simply angry but in a mental and
+moral rage, and it made him more than hideous; it made him appalling. Yet
+he said nothing and moved along very quietly, making, to all appearance,
+for his room. Would he notice them as he went by? It did not seem likely.
+Instinctively they had stepped to one side, and Mr. Ransom's face was in
+the shadow. To both it had seemed better not to accost him while he was
+in this mood. They would see him later.</p>
+
+<p>But this was not to be. Some instinct made him turn, and Mr. Ransom,
+recognizing his opportunity, stepped forward and addressed him by the
+name under which he had introduced himself at the reception; that of his
+wife's family, Hazen.</p>
+
+<p>The effect was startling. Instead of increasing his anger, as the
+detective had naturally expected, it appeared to have the contrary
+effect, for every vestige of passion immediately disappeared from his
+face, leaving only its natural disfigurement to plead against him.
+He approached them, and Ransom, at least, was conscious of a revulsion
+of feeling in his favor, there was such restraint and yet such undoubted
+power in his strange and peculiar personality.</p>
+
+<p>"You know me?" said he, darting a keen and comprehensive look from one to
+the other.</p>
+
+<p>"We should like a few words with you," ventured Gerridge. "This gentleman
+thinks you can give him very valuable information about a person he is
+greatly interested in."</p>
+
+<p>"He is mistaken." The words came quick and decisive in a not unmelodious
+voice. "I am a stranger in New York; a stranger in this country. I have
+few, if any, acquaintances."</p>
+
+<p>"You have <i>one</i>."</p>
+
+<p>It was now Mr. Ransom's turn.</p>
+
+<p>"A man with no acquaintances does not attend weddings; certainly not
+wedding receptions. I have seen you at one, my own. Do you not recognize
+me, Mr. Hazen?"</p>
+
+<p>A twitch of surprise, not even Ransom could call it alarm, drew his mouth
+still further towards his ear; but his manner hardly altered and it was
+in the same affable tone that he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"You must pardon my short-sightedness. I did not recognize you, Mr.
+Ransom."</p>
+
+<p>"Did not want to," muttered Gerridge, satisfied in his own mind that this
+man was only deterred by his marked and unmistakable physiognomy from
+denying the acquaintanceship just advanced.</p>
+
+<p>"Your congratulations did not produce the desired effect," continued Mr.
+Ransom. "My happiness was short lived. Perhaps you knew its uncertain
+tenure when you wished me joy. I remember that your tone lacked
+sincerity."</p>
+
+<p>It was a direct attack. Whether a wise one or not remained to be seen.
+Gerridge watched the unfolding drama with interest.</p>
+
+<p>"I have reason to think," proceeded Mr. Ransom, "that the unhappy
+termination of that day's felicities were in a measure due to you.
+You seem to know my bride very well; much too well for her happiness
+or mine."</p>
+
+<p>"We will argue that question in my room," was the unmoved reply. "The
+open hall is quite unsuited to a conversation of this nature. Now," said
+he, turning upon them when they were in the privacy of his small but not
+uncomfortable apartment, "you will be kind enough to repeat what you just
+said. I wish to thoroughly understand you."</p>
+
+<p>"You have the right," returned Mr. Ransom, controlling himself under the
+detective's eye. "I said that your presence at this wedding seemed to
+disturb my wife, which fact, considering the after occurrences of the
+day, strikes me as important enough for discussion. Are you willing to
+discuss it affably and fairly?"</p>
+
+<p>"May I ask who your companion is?" inquired the other, with a slight
+inclination towards Gerridge.</p>
+
+<p>"A friend; one who is in my confidence."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will answer you without any further hesitation. My presence may
+have disturbed your wife, it very likely did, but I was not to blame for
+that. No man is to blame for the bad effects of an unfortunate accident."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't mean that," Mr. Ransom hastened to protest. "The cause of
+her very evident agitation was not personal. It had a deeper root than
+that. It led, or so I believe, to her flight from a love she cherished,
+at a moment when our mutual life seemed about to begin."</p>
+
+<p>The impassive, I might almost say set features of this man of violent
+passions but remarkable self-restraint failed to relax or give any
+token of the feelings with which he listened to this attack.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the news given of your wife in the papers to-night is false,"
+was his quiet retort. "It professes to give a distinct, if somewhat
+fantastic, reason for her flight. A reason totally different from the
+one you suggest."</p>
+
+<p>"A reason you don't believe in?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not. It is too bizarre."</p>
+
+<p>"I share your incredulity. That is why I seek the truth from you rather
+than from the columns of a newspaper. And you owe me this truth. You have
+broken up my life."</p>
+
+<p>"I? That's a strange accusation you make, Mr. Ransom."</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly. But it's one which strikes hard on your conscience, for all
+that. This is evident enough even to a stranger like myself. I am
+convinced that if you had not come into her life she would have been at
+my side to-day. Now, who are you? She told me you were a relative."</p>
+
+<p>"She told you the truth; I am. Her nearest relative. The story in the
+paper has a certain amount of truth in it. Her brother, not her sister,
+has come back from the grave. I am that brother. She was once devoted to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"You are&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Oh, there'll be no difficulty in my proving this relationship.
+I have evidence upon evidence of the fact right in this room with me;
+evidence much more convincing and far less disputable than this
+surprising twin can bring forward if <i>her</i> identity is questioned.
+Georgian had a twin sister, but she was buried years ago. I was never
+buried. I simply did not return from a well-known and dangerous voyage.
+The struggle I had for life&mdash;you cannot want the details now&mdash;has left
+its indelible impress in the scar which has turned me from a personable
+man into what some people might call a monstrosity. And it is this scar
+which has kept me so long from home and country. It has taken me four
+years to make up my mind to face again my family and friends. And now
+that I have, I find that it would have been better for us all if I had
+stayed away. Georgian saw me and her mind wavered. In no other way can I
+account for her wild behavior since that hour. That is all I have to say,
+sir. I think I am almost as much an object of pity as yourself."</p>
+
+<p>And for a moment he appeared to be so, not only to Gerridge, but to Mr.
+Ransom himself. Then something in the man&mdash;his unnatural coldness, the
+purpose which made itself felt through all his self-restraint&mdash;reawakened
+Mr. Ransom's distrust and led him to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Your complaint is natural. If you are Mrs. Ransom's brother, there
+should be sympathy between us and not antagonism. But I feel only
+antagonism. Why is this?"</p>
+
+<p>A shrug, followed by an odd smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You should be able to account for that on very reasonable grounds," said
+he. "I do not expect much mercy from strangers. It is hard to make your
+good intentions felt through such a distorted medium as my expression has
+now become."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ransom has been here," Ransom suddenly launched forth. "Within two
+hours of your encounter under Mr. Fulton's roof, she was talking with you
+in this hotel. I have proof positive of that, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no wish to deny the fact," was the steady answer. "She did come
+here and we had a talk; it was necessary; I wanted money."</p>
+
+<p>The last phrase was uttered with such grim determination that the
+exclamation which had risen to Mr. Ransom's lips died in a conflict
+of feeling which forbade any rejoinder that savored of sarcasm. Hazen,
+however, must have noted his first look, for he added with an air of
+haughty apology:</p>
+
+<p>"I repeat that we were once very fond of each other."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom felt his perplexities growing with every moment he talked with
+this man. He remembered the money which both he and Gerridge had seen in
+her bag,&mdash;an amount too large for her to have retained very much on her
+person,&mdash;and following the instinct of the moment, he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ransom is not the woman to hesitate when a person she loves makes
+an appeal for money. She handed you immediately a large sum, I have no
+doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"She wrote me out a check," was the simple but cold answer.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom felt the failure of his attempt and stole a glance at
+Gerridge.</p>
+
+<p>The doubtful smile he received was not very encouraging. The same thought
+had evidently struck both. The money in the bag was a blind&mdash;she had
+carried her check-book with her and so could draw on her account for
+whatever she wished. But under what name? Her maiden one or his? Ransom
+determined to find out.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not begrudge you the money," said he, "but Mrs. Ransom's signature
+had changed a few hours previous to her making out this check. Did she
+remember this?"</p>
+
+<p>"She signed her married name promising to notify the bank at once."</p>
+
+<p>"And you cashed the check?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; I am not in such immediate need of money as that. I have it
+still, but I shall endeavor to cash it to-morrow. Some question may come
+up as to her sanity, and I do not choose to lose the only money she has
+ever been in a position to give me."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Hazen, you harp on the irresponsible condition of her mind. Did you
+see any tokens of this in the interview you had together?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; she seemed sane enough then; a little shocked and troubled, but
+quite sane."</p>
+
+<p>"You knew that she had stolen away from me&mdash;that she had resorted to a
+most unworthy subterfuge in order to hold this conversation with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I had asked her to come, and on that very afternoon if possible, but
+I never knew what means she took for doing so; I didn't ask and she
+didn't say."</p>
+
+<p>"But she talked of her marriage? She must have said something about an
+event which is usually considered the greatest in a woman's life."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she spoke of it."</p>
+
+<p>"And of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she spoke of you."</p>
+
+<p>"And in what terms? I cannot refrain from asking you, Mr. Hazen, I am
+in such ignorance as to her real attitude towards me; her conduct is so
+mysterious; the reasons she gives for it so puerile."</p>
+
+<p>"She said nothing against you or her marriage. She mentioned both, but
+not in a manner that would add to your or my knowledge of her intentions.
+My sister disappointed me, sir. She was much less open than I wished. All
+that I could make out of her manner and conversation was the overpowering
+shock she felt at seeing me again and seeing me so changed. She didn't
+even tell me when and where we might meet again. When she left, she was
+as much lost to me as she was to you, and I am no less interested in
+finding her than you are yourself. I had no idea she did not mean to
+return to you when she went away from this hotel."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom sprang upright in an agitation the other may have shared, but
+of which he gave no token.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you cannot tell me where the woman
+you call your sister is now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No more than you can give me the same necessary information in regard to
+your wife. I am waiting like yourself to hear from her&mdash;and waiting with
+as little hope."</p>
+
+<p>Had he seen Ransom's hand close convulsively over the pocket in which her
+few strange words to him were lying, that a slight tinge of sarcasm gave
+edge to the last four words?</p>
+
+<p>"But this is not like my wife," protested Ransom, hesitating to accuse
+the other of falsehood, yet evidently doubting him from the bottom of his
+heart. "Why deceive us both? She was never a disingenuous woman."</p>
+
+<p>"In childhood she had her incomprehensible moments," observed Hazen, with
+an ambiguous lift of his shoulders; then, as Ransom made an impatient
+move, added with steady composure: "I have candidly answered all your
+questions whether agreeable or otherwise, and the fact that I am as much
+shocked as yourself by these mad and totally incredible statements of
+hers about a newly recovered sister should prove to you that she is not
+following any lead of mine in this dissemination of a bare-faced
+falsehood."</p>
+
+<p>There was truth in this which both Mr. Ransom and Gerridge felt obliged
+to own. Yet they were not satisfied, even after Mr. Hazen, almost against
+Mr. Ransom's will, had established his claims to the relationship he
+professed, by various well-attested documents he had at hand. Instinct
+could not be juggled with, nor could Ransom help feeling that the mystery
+in which he found himself entangled had been deepened rather than
+dispelled by the confidences of this new brother-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>"The maze is at its thickest," he remarked as he left a few minutes later
+with the perplexed Gerridge. "How shall I settle this new question? By
+what means and through whose aid can I gain an interview with my wife?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAWYER</h3>
+
+
+<p>The answer was an unexpectedly sensible one.</p>
+
+<p>"Hunt up her man of business and see what he can do for you. She cannot
+get along without money; nor could that statement of hers have got into
+the papers without somebody's assistance. Since she did not get it from
+the fellow we have just left, she must have had it from the only other
+person she would dare confide in."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom answered by immediately hailing a down-town car.</p>
+
+<p>The interview which followed was certainly a remarkable one. At first Mr.
+Harper would say nothing, declaring that his relations with Mrs. Ransom
+were of a purely business and confidential nature. But by degrees, moved
+by the persuasive influence of Mr. Ransom's candor and his indubitable
+right to consideration, he allowed himself to admit that he had seen Mrs.
+Ransom during the last three days and that he had every reason to believe
+that there was a twin sister in the case and that all Mrs. Ransom's
+eccentric conduct was attributable to this fact and the overpowering
+sense of responsibility which it seemed to have brought to her&mdash;a result
+which would not appear strange to those who knew the sensitiveness of her
+nature and the delicate balance of her mind.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom recalled the tenor of her strange letter on this subject, but
+was not convinced. He inquired of Mr. Harper if he had heard her say
+anything about the equally astounding fact of a returned brother, and
+when he found that this was mere jargon to Mr. Harper, he related what he
+knew of Hazen and left the lawyer to draw his own inferences.</p>
+
+<p>The result was some show of embarrassment on the part of Mr. Harper. It
+was evident that in her consultations with him she had entirely left out
+all allusion to this brother. Either the man had advanced a false claim
+or else she was in an irresponsible condition of mind which made her see
+a sister where there was a brother.</p>
+
+<p>Ransom made some remark indicative of his appreciation of the dilemma in
+which they found themselves, but was quickly silenced by the other's
+emphatic assertion:</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen the girl; she was with Mrs. Ransom the day she came here.
+She sat in the adjoining room while we talked over her case in this one."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw her&mdash;saw her face?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not her face; she was too heavily veiled for that. Mrs. Ransom
+explained why. They were too absurdly alike, she said. It awoke comment
+and it gave her the creeps. But their figures were identical though their
+dresses were different."</p>
+
+<p>"So! there <i>is</i> some one then; the girl is not absolutely a myth."</p>
+
+<p>"Far from it. Nor is the will which Mrs. Ransom has asked me to draw up
+for her a myth."</p>
+
+<p>"Her will! she has asked you to draw up her will!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That was the object of her visit. She had entered the married
+state, she said, and wished to make a legal disposition of her property
+before she returned to you. She was very nervous when she said this; very
+nervous through all the interview. There was nothing else for me to do
+but comply."</p>
+
+<p>"And you have drawn up this will?"</p>
+
+<p>"According to her instructions, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But she has not signed it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet."</p>
+
+<p>"But she intends to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will see her again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Is the time set?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer rose to his feet. He understood the hint implied and for an
+instant appeared to waver. There was something very winsome about Roger
+Ransom; some attribute or expression which appealed especially to men.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I might help you out of your difficulty," said he. "But a
+client's wishes are paramount. Mrs. Ransom desired secrecy. She had every
+right to demand it of me."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom's face fell. Hope had flashed upon him only to disappear
+again. The lawyer eyed him out of the corner of his eye, his mouth
+working slightly as he walked to and fro between his desk and the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ransom will not always feel herself hampered by a sister, or, if
+you prefer it, a brother who has so inconveniently come back from the
+dead. You will have the pleasure of her society some day. There is no
+doubt about her affection for you."</p>
+
+<p>"But that isn't it," exclaimed the now thoroughly discouraged husband.
+"I am afraid for her reason, afraid for her life. There is something
+decidedly wrong somewhere. Don't you see that I must have an immediate
+interview with her if only to satisfy myself that she aggravates her own
+danger? Why should she make a will in this underhanded way? Does she fear
+opposition from me? I have a fortune equal to her own. It is something
+else she dreads. What? I feel that I ought to know if only to protect her
+against herself. I would even promise not to show myself or to speak."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to have to say good afternoon, Mr. Ransom. Have you any
+commands that I can execute for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"None but to give her my love. Tell her there is not a more unhappy man
+in New York; you may add that I trust her affection."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer bowed. Mr. Ransom and Gerridge withdrew. At the foot of the
+stairs they were stopped by the shout of a small boy behind them.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, mister, did you drop something?" he called down, coming meanwhile
+as rapidly after them as the steepness of the flight allowed. "Mr. Harper
+says, he found this where you gentlemen were sitting."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom, somewhat startled, took the small paper offered him. It was
+none of his property but he held to it just the same. In the middle of a
+torn bit of paper he had read these words written in his own wife's hand:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Hunter's Tavern</span>,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sitford, Connecticut.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At 9 o'clock April the 15th.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "no one will ever hear me say again that lawyers
+are devoid of heart?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>RAIN</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom had never heard of Sitford, but upon inquiry learned that it
+was a small manufacturing town some ten miles from the direct route of
+travel, to which it was only connected by a stage-coach running once a
+day, late in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>What a spot for a meeting of this kind! Why chosen by her? Why submitted
+to by this busy New York lawyer? Was this another mystery; or had he
+misinterpreted Mr. Harper's purpose in passing over to him the address of
+this small town? He preferred to think the former. He could hardly
+contemplate now the prospect of failing to see her again which must
+follow any mistake as to this being the place agreed upon for the signing
+of her will.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime he had said nothing to Gerridge. This was a hope too personal to
+confide in a man of his position. He would go to Sitford and endeavor to
+catch a glimpse of his wife there. If successful, the whole temper of his
+mind might change towards the situation, if not toward her. He would at
+least have the satisfaction of seeing her. The detective had enough to do
+in New York.</p>
+
+<p>April the fifteenth fell on Tuesday. He was not minded to wait so long
+but took the boat on Monday afternoon. This landed him some time before
+daylight at the time-worn village from which the coach ran to Sitford. A
+railway connected this village with New York, necessitating no worse
+inconvenience than crossing the river on a squat, old-fashioned ferry
+boat; but he calculated that both the lawyer and Mrs. Ransom would make
+use of this, and felt the risk would be less for him if he chose the
+slower and less convenient route.</p>
+
+<p>He had given his name on the boat as Roger Johnston, which was true so
+far as it went, and he signed this same name at the hotel where he put
+up till morning. The place was an entirely unknown one to him and he was
+unknown to it. Both fortuitous facts, he thought, in the light of his own
+perplexity as to the position in which he really stood towards this
+mysterious wife of his.</p>
+
+<p>The coach, as I have said, ran late in the afternoon. This was to
+accommodate the passengers who came by rail. But Mr. Ransom had not
+planned to go by coach. That would be to risk a premature encounter with
+his wife, or at least with the lawyer. He preferred to hire a team, and
+be driven there by some indifferent livery-stable man. Neither prospect
+was pleasing. It had been raining all night, and bade fair to rain all
+day. The river was clouded with mist; the hills, which are the glory of
+the place, were obliterated from the landscape, and the road&mdash;he had
+never seen such a road, all little pools and mud.</p>
+
+<p>However, there was no help for it. The journey must be made, and seeing
+a livery-stable sign across the road, lost no time in securing the
+conveyance he needed. At nine o'clock he started out.</p>
+
+<p>The rain drove so fiercely from the northwest,&mdash;the very direction in
+which they were traveling,&mdash;that enjoyment of the scenery was impossible.
+Nor could any pleasure be got out of conversation with the man who drove
+him. Rain, rain, that was all; and the splash of mud over the wheels
+which turned all too slowly for his comfort. And there were to be ten
+miles of this. Naturally he turned to his thoughts and they were all of
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Why had he not known her better before linking his fate to hers? Why had
+he never encouraged her to talk to him more about herself and her early
+life? Had he but done so, he might now have some clew to the mystery
+devouring him. He might know why so rich and independent a woman had
+chosen this remote town on an inaccessible road, for the completion of
+an act which was in itself a mystery. Why could not the will have been
+signed in New York? But he was not inquisitive in those days. He had
+taken her for what she seemed&mdash;an untrammeled, gay-hearted girl, ready
+to love and be his happy wife and lifelong companion; and he had been
+contented to keep all conversation along natural lines and do no probing.
+And now,&mdash;this brother whom all had thought dead, come to life with
+menace in his acts and conversation! Also a sister,&mdash;but this sister he
+had no belief in. The coincidence was too startlingly out of nature for
+him to accept a brother and a sister too. A brother or a sister; but not
+both. Not even Mr. Harper's assurances should influence his credulity to
+this extent. "Money! money is at the bottom of it all," was his final
+decision. "She knows it and is making her will, as a possible protection.
+But why come here?"</p>
+
+<p>Thus every reflection ended.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a vanished, half-forgotten memory came back. It brought a gleam
+of light into the darkness which had hitherto enveloped the whole matter.
+She had once spoken to him of her early life. She had mentioned a place
+where she used to play as a child; had mentioned it lovingly, longingly.
+There were hills, she had said; hills all around. And woods full of
+chestnut-trees, safe woods where she could wander at will. And the
+roads&mdash;how she loved to walk the roads. No automobiles then, not even
+bicycles. One could go miles without meeting man or horse. Sometimes a
+heavily-laden cart would go by drawn by a long string of oxen; but they
+were picturesque and added to the charm. Oxen were necessary where there
+was no railroad.</p>
+
+<p>As he repeated these words to himself, he looked up. Through the downpour
+his eyes could catch a glimpse of the road before him, winding up a long
+hillside. Down this road was approaching a dozen yoke of oxen dragging a
+wagon piled with bales of some sort of merchandise. One question in his
+mind was answered. This spot was not an unknown one to her. It was
+connected with her childhood days. There was reason back of her choice
+of it as a place of meeting between her and her lawyer, or if not reason,
+association, and that of the tenderest kind. He felt himself relieved of
+the extreme weight of his oppression and ventured upon asking a question
+or two about Sitford, which he took pains to say he was visiting for the
+first time.</p>
+
+<p>The information he obtained was but meager, but he did learn that there
+was a very fair tavern there and that the manufactures of the place were
+sufficient to account for a stranger's visit. The articles made were
+mostly novelties.</p>
+
+<p>This knowledge he meant to turn to account, but changed his mind when
+they finally splashed into town and stopped before the tavern which had
+been so highly recommended by his driver. The house, dripping though it
+was from every eave, had such a romantic air that he thought he could
+venture to cite other reasons for his stay there than the prosaic one of
+business. That is, if the landlady should give any evidence of being at
+all in accord with her quaint home and picturesque surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>She showed herself and he at once gave her credit for being all he could
+wish in the way of credulity and good-nature, and meeting her with the
+smile which had done good execution in its day, he asked if she had a
+room for a writer who was finishing a book, and who only asked for quiet
+and regular meals before his own cosy fire. This to rouse her imagination
+and make her amenable to his wishes for secrecy.</p>
+
+<p>She was a simple soul and fell easily into the trap. In half an hour Mr.
+Ransom was ensconced in a pleasant room over the porch, a room which he
+soon learned possessed many advantages. For it not only overlooked the
+main entrance, but was so placed as to command a view of all the rooms on
+his hall. In two of those rooms he bade fair to be greatly interested,
+Mrs. Deo having remarked that they were being prepared for a lady who was
+coming that night. As he had no doubt who this lady was, he encouraged
+the good woman to talk, and presently had the satisfaction of hearing her
+say that she was very happy over this lady's coming, as she was a Sitford
+girl, one of the old family of Hazens, and though married now and very
+rich was much loved by every one in town because she had never forgotten
+Sitford or Sitford people.</p>
+
+<p>She was coming! He had made no mistake. And this was the place of her
+birth, just as he had decided when he saw that long line of oxen! He
+realized how fortunate he was, or rather how indebted he was to Mr.
+Harper, since in this place only could he hope to gain satisfaction on
+the mooted point raised by that same gentleman. If she had been born
+here, so had her twin sister; so had the brother whose claims lay counter
+to that sister's. Both must have been known to these people, their
+persons, their history and the circumstances of their supposed deaths.
+The clews thus afforded must prove invaluable to him. From them he must
+soon be able to ascertain in which story to place faith and which
+claimant to believe. He might have interrogated his hostess, but feared
+to show his interest in the supposed stranger. He preferred to wait a few
+hours and gather his facts from other lips.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime it rained.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>ELIMINATION</h3>
+
+
+<p>At about three o'clock in the afternoon Mr. Ransom left his room. He had
+been careful almost from his first arrival to sit with his door ajar. He
+had, therefore, only to give it a slight push and walk out when he heard
+the bustle of preparation going on in the two rooms in whose future
+occupancy he was so vitally interested. A maid stood in the hall. A man
+within was pushing about furniture. The landlady was giving orders. His
+course down-stairs did not lead him so far as those rooms, so he called
+out pleasantly:</p>
+
+<p>"I have written till my head aches, Mrs. Deo. I must venture out
+notwithstanding the rain. In which direction shall I find the best
+walking?"</p>
+
+<p>She came to him all eagerness and smiles. "It's all bad, such a day,"
+said she, "but it's muddiest down by the factories. You had better climb
+the hill."</p>
+
+<p>"Where the cemetery is?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; do you object to cemeteries? Ours is thought to be very
+interesting. We have stones there whose inscriptions are a hundred and
+fifty years old. But it's a bad day to walk amongst graves. Perhaps you
+had better go east. I'm sorry we should have such a storm on your first
+day. Must you go out?"</p>
+
+<p>He forced a suffering look into his eyes, and insisting that nothing but
+outdoor air would help him when he had a headache, hastened down-stairs
+and so out. A blinding gust seized him as he faced the hill, but he drew
+down his umbrella and hurried on. He had a purpose in following her
+suggestion as to a walk in this direction. Dark as the grasses were, he
+meant to search the cemetery for the graves of the Hazens and see what he
+could learn from them.</p>
+
+<p>He met three persons on his way, all of whom turned to look at him.
+This was in the village. On the hillside he met nobody. Wind and rain
+and mud were all; desolation in the prospect and all but desolation in
+his heart. At the brow he first caught sight of the broken stone wall
+which separated the old burying place from the road. There lay his path.
+Happily he could tread it unnoticed and unwatched. There was no one
+within sight, high or low.</p>
+
+<p>He spent a half hour among the tombs before
+he struck the name he was looking for.
+Another ten minutes before he found those
+of his wife's family. Then he had his reward.
+On a low brown shaft he read the names of
+father and mother, and beneath them the following
+lines:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">Sacred to the memory of<br /></span>
+<span class="i5"><span class="smcap">Anitra</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Died June 7, 1885<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Aged 6 years and one day.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Of such is the Kingdom of heaven.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The twin! Georgian was mad. This record showed that her little sister lay
+here. Anitra,&mdash;yes, that was the name of her other half. He remembered it
+well. Georgian had mentioned it to him more than once. And this child,
+this Anitra, had been buried here for fifteen years.</p>
+
+<p>Deeply indignant at his wife's duplicity, he took a look at the opposite
+side of the shaft where still another surprise awaited him. Here was the
+record of the brother; the brother he had so lately talked to and who had
+seemingly proven his claim to the name he now read:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i7"><span class="smcap">Alfred Francesco</span><br /></span>
+<span class="i9">only son of<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Georgian Toritti afterwards Georgian Hazen.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">Lost at sea February, 1895.<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">Aged twenty-five years.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>An odd inscription opening up conjectures of the most curious and
+interesting nature. But it was not this fact which struck him at the
+time, it was the possibility underlying the simple statement, Lost
+at sea. This, as the wry-necked man had said, admitted of a possible
+resurrection. Here was no body. A mound showed where Anitra had been laid
+away; a little mound surmounted by a headstone carved with her name. But
+only these few words gave evidence of the young man's death, and
+inscriptions of this nature are sometimes false.</p>
+
+<p>The conclusion was obvious. It was the brother and not the sister who had
+reappeared. Georgian was not only playing him false but deceiving the
+general public. In fact, knowingly or unknowingly, she was perpetrating
+a great fraud. He was inclined to think unknowingly. He began to regard
+with less incredulity Hazen's declaration that the shock of her brother's
+return had unsettled her mind.</p>
+
+<p>Distressed, but no longer the prey of distracting doubt, he again
+examined the inscription before him and this time noticed its
+peculiarities. <i>Alfred Francesco, only son of Georgian Toritti afterwards
+Georgian Hazen.</i> Afterwards! What was meant by that <i>afterwards</i>? That
+the woman had been married twice, and that this Alfred Francesco was the
+son of her first husband rather than of the one whose name he bore? It
+looked that way. There was a suggestion of Italian parentage in the
+Francesco which corresponded well with the decidedly Italian Toritti.</p>
+
+<p>Perplexed and not altogether satisfied with his discoveries, he turned to
+leave the place when he found himself in the presence of a man carrying a
+kit of tools and wearing on his face a harsh and discontented expression.
+As this man was middle-aged and had no other protection from the rain
+than a rubber cape for his shoulders, the cause of his discontent was
+easy enough to imagine; though why he should come into this place with
+tools was more than Mr. Ransom could understand.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/grave.jpg"><img src="images/grave.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+
+<h4>"I cut them letters there fifteen years ago. Now I'm to
+cut 'em out."</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>"Hello, stranger." It was this man who spoke. "Interested in the Hazen
+monument, eh? Well, I'll soon give you reason to be more interested yet.
+Do you see this inscription&mdash;On June 7, 1885; Anitra, aged six, and the
+rest of it? Well, I cut them letters there fifteen years ago. Now I'm to
+cut 'em out. The orders has just come. The youngster didn't die it seems,
+and I'm commanded to chip the fifteen-year-old lie out. What do you think
+of that? A sweet job for a day like this. Mor'n likely it'll put me under
+a stone myself. But folks won't listen to reason. It's been here fifteen
+years and seventeen days and now it must come out, rain or shine, before
+night-fall. 'Before the sun sets,' so the telegram ran. I'll be blessed
+but I'll ask a handsome penny for this job."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom, controlling himself with difficulty, pointed to the little
+mound. "But the child seems to have been buried here," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord bless you, yes, a child was buried here, but we all knew years ago
+that it mightn't be Hazen's. The schoolhouse burned and a dozen children
+with it. One of the little bodies was given to Mr. Hazen for burial. He
+believed it was his Anitra, but a good while after, a bit of the dress
+she wore that day was found hanging to a bush where some gipsies had
+been. There were lots of folks who remembered that them gipsies had
+passed the schoolhouse a half hour before the fire, and they now say
+found the little girl hiding behind the wood-pile, and carried her off.
+No one ever knew; but her death was always thought doubtful by every one
+but Mr. and Mrs. Hazen. They stuck to the old idee and believed her to be
+buried under this mound where her name is."</p>
+
+<p>"But one of the children was buried here," persisted Ransom. "You must
+have known the number of those lost and would surely be able to tell if
+one were missing, as must have been the case if the gipsies had carried
+off Anitra before the fire."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," objected the stone-cutter. "There was, in
+those days, a little orphan girl, almost an idiot, who wandered about
+this town, staying now in one house and now in another as folks took
+compassion on her. She was never seen agin after that fire. If she was in
+the schoolhouse that day, as she sometimes was, the number would be made
+up. No one was left to tell us. It was an awful time, sir. The village
+hasn't got over it yet."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom made some sympathetic rejoinder and withdrew towards the
+gateway, but soon came strolling back. The man had arranged his tools and
+was preparing to go to work.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems as if the family was pretty well represented here," remarked
+Ransom. "Is it the girl herself,&mdash;Anitra, I believe you called her,&mdash;who
+has ordered this record of her death removed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, you don't know them Hazens. There's one of 'em who has quite a
+story; the twin of this Anitra. She lived to grow up and have a lot of
+money left her. If you lived in Sitford, or lived in New York, you'd know
+all about her; for her name's been in the papers a lot this week. She's
+the great lady who married and left her husband all in one day; and for
+what reason do you think? We know, because she don't keep no secrets from
+her old friends. <i>She's found this sister</i>, and it's her as has ordered
+me to chip away this name. She wants it done to-day, because she's coming
+here with this gal she's found. Folks say she ran across her in the
+street and knew her at once. Can you guess how?"</p>
+
+<p>"From her name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, no; from what I hear, she hadn't any name. <i>From her looks!</i> She
+saw her own self when she looked at her."</p>
+
+<p>"How interesting, how very interesting," stammered Mr. Ransom, feeling
+his newly won convictions shaken again. "Quite remarkable the whole
+story. And so is this inscription," he added, pointing to the words
+<i>Georgian Toritti</i>, etc. "Did the woman have two husbands, and was the
+Alfred Hazen, whose death at sea is commemorated here, the son of Toritti
+or of Hazen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of Toritti," grumbled the man, evidently displeased at the question. "A
+black-browed devil who it won't do to talk about here. Mrs. Hazen was
+only a slip of a gal when she married him, and as he didn't live but a
+couple o' months folks have sort o' forgiven her and forgotten him. To us
+Mrs. Hazen was always Mrs. Hazen; and Alf&mdash;well, he was just Alf Hazen
+too; a lad with too much good in him to perish in them murderous waters a
+thousand miles from home."</p>
+
+<p>So they still believed Hazen dead! No intimation of his return had as yet
+reached Sitford. This was what Ransom wanted to know. But there was still
+much to learn. Should he venture an additional question? No, that would
+show more than a stranger's interest in a topic so purely local. Better
+leave well enough alone and quit the spot before he committed himself.</p>
+
+<p>Uttering some commonplace observation about the fatality attending
+certain families, he nodded a friendly good-by and made for the entrance.</p>
+
+<p>As he stepped below the brow of the hill he heard the first click of the
+workman's hammer on the chisel with which he proposed to eliminate the
+word <i>Anitra</i> from the list of the Hazen dead.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>HUNTER'S INN</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Mr. Ransom re-entered the hotel, which he did under a swoop of wind
+which turned his umbrella inside out and drenched him through in an
+instant, it was to find the house in renewed turmoil, happily explained
+by the landlady, whom he ran across on the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Johnston!" she cried as she edged by him with a pile of
+bed-linen on her arm. "Please excuse all this fuss. Another guest is
+coming&mdash;I have just got a telegram. A famous lawyer from New York. Our
+house will be full to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Where will you put him?" inquired Mr. Ransom with a good-natured air.
+"There seem to be no unoccupied rooms on this hall."</p>
+
+<p>"More's the pity," she sighed, with a half-inquiring, half deprecatory
+look at this fortunate first comer. "I shall have to put him below, poor
+man. I'm afraid he won't like it, but&mdash;" Mr. Ransom remained silent.
+"But," she went on with sudden cheerfulness, "I will make it up in the
+supper. That shall be as good a one as our kitchen will provide. Four
+city guests all in one day! That's a good many for this quiet hotel."</p>
+
+<p>"Four!" retorted Mr. Ransom as he turned towards his own door. "The
+number has grown by two since I went out."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I didn't tell you. The lady&mdash;her name's Mrs. Ransom&mdash;brings her
+sister with her. The little girl who&mdash;yes, I am coming." This latter to
+some perplexed domestic down the hall, who had already called her twice.
+"I mustn't stand talking here," she apologized as she hurried away. "But
+do take care of yourself. You are dreadful wet. How I wish the weather
+would clear up!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom wished the same. To say nothing of his own inconvenience,
+it was a source of anxiety to him that she should have to ride these
+inevitable ten miles in such a chilling downpour. Besides, a storm of
+this kind complicated matters; gave him less sense of freedom, shut him
+in, as it were, with the mystery he was there to unravel, but which for
+some reason, hardly explainable to himself, filled him with such a sense
+of foreboding that he had moments in which he thought only of escape. But
+his part must be played and he prepared himself to play it well. Having
+changed his clothes and warmed himself with a draft of whisky, he sat
+down at his table and was busy writing when the maid came in to ask if he
+would wait for his supper till the coach came, or have it earlier and
+served in his own room.</p>
+
+<p>With an air of petulance, he looked up, rapped on the table, and replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Here! here! I'm too busy to meet strangers. An early supper and an early
+bed. That's the way I get through <i>my</i> work."</p>
+
+<p>The girl stared and went softly out. Work!&mdash;that? Sitting at a table and
+just putting words on paper. If it was beds he had to drag around now, or
+a dozen hungry, clamoring men to feed all at once, and all with the best
+cuts, or stairs to run up fifty times a day, or&mdash;but I need not fill out
+her thought. It made her voluble in the kitchen and secured him the
+privacy which his incognito demanded.</p>
+
+<p>His supper over, he waited feverishly for the coach, which ordinarily was
+due at seven in the evening. To-night it bade fair to be late, owing to
+the bad condition of the roads and the early darkness. The wind had gone
+down, but it still rained. Not quite so tempestuously as when he roamed
+the cemetery, but steadily enough to keep eaves and branches dripping.
+The sound of this ceaseless drip was eerie enough to his strained senses,
+waiting as he was for an event which might determine the happiness or the
+misery of his life. He tried to forget it and wrote diligently, putting
+down words whose meaning he did not stop to consider, so that he had
+something to show to prying eyes if such should ever glance through his
+papers. But the sound had got on his brain, and presently became so
+insistent that he rose again and flung his window up to see if he were
+deceived in thinking he heard a deep roar mingling with the incessant
+patter, a roar which the wind had hitherto prevented him from separating
+from the general turmoil, but which now was apparent enough to call for
+some explanation.</p>
+
+<p>He had made no mistake; a steady sound of rushing water filled the
+outside air. A fall was near, a fall by means of which, no doubt, the
+factories were run.</p>
+
+<p>Why had he not thought of this? Why had its sound held a note of menace
+for him, awakening feelings he did not understand and from which he
+sought to escape? A factory fall swollen by the rain! What was there
+in this to make his hand shake and cause the deepening night to seem
+positively hateful to him? With a bang he closed the window; then he
+softly threw it up again. Surely he had heard the noise of wheels
+splashing through the pools of the highway. The coach was coming! and
+with it&mdash;what?</p>
+
+<p>His room was in the gable end facing the road. From it he could look
+directly down on the porch of entrance, a fact which he had thankfully
+noted at his first look. As he heard the bustle which now broke out
+below, and caught the gleam of a lantern coming round the corner of the
+house, he softly stepped to his lamp and put it out, then took his stand
+at the window. The coach was now very near; he could hear the straining
+of the harness and the shouts of the driver. In another moment it drew
+lumberingly up. A man from the hotel advanced with an umbrella; a young
+lady was helped out who, standing one moment in the full glare of the
+lights thrown upon her from the open door, showed him the face and form
+he knew so well and loved&mdash;yes, loved for all her mystery, as he knew by
+the wild beating of his heart, and the irresistible impulse he felt to
+rush down and receive her in his arms, to her great terror doubtless, but
+to his own boundless satisfaction and delight. But strong as the
+temptation was, he did not yield to it. Something in her attitude, as she
+stood there, talking earnestly to the driver, held him spellbound and
+alert. All was not right; there was passion in her movements and in her
+voice. What she said drew the heads of landlady and maid from the open
+door and caused the man with the lantern to peer past her into the coach
+and backward along the road. What had happened? Nothing that concerned
+the lawyer. Mr. Ransom could see him disentangling himself from the
+coverings in front where he had ridden with the driver, but the sister
+was not there. No other lady got out of the coach even after his young
+wife had finished her conversation with the driver and disappeared into
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>"How can I stand this?" thought Mr. Ransom as the coach finally rattled
+and swished away towards the stable. "I must hear, I must see, I must
+<i>know</i> what is going on down there."</p>
+
+<p>This because he heard voices in the open hall. Crossing to his own
+doorway, he listened. His wife and Mr. Harper had stepped into the office
+close by the front door. He could hear now and then a word of what they
+said, but not all. Venturing a step further, he leaned over the
+balustrade which extended almost up to his own door. This was better; he
+could now catch most of the words and sometimes a sentence. They all
+referred to the sister. "Temper&mdash;her own way&mdash;deaf&mdash;<i>would</i> walk in all
+the rain and slush.&mdash;A strange character&mdash;you can't imagine," and other
+similar phrases, uttered in a passionate and half-angry voice. Then
+ejaculations from Mrs. Deo, and a word or two of caution or injunction in
+the polished tones of the lawyer, followed by a sudden rush towards the
+staircase, over which he was leaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Show me my room," rang up in Georgian's bell-like tones; "then I'll tell
+you what to do about <i>her</i>. She isn't easily managed."</p>
+
+<p>"But she'll get her death!" expostulated Mrs. Deo; "to say nothing of her
+losing her way in this dreadful darkness. Let me send&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," broke in his young wife's voice, with just the hint of
+asperity in it. "She must trudge out her tantrum first. I think her idea
+was to show that she remembered the old place and the lane where she used
+to pick blackberries. You needn't worry about her getting cold. She's
+lived a gipsy life too many years to mind wind and wet. But it's
+different with <i>me</i>. I'm all in a shiver. Which is my room, please?"</p>
+
+<p>She was now at the head of the stairs. Mr. Ransom had closed his door,
+but not latched it, and as she turned to go down the hall, followed by
+the chattering landlady, he swung it open for an instant and so caught
+one full glimpse of her beloved figure. She was dressed in a long
+rain-coat and had some sort of modish hat on her head, which, in spite of
+its simplicity, gave her a highly fashionable air. A woman to draw all
+eyes, but such a mystery to her husband! Such a mystery to all who knew
+her story, or rather her actions, for no one seemed to know her story.</p>
+
+<p>Events did not halt. He heard her give this and that order, open a door
+and look in; say a word of commendation, ask if the key was on her side
+of the partition, then shut the door again and open another.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, this looks comfortable," she exclaimed in great satisfaction. "Is
+that my bag? Put it down, please. I'll open it. Now, if you'll leave me a
+moment alone, I'll soon be ready. But you mustn't expect me to eat till
+Anitra comes. I couldn't do that. Oh, she's a dreadful trial, Mrs. Deo;
+you have a motherly face, and I can tell you that the girl is just eating
+up my life. If she weren't my very self, deafened by hard usage, and
+rendered coarse and wilful by years of a miserable and half-starved life,
+I couldn't bear it, especially after what I've sacrificed for her. I've
+parted with my husband&mdash;but I can't talk, I can't. I would not have said
+so much if you hadn't looked so kind."</p>
+
+<p>All this her husband heard, followed by a sob or two, quickly checked,
+however, by a high strained laugh and the gay remark:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm wet enough, but she'll be dripping. I'm afraid she'll have to have
+her supper in her room. She got out at the new schoolhouse and started
+to come through the lane. It must be a weltering pool. If I'm dressed in
+time I'll come down and meet her at the door. Meanwhile don't wait for
+us; give Mr. Harper his supper."</p>
+
+<p>Her door closed, then suddenly opened again. "If she don't come in ten
+minutes, let some one go to the head of the lane. But be sure it's a
+careful person who won't startle her. I've got to put on another dress,
+so don't bother me. I'll hear her when she enters her own room and will
+speak to her then&mdash;if I dare; I'm not sure that I shall." And the door
+shut to again, this time with a snap of the lock. Quiet reigned once more
+in the hall save for Mrs. Deo's muttered exclamations as she made her
+laborious way down-stairs. Had this good woman been less disturbed and
+not in so much of a hurry, she might have noted that the door of her
+literary guest's room was ajar, and stopped to ask why the lamp remained
+unlit.</p>
+
+<p>For five minutes, for ten minutes, he watched and listened, passing
+continually to and fro from door to window. But his vigilance remained
+unrewarded by any further movement in the hall, or by the sight of an
+approaching figure up the road. He began to feel odd, and was asking
+himself what sort of fool-work this was, when a clatter of voices rose
+below, followed by heavy steps on the veranda. One or two men were going
+out, and as it seemed to him the landlady too, for he heard her say just
+as the door closed:</p>
+
+<p>"Let me on ahead; she must see a woman's kind face first, poor child, or
+we shall not succeed in getting her in. I know all about these wild
+ones."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Call of the Waterfall</span></h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>TWO DOORS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The enthusiasm, the expectation in Mrs. Deo's voice were unmistakable.
+This good woman believed in this rescued waif of turbulent caprices and
+gipsy ways, and from this moment he began to believe in her too, and
+consequently to share some of the excitement which had now become
+prevalent all through the house.</p>
+
+<p>His suspense was destined to be short. While he was straining his eyes to
+see what might be going on down the road, a small crowd of people came
+round the corner of the house. In their midst walked a woman with a shawl
+or cape over her head&mdash;a fierce and wilful figure which shook off the
+hand kind Mrs. Deo laid on her arm, and shrank as the great front door
+fell open, sending forth a flood of light which, to one less wedded to
+wild ways and outdoor living, promised a hospitable cheer.</p>
+
+<p>"Georgian's form!" muttered Ransom involuntarily to himself. "And
+Georgian's face!" he felt obliged to add, as the light fell broadly
+across her. "But not Georgian's ways and not Georgian's nature," he
+impetuously finished as she slipped out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Then the mystery of <i>the brother</i> came rushing over him and he yielded
+himself again to the wonder of the situation till he was reawakened to
+realities by the shuffling of feet on the stairway and the raised tones
+of Mrs. Deo as she tried to make herself understood by her new and
+somewhat difficult guest. A maid followed in their wake, and from some
+as yet unexplored region below there rose the sound of clattering dishes.</p>
+
+<p>It was a trying moment for him. He longed for another glimpse of the
+girl, but feared to betray his own curiosity to the two women who
+accompanied her. Should he be forced to allow her to enter her room
+unseen? Might he not better run some small risk of detection? He had
+escaped discovery before; wasn't it possible for him to escape it again?
+He finally compromised matters by first flinging his door wide open and
+then retreating to the other end of the room where the shadows appeared
+heavy enough to hide him. From this point he cast a look down the hall
+which was in a direct line from his present standpoint, and was fortunate
+enough to catch a glimpse of the girl with her face turned in his
+direction. Her companions, on the contrary, were standing with their
+backs to him, one beside the door she had just thrown open, the other
+at his wife's door on which she had just given a significant rap.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the picture.</p>
+
+<p>The girl absorbed all his attention. The shawl&mdash;a gay one with colors in
+it&mdash;had fallen from her head and was trailing, wet and bedraggled, over
+an equally bedraggled skirt. Soused with wet, her hair disheveled, and
+all her garments awry with the passion of her movements, she yet made his
+heart stand still, as, with a sullen look at those about her, she rushed
+into the room prepared for her use and slammed the door behind her with a
+quick cry of mingled rage and relief. For with all these drawbacks of
+manner and appearance she was the living picture of Georgian; so like
+her, indeed, that he could well understand now the shock which his
+darling received when, in the unconsciousness of possessing a living
+sister, she had encountered in street or store, or wherever they had
+first met, this living reproduction of herself.</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder she became confused as to her duty," he muttered. "I even feel
+myself becoming confused as to mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Bring me up something to eat," he now heard this latest comer shout from
+her doorway. "I don't want tea and I don't want soup; I want meat, meat.
+And I shan't go down afterward, either. I'm going to stay right here.
+I've seen enough of people I don't know. And of my sister too. She was
+cross to me because I hated the coach and wanted to walk, and she shan't
+come into my room till I tell her to. Don't forget; it's meat I want,
+just meat and something sweet. Pudding's good."</p>
+
+<p>All shocking to Mr. Ransom's taste, but more so to his heart. For
+notwithstanding the coarseness of the expressions, the voice was
+Georgian's and laden with a hundred memories.</p>
+
+<p>He was still struggling with the agitation of this discovery when he
+heard Mrs. Deo give another tap on his wife's door. This time it was
+unlocked and pushed softly open, and through the crack thus made some
+whispered orders were given. These seemed to satisfy Mrs. Deo, for she
+called the maid to her and together they hurried down the hall to a rear
+staircase, communicating with the kitchen. This was fortunate for him,
+for if they had turned his way he would have had to issue from his room
+and take open part in the excitement of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes of quiet now supervened. During these he decided that if
+he must keep up this watch&mdash;and nothing now could deter him from doing
+so&mdash;he must take a position consistent with his assumed character.
+Detection by Georgian was what he now feared. Whatever happened, she must
+not get the smallest glimpse of him or be led by any indiscretion on his
+part to suspect his presence under the same roof as herself. Yet he must
+see all, hear all that was possible to him. For this a continuance of the
+present conditions, an open door and no light, were positively requisite.
+But how avert the comment which this unusual state of things must awaken
+if noticed? But one expedient suggested itself. He would light a cigar
+and sit in the window. If questioned he would say that he was engaged
+in deciding how he would end the story he was writing; that such
+contemplation called for darkness but above all for good air; that had
+the weather been favorable he would have obtained the latter by opening
+the window; but it being so bad he could only open the door. Certain
+eccentricities are allowable in authors.</p>
+
+<p>This settled, he proceeded to take a chair and envelope himself in smoke.
+With eyes fixed on the dimly-lighted vista of the hall before him, he
+waited. What would happen next? Would his wife reappear? No; supper was
+coming up. He could hear dishes rattling on the rear stairway, and in
+another moment saw the maid coming down the hall with a large tray in her
+hands. She stopped at Anitra's door, knocked, and was answered by the
+harsh command:</p>
+
+<p>"Set it down. I'll get it for myself."</p>
+
+<p>The maid set it down.</p>
+
+<p>Next instant Mrs. Ransom's door opened.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be too generous with me," he heard her call softly out. "I can't
+eat. I'm too upset for much food. Tea," she whispered, "and some nice
+toast. Tell Mrs. Deo that I want nothing else. She will understand."</p>
+
+<p>The maid nodded and disappeared down the hall just as a bare arm was
+thrust out from Anitra's door and the tray drawn in. A few minutes later
+the other tray came up and was carried into Mrs. Ransom's room. The
+contrast in the way the two trays had been received struck him as showing
+the difference between the two women, especially after he had been given
+an opportunity, as he was later, of seeing the ferocious way in which the
+food brought to Anitra had been disposed of.</p>
+
+<p>But I anticipate. The latter tray had not yet been pushed again into the
+hall, and Mr. Ransom was still smoking his first cigar when he heard the
+lawyer's voice in the office below asking to have pen and ink placed in
+the small reception-room. This recalled him to the real purpose of his
+wife's presence in the house, and also assured him that the opportunity
+would soon be given him for another glimpse of her before the evening was
+over. It was also likely to be a full-face one, as she would have to
+advance several steps directly towards him before taking the turn leading
+to the front staircase.</p>
+
+<p>He awaited the moment eagerly. The hour for signing the will had been set
+at nine o'clock, but it was surely long past that time now. No, the clock
+in the office is striking; it is just nine. Would she recognize the
+summons? Assuredly; for with the last stroke she lifts the latch of her
+door and comes out.</p>
+
+<p>She has exchanged her dark dress for a light one and has arranged her
+hair in the manner he likes best. But he scarcely notes these changes in
+the interest he feels in her intentions and the manner in which she
+proceeds to carry out her purpose.</p>
+
+<p>She does not advance at once to the staircase, but creeps first to her
+sister's door, where she stands listening for a minute or so in an
+attitude of marked anxiety. Then, with a gesture expressive of repugnance
+and alarm, she steps quickly forward and disappears down the staircase
+without vouchsafing one glance in his direction.</p>
+
+<p>His vision of her as she looked in that short passage from room to
+staircase was momentary only, but it left him shuddering. Never before
+had he seen resolve burning to a white heat in the human countenance.
+There was something abnormal in it, taken with his knowledge of her face
+in its happier and more wholesome aspects. The innocent, affectionate
+young girl, whose soul he had looked upon as a weeded garden, had become
+in a moment to his eyes a suffering, determined, deeply concentrated
+woman of unsuspected power and purpose. A suggestion of wildness in her
+air added to the mysterious impression she made; an impression which
+rendered this instant memorable to him and set his pulses beating to
+a tune quite new to them. What was she going to do? Sign away all her
+property? Beggar her heirs for&mdash;He could not say what. No; even such
+a resolution could not account for her remarkable expression of
+concentrated will. There was in her distracted mind something of more
+tragic import than this; and he dared not question what; dared not even
+approach this woman who, less than a week before, had linked herself to
+him for life. The uneasy light in those fixed and gleaming eyes betrayed
+a reason too lightly poised. He feared any additional shock for her.
+Better that she should go down undisturbed to her adviser, who bore a
+reputation which insured a judicious use of his power. What if she were
+about to will away her fortune to the man she called brother? He himself
+had no use for her wealth. Her health and happiness were all that
+concerned him, and these possibly depended on her being allowed to go her
+own way without interference. But oh, for eyes to see into the room into
+which she had withdrawn with the lawyer! For eyes to see into her heart!
+For eyes to see into the future!</p>
+
+<p>His suspense presently became so great that he could no longer control
+himself. Throwing up the window, he thrust his head out into the rain and
+felt refreshed by the icy drops falling on his face and neck. But the
+roar of the waterfall rang too persistently in his ears and he hastily
+closed the window again. There was something in the incessant boom of
+that tumbling water which strangely disturbed him. He could better stand
+suspense than that. If only the wind would bluster again. That, at least,
+was intermittent in its fury and gave momentary relief to thoughts
+strained to an unbearable tension.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, only a short time afterwards, he wondered that he had given
+himself over to such extreme feeling at this especial moment. Her
+appearance when she came quietly back, with Mrs. Deo chatting and smiling
+behind her, was natural enough, and though she did not speak herself, the
+tenor of the landlady's remarks was such as to show that they had been
+conversing about old days when the two little girls used to ransack her
+cupboards for their favorite cookies, and when their united pranks were
+the talk of the town.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed down the hall, Mrs. Deo garrulously remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"You were never separated except on that dreadful day of the schoolhouse
+burning. That day you were sick and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Please!" The word leaped from Georgian in terror, and she almost threw
+her hand against the other's mouth. "I&mdash;I can't bear it."</p>
+
+<p>The good lady paused, gurgled an apology, and stooped for the tray which
+disfigured the sightliness of the neatly kept hall. Then, nodding towards
+a maid whom she had placed on watch at the extreme end of the hall, she
+muttered some assurances as to this woman's faithfulness, and turned away
+with a cordial good night. Georgian watched her go with a strange and
+lingering intentness, or so it seemed to Ransom; then slowly entered her
+room and locked the door.</p>
+
+<p>The incidents of the day, so far as she was concerned, appeared to be at
+an end.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>HALF-PAST ONE IN THE MORNING</h3>
+
+
+<p>Nothing now held Mr. Ransom to his room. The two women in whose fate he
+was so nearly concerned, his sister-in-law and his wife, had both retired
+and there was no other eye he feared. Indeed, he courted an interview
+with the lawyer, if only it could be naturally obtained; and he had
+little reason to think it could not. So he went down-stairs.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment he seemed to have passed from the realm of dreams to that of
+reality. Here was no mystery. Here was life as he knew it. Walking boldly
+into the office, he ran his eye over the half-dozen men who sat there
+and, picking out the lawyer from the rest, sauntered easily up to him and
+sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Johnston," said he. "I'm from New York; like yourself, I
+believe."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer, with a twinkle in his light-blue eye, answered with a cordial
+nod; and in two minutes a lively conversation had begun between them on
+purely impersonal subjects suited to the intelligence of the crowd they
+were in. This did not last, however. An opportunity soon came for them to
+stroll off together, and presently Mr. Ransom found himself closeted with
+this man who he had reason to believe was the sole holder of the key to
+the secret which was devouring him.</p>
+
+<p>A bottle of wine was on the table between them, and some cigars. As Mr.
+Ransom filled the two glasses, he spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"I have to thank you&mdash;" he began, but saw immediately that he had made a
+wrong start.</p>
+
+<p>"For what, <i>Mr. Johnston</i>?" asked the other coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"For giving me this opportunity to speak alone with you," Ransom
+explained with a nervous gesture. "An hour of unrestrained gossip is so
+necessary to me after a day of hard work. Perhaps you don't know that I
+am an author&mdash;have been one for seven whole hours. I find it exhausting.
+You could give me great relief by talking a little on some foreign
+subject, say on the one now engrossing every one in the house, the twin
+ladies from New York. You were in the same coach with them. Did they
+quarrel and did the most wilful of the two insist on getting out at the
+foot of the hill and walking up through the lane?"</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt if I have anything to say to Mr. Johnston on this subject," was
+the wary reply.</p>
+
+<p>"What if he added another name to the Johnston?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would make no appreciable difference. The driver is a loquacious
+fellow, talk to him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom felt his heart fail him. He surveyed closely the mouth which
+had uttered this off-hand sentence and saw that it was set in a line
+there was no mistaking. Little enlightenment was to be got from this man.
+Yet he made one more effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Did my wife sign the will?" he asked. "All pretense aside, this is a
+very important matter to me, Mr. Harper; not on account of the money
+involved, but because the doing of this simple act seemed to require such
+an effort on her part."</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken," was the quick reply, harshly accentuated. "She did
+just what she wanted to do. She was not in the least coerced, unless it
+was by circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"Circumstances! But that is what I mean. They seem to have been too much
+for her. I want to understand these circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer honored him with his first direct look.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand them myself," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom set down the wineglass he had raised half-way to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"You have simply followed her orders?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have said it. Your wife is a woman of much more character than you
+think. She has amazed me."</p>
+
+<p>"She is amazing me. I am here; she is here; only a few boards separate
+us. But iron bars could not be more effectual. I dare not approach her
+door; dare not ask her to accept from me the natural protection of a
+lover and husband. Instinct holds me back, or her will, which may not
+be stronger than mine but is certainly more dominant."</p>
+
+<p>"Lawyers do not believe much in instinct as a usual thing, but I should
+advise confidence in this one. A woman with a tremendous will like that
+of Mrs. Ransom should be allowed a slack tether. The day will arrive when
+she will come to you herself. This I have said before; I can say nothing
+more to you to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Then there is nothing in the will you have drawn up to show that she has
+lost her affection for me?"</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer drained his glass.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not been given permission to declare its terms," said he, when
+his glass was again upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>"In other words, I am to know nothing," exclaimed his exasperated
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Not from me."</p>
+
+<p>And this ended the conversation. Ransom withdrew immediately up-stairs.</p>
+
+<p>At ten o'clock he retired. The last look he cast down the hall had shown
+him the drowsy figure of the maid still sitting at her watch. It seemed
+to insure a peaceful night. But he had little expectation of sleep.
+Though the wind had quieted down and the rain fell with increasing
+gentleness, the roar of the waterfall surged through all his thoughts,
+which in themselves were turbulent. He did sleep, however, slept
+peacefully till half-past one, when he and all in the house were startled
+by a wild and piercing cry rising from one of the rooms. Terror was in
+the sound and in an instant every door was open save the two which were
+shut upon Georgian and her twin sister.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>"GEORGIAN!"</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom was the first one in the hall. He had not undressed himself,
+expecting a totally sleepless night. It was his figure, then, that the
+maid encountered as she came running from her post at the end of the
+corridor.</p>
+
+<p>"Which room? which?" he gasped out, ignoring every precaution in his
+blind terror.</p>
+
+<p>"This one. I am sure it came from this one," she declared, knocking
+loudly on Anitra's door.</p>
+
+<p>There was a rustle within, a cry which was half a sob, then the sound of
+a hand fumbling with the lock. Meanwhile, Mr. Ransom had bent his ear to
+his wife's door.</p>
+
+<p>"All still in here," he cried. "Not a sound. Something dreadful has
+happened&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Just then Anitra's door fell back and a wild image confronted him and
+such others as had by this time collected in the passageway. With only a
+shawl covering her nightdress, the gipsy-like creature stood clawing the
+air and answering the looks that appealed to her, with wild gurgles, till
+suddenly her hot glances fell on Roger Ransom, when she instantly became
+rigid and stammered out:</p>
+
+<p>"She's gone! I saw her black figure go by my window. She called out that
+the waterfall drew her. She went by the little balcony and the roof. The
+roof was slippery with the rain and she fell. That's why I screamed. But
+she got up again. What is she going to do at the waterfall? Stop her!
+stop her! She hasn't steady feet like me, and I wasn't really angry. I
+liked her; I liked her."</p>
+
+<p>Sobs choked the rest. Her terror was infectious. Mr. Ransom reeled, then
+flung himself at Georgian's door. It resisted but the silence within told
+him that she was not there. Neither was she in Anitra's room. They could
+all look in and see it bare to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"You saw her climbing past there?" he cried, forgetting she was deaf.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," she chattered, catching his meaning from his pointing finger.
+"There's a balcony. She must have jumped on it from her own window. She
+didn't come in here. See! the door is locked on her side."</p>
+
+<p>This was true.</p>
+
+<p>"I woke and saw her. My eyes are like lynx's. I got out of bed to watch.
+She fell&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The noise of a breaking lock snapped her words in two. One of the men
+present had flung himself against this communicating door. Immediately
+they all crowded into the adjoining room. It was empty and bitterly cold
+and wet. An open window explained why, and possibly the letter lying on
+the bureau inscribed with her husband's name would explain the rest. But
+he stopped to read no letters now.</p>
+
+<p>"Show me the way to those falls," he cried, pocketing the letter as he
+rushed by the disheveled Anitra into the open hall. "I'm her husband,
+Roger Ransom. Who goes with me? He who does is my friend for life."</p>
+
+<p>The clerk and one or two others rushed for their coats and lanterns. He
+waited for nothing. The roar of the waterfall had told him too many tales
+that day. And the will! Her will just signed!</p>
+
+<p>"Georgian!"</p>
+
+<p>They could hear his cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Georgian! Georgian! Wait! wait! hear what I have to say!" thrilled back
+through the mist as he stumbled on, followed by the men waving their
+lanterns and shouting words of warning he probably never heard. Then his
+cry further off and fainter. "Georgian! Georgian!" Then silence and the
+slow drizzle of rain on the soggy walk and soaked roofs, with the far-off
+boom of the waterfall which Mrs. Deo and the trembling maids gazing at
+the wide-eyed Anitra shivering in the center of her deserted room, tried
+to shut out by closing window and blind, forgetting that she was deaf and
+only heard such echoes as were thundering in her own mind.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHERE THE MILL STREAM RUNS FIERCEST</h3>
+
+
+<p>Two o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>Three o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>Two men were talking below their breaths in the otherwise empty office.
+"That 'ere mill stream never gives up anything it has once caught,"
+muttered one into the ear of the other. "It's swift as fate and in
+certain places deep as hell. Dutch Jan's body was five months at the
+bottom of it, before it came up at Clark's pool."</p>
+
+<p>The man beside him shivered and his hand roamed nervously towards his
+breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Jan, the Dutchman you speak of, fall in by accident, or did
+he&mdash;throw himself over&mdash;from homesickness, or some such cause?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al we don't say; on account of his old mother, you know, we don't
+say. It was called accident."</p>
+
+<p>The other man rose and walked restlessly to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Half the town is up," he muttered. "The lanterns go by like fire-flies.
+Poor Ransom! It's a hopeless job, I fear." And again his hand wandered to
+that breast pocket where the edge of a document could be seen. "I have
+half a mind to go out myself; anything is better than sitting here."</p>
+
+<p>But he sat down just the same. Mr. Harper was no longer a young man.</p>
+
+<p>"The storm's bating," observed the one.</p>
+
+<p>"But not the cold. Throw on a stick; I'm freezing."</p>
+
+<p>The other man obeyed; then looking up, stared. A girl stood before them
+in the doorway. Anitra, with cheeks ablaze and eyes burning, her
+traveling dress flapping damp about her heels, and on her head the red
+shawl she preferred to any hat. Behind her shoulder peered the anxious
+face of Mrs. Deo.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going out," cried the former in the loud and unmodulated voice of
+the deaf. "He don't come back! he don't come back! I'm going to see why."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer rose and bowed; then resolutely shook his head. He did not
+know whether she had appealed to him or not. She had not looked at him,
+had not looked at any one, but he felt that he must protest.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg you not to do so," he began. "I really beg you to remain here and
+wait with me. You can do no good and the result may be dangerous." But he
+knew he was talking to deaf ears even before the landlady murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't hear a word. I've talked and talked to her. I've used every
+sign and motion I could think of, but it's done no good. She would dress
+and she will go out; you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>The next minute her prophecy came true; the wild thing, with a quick
+whirl of her lithe body, was at the front door, and in another instant
+had flashed through it and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my duty to follow her," said the lawyer. "Help me on with my coat;
+I'll find some one to guide me."</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a lantern. Excuse me for not going with you," pleaded Mrs. Deo,
+"but some one must watch the house."</p>
+
+<p>The New Yorker nodded, took the lantern offered him, and went stoically
+out.</p>
+
+<p>He met a man on the walk in front. He was faced his way and was panting
+heavily.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello," said he, "what news?"</p>
+
+<p>"They haven't found her; but there's no doubt she went over the fall. The
+fellow who calls himself her husband has just been reading a letter they
+say she left on her bureau for him. It was a good-by, I reckon, for you
+can't tear him from the spot. He says he'll stay there till daylight. I
+couldn't stand the sight of his misery myself. Besides, it's mortal cold;
+I've just been running to get warm. Who was the girl who just went
+scurrying by out of here? It's no place for wimmen down there. One lost
+gal is enough."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what I think," muttered the lawyer, hurrying on.</p>
+
+<p>He was not a very imaginative man; some of his best friends thought him a
+cold and prosaic one, but he never forgot that walk or the sensations
+accompanying it. Dark as it still was, the way would have been impassable
+for a stranger, had it not been for the guidance given by the noisy
+passing to and fro of the awakened townspeople. Those coming from the
+river approached in a direct line from one spot; those going to it
+advanced in the same line and to the same spot. A ring of lanterns marked
+it. It was near, very near where the heavy waters fell into a deep pool.
+No one now spoke of Anitra; she had evidently been warned by her first
+encounter to move with less precipitancy.</p>
+
+<p>As he approached the place of central interest, he moved more warily too.
+The ground was very bad; he had never walked in such slush. Once and
+again he tripped; once he came down upon his face. The boom of the waters
+was now very near; he could see nothing but the flicker of the lanterns,
+but he felt the near rush of the stream, and presently was at its very
+edge. Startled by the nearness of his escape, for he had almost lost
+his footing by his sudden halt, he started back, looked again at the
+lanterns, took a turn and came upon the dozen or more men bending over
+the edge of the stream where the waters ran most swiftly. But he did not
+join them. Another sight attracted his eyes and presently himself. This
+was the sight of Ransom crouched on the wet earth, staring down at a slip
+of paper he held in his hands. A lantern set in the sand at his feet sent
+its feeble rays over his face and possibly over the paper; but he was no
+longer reading it, he was simply so lost in its sorrowful contents that
+all power of movement had deserted him.</p>
+
+<p>Harper approached to his side, but he did not address him. Something
+stirred in his own breast and kept him silent. But there was another
+person near who was not so deterred. As Harper stood watching Ransom's
+crouched, almost insensible figure, he perceived a slight dark form steal
+from the shadows and lay a hand on the stooping man's shoulder, then as
+he failed to move or give any token of feeling this touch, he heard
+Anitra's voice say in accents almost musical:</p>
+
+<p>"You will get ill here; you are not used to the cold and the night air.
+Come back to the house; Georgian would wish it."</p>
+
+<p>The name roused him and he looked up. Their eyes met and a strange
+gleam&mdash;a shock, perhaps, of sympathetic feeling, flashed upon either
+face. The lawyer saw and instinctively retreated from out the circle of
+light cast by the lantern; but the men at the stream's edge heard
+nothing. The flash of something white had caught their eyes and one man
+was reaching for it.</p>
+
+<p>"Georgian," came in astonished repetition from the bereaved man's lips.</p>
+
+<p>"She would wish it," persisted the other with still deeper and more
+urgent meaning.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/hand.jpg"><img src="images/hand.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+
+<h4>A slight, dark form stole from the shadows and laid a
+hand on the stooping man's shoulder.</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>Then in a whisper so penetrating that even Mr. Harper caught its least
+inflection through all the thunder of the waterfall, "She loved you."</p>
+
+<p>Ah! the enchantment, the feminine persuasiveness, the heart-moving
+sincerity which breathed through that simple phrase! From lips so
+untutored, it seemed marvelous. Ransom was not insensible to its power,
+for he quivered under her hand and his eyes took on a look of wonder. But
+he made no attempt to answer, even by a sign. He seemed content for that
+one instant just to listen and to look.</p>
+
+<p>The man hanging over the stream drew back his arm. He had been deceived
+by a bit of froth; some of it clung yet to his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," entreated the girl, her face emerging softly into the light, as
+she stooped lower over the lantern. "Come!" she had taken him by the hand
+and was drawing him gently upward.</p>
+
+<p>With a leap he was on his feet and had thrown her off. Some memory had
+come to make her entreaty hateful.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he cried, "no! Here is my place and here will I stay. You are a
+stranger to me! You drove her to this act, and you shall not cajole me
+into forgetting it."</p>
+
+<p>He had spoken loudly; not so much because he remembered her affliction,
+but because of the roar of the fall and his own overwhelming passion. The
+result was that the lawyer caught every word; possibly the workers at the
+water-edge did also; for some of them quickly turned their heads. But
+she, though she stopped short in the spot where he had pushed her, gave
+no evidence of hearing his words or even of resenting his manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you come?" she falteringly pleaded, pointing towards the house
+with its twinkling lights. "You are cold; you are shuddering; they will
+do the searching who don't mind night or wet. Follow Anitra, Anitra who
+is so sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" he shouted. His tone, his look, were almost those of a madman. He
+even put out his hands towards her in repulsion. He seemed to cast her
+away. This gesture, if not his words, reached her understanding. The
+lawyer saw her sway, fling back her young head with its disheveled locks
+to the night, and fall moaning pitifully to the ground. Here she lay
+still, with the wet grass all about her and the last lingering drops of
+rain beating on her huddled form.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harper started to raise her, for Ransom stood petrified. But no
+sooner had the lawyer made his presence known by this impetuous movement,
+than Ransom woke from his trance and, darting down, lifted the girl in
+his arms and began moving with her towards the house. As he passed the
+lawyer he muttered between set teeth:</p>
+
+<p>"She's caused me all my misery. But she looks too much like Georgian for
+me to see another man touch her. God will care for my poor darling's
+body."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>A DETECTIVE'S WORK</h3>
+
+
+<p>Morning.</p>
+
+<p>The living household was about its tasks for all the horror of the night
+before, and the still unrelieved suspense as to the fate of one of its
+members.</p>
+
+<p>The maid, who had sat on watch in the upper hall for so many hours the
+evening before, was again at her post, but this time with her eye fixed
+only on one door, the door behind which slept the exhausted Anitra.
+Ransom's room was empty; he was in the sitting-room below, closeted with
+the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>Some one had been there before them. The tray of bottles and glasses had
+been removed from the table, and in their place were to be seen a woman's
+damaged hat and a small tortoise-shell comb. Mr. Harper's hand was on the
+former, which was wound about with a wet veil.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I recognize this," said he. "At least I have a distinct
+impression of having seen it before."</p>
+
+<p>"It was picked up with the veil still on it near the entrance of the
+lane," explained Ransom.</p>
+
+<p>"Then there can be no doubt that it is the hat Miss Hazen wore during
+her journey. She tossed it off the moment her foot touched the ground,
+and taking the shawl from her neck pulled it over her head instead. You
+remember that she had no hat on when they brought her in."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember. This is Miss Hazen's hat without any doubt."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer eyed the speaker with curious interest. There was something in
+his tone that he did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>"And this?" he ventured, laying a respectful finger on the comb.</p>
+
+<p>"Found in the open field between the house and the mill-stream."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you recognize it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Georgian wore such combs, but I cannot absolutely say that this is
+hers."</p>
+
+<p>"I can. You see this little gold work at the top? Well, I have an eye for
+such things and I noticed this comb in her hair last night. There were
+two of them just alike."</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively the two men sat with their eyes fixed for a minute on this
+comb, then, equally instinctively, they both looked up and gazed at each
+other long and hard. It was the lawyer who first spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that we should have no further secrets between us," said he.
+"Here is Mrs. Ransom's will. There is a name mentioned in it which I do
+not know. Perhaps you do." Here he laid the document on the table.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom eyed it but did not take it up. Instead, he drew a crumpled
+paper from his own pocket and, handing it to the lawyer, said: "First,
+I should like you to read the letter which she left behind for me. My
+feelings as a husband would lead me to hold it as a sacred legacy from
+all eyes but my own; but there is a mystery hidden in it, a mystery which
+I must penetrate, and you are the only man who can assist me in doing
+so."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer, lowering his eyes to hide their own suspicious glint, opened
+the paper, and carefully read these lines:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Forgive. My troubles are too much for me. I'm going to a place of
+rest, the only place and the only rest possible to one in my position.
+I don't blame anybody. Least of all do I blame Anitra. It was not her
+fault that she was brought up rudely, or that she knows no restraint
+in love or in hate. Be kind to her for my sake, and if any one else
+claims her or offers to take her from you, resist them. I give her
+entirely to you. It's a more priceless gift than you think; much more
+priceless than the one which I take from you by my death. I could
+never have been happy with you; you could never have been happy with
+me. Fate stood between us; a darker and more inexorable fate than you,
+in your kindly experience of life, could imagine. Else, why do I
+plunge to my death with your ring on my finger and your love in my
+heart?</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">Georgian.</span>"</p></div>
+
+<p>"Ravings?" questioned Ransom hoarsely, as Mr. Harper's eyes rose again to
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>"It would seem so," assented the lawyer. "Yet there is intelligence in
+all the lines. And the will&mdash;read the will. There is no lack of
+intelligent purpose there; little as it accords with the feeling she
+exhibits here for her sister. She leaves her nothing; and does not even
+mention her name. Her personal belongings she bequeaths to you; but her
+realty, which comprises the bulk of her property I believe, she divides,
+somewhat unequally I own, between you and a man named Auchincloss. It
+is he I want to ask you about. Have you ever heard her speak of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Josiah Auchincloss of St. Louis, Missouri," read Mr. Ransom. "No, the
+name is new to me. Didn't she tell you anything about him when she gave
+you her instructions?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word. She said, 'You will hear from him if ever this will is
+published. He has a right to the money and I entreat you to show your
+respect for me by seeing that he gets it without any unnecessary
+trouble.' That was all she said or would say. Your wife was a woman of
+powerful character, Mr. Ransom. My little arts counted for nothing in any
+difference of opinion between us."</p>
+
+<p>"Auchincloss!" repeated Ransom. "Another unknown quantity in the problem
+of my poor girl's life. What a tangle! Do you wonder that I am overcome
+by it? Anitra&mdash;the so-called brother&mdash;and now this Auchincloss!"</p>
+
+<p>"Right, Ransom, I share your confusion."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you?" The words came very slowly, penetratingly. "Haven't you some
+idea&mdash;some strange, possibly half-formed notion or secret intuition which
+might afford some clew to this labyrinth? I have been told that lawyers
+have a knack of getting at the bottom of human conduct and affairs. You
+have had a wide experience; does it not suggest some answer to this
+problem which will harmonize all its discordant elements and make clear
+its various complications?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harper shook his head, but there was a restrained excitement in his
+manner which was not altogether the reflection of that which dominated
+Ransom, and the latter, observing it, leaned across the table till their
+faces almost touched.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you guess my thought?" he whispered. "Look at me and tell me if you
+guess my thought."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer hesitated, eying well the trembling lip, the changing color,
+the wide-open, deeply flushed eyes so near his own; then with a slow
+smile of extraordinary subtlety, if not of comprehension, answered in
+a barely audible murmur:</p>
+
+<p>"I think I do. I may be mad, but I think I do."</p>
+
+<p>The other sank back with a sigh charged with what the lawyer interpreted
+as relief. Mr. Harper reseated himself, and for a moment neither looked
+at the other, and neither spoke; it would almost seem as if neither
+breathed. Then, as a bird, deceived by the silence, hopped to the window
+sill and began its cheep, "cheep," Mr. Ransom broke the spell by saying
+in low but studiously business-like tones:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you thought it worth while to study the ground under her window or
+anywhere else for footprints? It might not be amiss; what do you think
+about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go," readily acquiesced the lawyer, rising to his feet with an
+honest show of alacrity; "after which I must telegraph to New York. I was
+expected back to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it; but your duties there will keep; these here cannot. Your hand
+on the promise that you will respect my secret till&mdash;well, till I can
+assure you that my intuitions are devoid of any real basis."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer's palm met his; then they started to go out; but before they
+had passed the door, Mr. Ransom came back, and lifting the comb from the
+table he put it in his pocket. As he did this, his eye flashed sidewise
+on the other. There were strange hints and presentiments in it which
+brought the color to the usually imperturbable lawyer's cheek.</p>
+
+<p>In going out they passed the office-door. A dozen men were hanging about,
+smoking and talking. Among them was a countryman who had just swallowed,
+open-mouthed, the story of the past night's tragedy. He was now speaking
+out his own mind concerning it, and this is what these two heard him say
+as they went by:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what strikes me as mighty strange? That they should clear
+that stone of the name of Anitra just in time to put Georgian's in its
+place. I call that peculiar, I do."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer and the husband exchanged a glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ransom had a deep mind," the lawyer remarked, as the door slammed
+behind them. "She apparently thought of everything."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom, directing a look down the street towards the factories and the
+roaring mill-stream, uttered a shuddering sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"They are still searching," said he. "But they will never find her. They
+will never find her."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer pulled him away.</p>
+
+<p>"That's because they search the water. We will search the land."</p>
+
+<p>"That's half water, too; but it cannot hide every clew. You have eyes for
+the imperceptible; use them, Mr. Harper, use them."</p>
+
+<p>"I will; but this is a detective's work. Do not expect too much from me."</p>
+
+<p>"I expect nothing. I do not dare to. Let us tread very softly, that is
+all, and be careful to talk low, if we have anything to say."</p>
+
+<p>By this time they had rounded the corner of the house and entered a
+narrow walk, flagged with brick, which connected the space in front
+with the rear offices and garden. This walk ran close to the walls which
+were broken on this side by an ell projecting in the direction of the
+mill-stream. It was from the roof of this ell that Anitra declared
+Georgian to have slipped and fallen.</p>
+
+<p>Their first care was to glance up at the roof. It was a sloping one and
+Anitra's story seemed credible enough when they noted how much easier it
+would be to drop upon it from the little balcony overhead than to
+traverse the roof itself and reach the ground beneath without slipping.
+But as they looked longer, each face betrayed doubt. The descent from the
+balcony was easy enough, but how about the passage from Georgian's window
+to the balcony? This latter was confined to the one window, and was
+surrounded by an ornamental balustrade, high enough to offer a decided
+obstacle to the adventurous person endeavoring to leap upon it from the
+adjoining window-ledge. However, this leap, made in the dark and under
+circumstances inducing the utmost recklessness, might look practical
+enough from the window-ledge itself, and Mr. Harper, making a remark to
+this effect, proposed that they should examine the ground rather than the
+house for evidences of Mrs. Ransom's slip and fall as related by Anitra.</p>
+
+<p>The only spot where they could hope to find such was in the one short
+stretch&mdash;the width of the ell&mdash;underlying the edge of the sloping roof.
+But this spot was all flagged, as I have already said, and when their
+eyes strayed beyond it to the untilled fields, stretching between them
+and the great rock at the verge of the waterfall from which she was
+supposed to have taken her fatal leap, it was to find them as
+unproductive of evidence as the brick walk itself. Not one pair of feet
+but many had passed that way since early morning. The ground showed a
+mass of impressions of all sizes and shapes, amid which it would have
+been impossible for them, without the necessary experience, to have
+followed up the flight of any one person. They had come to their task
+too late.</p>
+
+<p>"Futile," decided the lawyer. "There is no use in our going that way."
+And he turned to look again at the ground in their immediate vicinity. As
+he did so, his eye lighted on the triangular spot where the ell met the
+side of the house under the kitchen windows. Here there was no flagging,
+the walk taking a diagonal course from the corner of the ell to the
+kitchen door.</p>
+
+<p>"What are those?" he asked, pointing to two oblong impressions brimming
+with water which disfigured the center of this small plot.</p>
+
+<p>"They look like footprints," ventured Ransom.</p>
+
+<p>"They are footprints," decided Mr. Harper as they stooped to examine the
+marks, "and the footprints of a person dropping from a height. Nothing
+else explains their depth or general appearance."</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't they be those of a person approaching the ell to converse with
+some one above? I see others similar to these in the open place over
+there beyond the kitchen door."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a trail. Let us follow it. It seems to lead anywhere but towards
+the waterfall. This is an important discovery, Mr. Ransom, and may lead
+to conclusions such as we might not otherwise have presumed to entertain,
+especially if we come upon an impression clear enough to point in which
+direction the person making it was going."</p>
+
+<p>"Here is what you want," Ransom assured him in a low and curiously
+smothered voice. He was evidently greatly excited by this result of their
+inquiries, for all his apparent quiet and precise movements. "It's a
+woman's step, and that woman was going from the ell when she left these
+tokens of her passage behind her. Going! and as you say not in the
+direction of the waterfall."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! I see some one at the kitchen window. Let us move warily and be
+sure not to confound these prints with those of any other person. It
+looks as if a great many people had passed here."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, this is the way to the chicken-coops and out-houses. But in the
+ground beyond I think I see a single line of steps again,&mdash;small steps
+like these. Where can they be leading? They are deep like those of a
+person running."</p>
+
+<p>"And straggling, like those of a person running in the dark. See how they
+waver from the direct line down there, turn, and almost come up against
+that wood-pile! Whose steps are these? Whose, Mr. Harper? Quick! I must
+see where they go. Our time will not be lost. The key to the labyrinth is
+in our hands."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer was in the rear and the eyes of the other were fixed far
+ahead. For this reason, perhaps, the former allowed himself a quiet shake
+of the head, which might not have encouraged the other so very much, had
+he caught sight of it. They were now on the verge of the garden, or what
+would soon be a garden if these rains betokened spring. A path ran along
+its edge and in this path the footsteps they were following lost
+themselves; but they came upon them again among the hillocks of some old
+potato-hills beyond, and finally traced them quite across the garden
+waste to a fence, along which they ran, blundering from ploughed earth to
+spots of smoother ground, and so back again till they came upon an old
+turn-stile!</p>
+
+<p>Passing through this, the two men stopped and looked about them. They
+were in a road ridged with grass and flanked by bushes. One end ran east
+into a wooded valley, the other debouched on the highway a few feet to
+the right of the tavern.</p>
+
+<p>"The lane!" exclaimed Mr. Harper. "The lead towards the waterfall was a
+feint. It was in this direction she fled, and it is from this point that
+search must be made for her."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom, greatly perturbed, for this possibility of secret flight opened
+vistas of as much mystery, if not of as much suffering, as her death in
+the river, glanced at the sodden ground under their feet, and thus along
+the lane to where it lost itself from view among the trees.</p>
+
+<p>"No possible following of steps here," he declared. "A hundred people
+must have come this way since early morning."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a short cut from the Ferry. They told me last night that it
+lessened the distance by fully a quarter of a mile."</p>
+
+<p>"The Ferry! Can she be there? Or in the woods, or on her way to some
+unknown place far out of our reach? The thought is maddening, Mr. Harper,
+and I feel as helpless as a child under it. Shall we get detectives from
+the county-seat, or start on the hunt ourselves? We might hear something
+further on to help us."</p>
+
+<p>"We might; but I should rather stay on the immediate scene at present.
+Ah, there comes a fellow in a cart who should be able to tell us
+something! Stand by and I'll accost him. You needn't show your face."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom turned aside. Mr. Harper waited till the slow-moving horse,
+dragging a heavily jogging wagon, came alongside, and he had caught the
+eye of the low-browed, broad-faced farmer boy who sat on a bag of
+potatoes and held the reins.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning," said he. "Bad news this way. Any better at the Ferry, or
+down east, as you call it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh?" was the lumbering, half-suspicious answer from the startled boy.
+"I've heard naught down yonder, but that a gal threw herself over the
+waterfall up here last night. Is that a fact, sir? I'm mighty curus to
+know. My mother knew them Hazens; used to wash for 'em years ago. She
+told me to bring up these taters and larn all I could about it."</p>
+
+<p>"We don't know much more than that ourselves," was the smooth and
+cautious reply. "The lady certainly is missing, and she is supposed to
+have drowned herself." Then, as he noted the fellow's eyes resting with
+some curiosity on Mr. Ransom's well-clad, gentlemanly figure, added
+gravely, and with a slight gesture towards the latter:</p>
+
+<p>"The lady's husband."</p>
+
+<p>The lad's jaw fell and he looked very sheepish.</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, misters, I didn't know," he managed to mutter, with a slash
+at his horse which was vainly endeavoring to pull the cart from the rut
+in which it had stuck. "I guess I'll go along to the hotel. I've a bag of
+taters for Mrs. Deo."</p>
+
+<p>But the cart didn't budge and the lawyer had time to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Guess you didn't hear anything said about another lady I am interested
+in. No talk down your way of a strange young woman seen anywhere on the
+highway or about any of the houses between here and the Landing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jerusha! I did hear a neighbor of mine say somethin' about a stranger
+gal he saw this very mornin'. Met her down by Beardsley's. She was goin'
+through the mud on foot as lively as you please. Asked him the way to the
+Ferry. He noticed her because she was pretty and spoke in such a nice
+way&mdash;just like a city gal," he said. "Is it any one from this hotel?"
+added the fellow with a wondering look. "If so, she walked a mile before
+daylight in mud up to her ankles. A girl of powerful grit that! with a
+mighty good reason for catching the train."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! there's an early train then?" asked the lawyer, ignoring the other's
+question with unmoved good-humor. "One, I mean, before the 10:50
+express?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, or so I've heard. I never took it. Folks don't from here,
+except they're in an awful hurry. Will y'er say who the young woman is?
+Not&mdash;not&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We don't know who she is," quietly objected the lawyer. "And you don't
+know who she is either," he severely added, holding the yawping
+countryman with his eye. "If you're the man I think you, you'll not talk
+about her unless you're asked by the constable or some one you are bound
+to answer. And what's more, you'll earn a five-dollar bill by going back
+the road you've come and bringing here, without any talk or fuss, the man
+you were just telling us about. I want to have a talk with him, but I
+don't want any one but you and him to know this. You can tell him it's
+worth money, if he don't want to come. Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"You bet," chuckled the grinning lad. "A five-dollar bill is mighty
+clearing to the mind, sir. But must I turn right back before going on to
+the hotel and hearing the news?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll help you turn the cart," grimly suggested Mr. Harper. "Get up
+there, Dobbin, or whatever your name is. Here, Ransom, lend a hand!"</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing for the fellow to do but to accept the help proffered,
+and turn his cart. With one longing look towards the hotel he jerked at
+the rein and shouted at the horse, which, after a few feeble efforts,
+pulled the cart about and started off again in the desired direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Sooner done, sooner paid," shouted the lawyer, as lad and cart went
+jolting off. "Remember to ask for Lawyer Harper when you come back. I
+won't be far from the office."</p>
+
+<p>The fellow nodded; gave one grinning look back and whipped up his nag.
+The lawyer and Ransom eyed one another. "It's only a possibility,"
+emphasized the former. "Don't lay too much stress upon it."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us speak plainly," urged Ransom. "Mr. Harper, are you sure that you
+know just what my thought is?"</p>
+
+<p>"The time has not come for discussing that question. Let us defer it.
+There is a fact to be settled first."</p>
+
+<p>"Whether the girl&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No; this! Whether your wife could have jumped from her window to the
+balcony, as Anitra said. It did not look feasible from below, but as I
+then remarked to you, our opinion may change when we consider it from
+above. Will you go up-stairs with me to your wife's room?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will go anywhere and do anything you please, so that we learn the
+exact truth. But spare me the curiosity of these people. The crowd on
+this side is increasing."</p>
+
+<p>"We will go in by the kitchen door. Some one there will show us the way
+up-stairs."</p>
+
+<p>And in this manner they entered; not escaping entirely all curious looks,
+for human nature is human nature, whether in the kitchen or parlor.</p>
+
+<p>In the hall above Mr. Ransom took the precedence. As they neared the
+fatal room he motioned the lawyer to wait till he could ascertain if Miss
+Hazen would be disturbed by their intrusion. The door, which had been
+broken in between the two rooms, could not have been put back very
+securely, and he dreaded incommoding her. He was gone but a minute.
+Almost as soon as the lawyer started to follow him, he could be seen
+beckoning from poor Georgian's door.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Hazen is asleep," whispered Ransom, as the other drew near. "We can
+look about this room with impunity."</p>
+
+<p>They both entered and the lawyer crossed at once to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Your wife could never have taken the leap ascribed to her by the woman
+you call Anitra," he declared, after a minute's careful scrutiny of the
+conditions. "The balustrade of the adjoining balcony is not only in the
+way, but the distance is at least five feet from the extreme end of this
+window-ledge. A woman accustomed to a life of adventure or to the feats
+of a gymnasium might do it, but not a lady of Mrs. Ransom's habits. If
+your wife made her way from this room to the balcony outside her sister's
+window, she did it by means of the communicating door."</p>
+
+<p>"But the door was found locked on this side. There is the key in the lock
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"You are sure of this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was the first one to call attention to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," began the lawyer judicially, but stopped as he noted the peculiar
+eagerness of Ransom's expression, and turned his attention instead to the
+interior of the room and the various articles belonging to Mrs. Ransom
+which were to be seen in it. "The dress your wife wore when she signed
+her will," he remarked, pointing to the light green gown hanging on the
+inside of the door by which they had entered.</p>
+
+<p>Ransom stepped up to it, but did not touch it. He could see her as she
+looked in this gown in her memorable passage through the hall the evening
+before, and, recalling her expression, wondered if they yet understood
+the nature of her purpose and the determination which gave it such
+extraordinary vigor.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harper called his attention to two other articles of dress hanging in
+another part of the room. These were her long gray rain-coat and the hat
+and veil she had worn on the train.</p>
+
+<p>"She went out bare-headed and in the plain serge dress in which she
+arrived," remarked Mr. Harper with a side glance at Ransom. "I wonder if
+the girl met on the highway was without hat and dressed in black serge."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Anitra's hat is below and here is Mrs. Ransom's. She who escaped from
+this house last night went out bare-headed," repeated the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom, moving aside to avoid the probing of the other's eye, merely
+remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"You noticed my wife's dress very particularly it seems. It was of serge,
+you say."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I am learned in stuffs. I remarked it when she got into the coach,
+possibly because I was struck by its simplicity and conventional make.
+There was no trimming on the bottom, only stitching. Her sister's was
+just like it. They had the look of being ready-made."</p>
+
+<p>"But Anitra had no rain-coat. I remember that her shoulders were wet when
+she came in from the lane."</p>
+
+<p>"No, she had no protection but her blouse, black like her dress. I
+presume that her hot blood resented every kind of wrap."</p>
+
+<p>Again that sidelong glance from his keen eye. "She wore a checked silk
+handkerchief about her neck&mdash;the one she afterwards put over her head."</p>
+
+<p>"You were on the same train with my wife and sister-in-law," Ransom now
+said. "Did you sit near them? Converse with them, that is, with Mrs.
+Ransom?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no reason for deceiving you in that regard," replied Mr. Harper.
+"I did not come up from New York on the same train they did. They must
+have come up in the morning, for when I arrived at the place they call
+the Ferry, I saw them standing on the hotel steps ready to step into the
+coach. I spoke to Mrs. Ransom then, but only a word. My grip-sack had
+been put under the driver's seat, and I saw that I was expected to ride
+with him, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather. Mrs. Ransom saw
+it too and possibly my natural hesitation, for she turned to me after she
+had seen her sister safely ensconced inside, and said something about her
+regret at having subjected me to such inconvenience, but did not offer to
+make room for me in the body of the coach, though there was room enough
+if the other had been the quiet lady she was herself. But she was not,
+and possibly this was Mrs. Ransom's excuse for her apparent lack of
+consideration for me. Before we reached the point where the lane cuts in,
+I became aware of some disturbance behind me, and when we really got
+there, I heard first the coach door opening, then your wife's voice,
+raised in entreaty to the driver, calling on him to stop before her
+sister jumped out and hurt herself. 'She is deaf and very wild' was all
+the explanation she gave after Miss Hazen had leaped into the wet road
+and darted from sight into what looked to me, in the darkness, like a
+tangled mass of bushes. Then she said something about her having had
+hard work to keep her still till we got this far; but that she was sure
+she would find her way to the hotel, and that we mustn't bother ourselves
+about it for she wasn't going to; Anitra and she had run this road too
+many times when they were children. That is all I have to tell of my
+intercourse with these ladies prior to our appearance at the hotel. I
+think it right for me to clear the slate, Ransom. Who knows what we may
+wish to write upon it next?"</p>
+
+<p>A slight shiver on Ransom's part was the sole answer he gave to this
+innuendo; then both settled themselves to work, the eyes of either
+flashing hither and thither from one small object to another, in this
+seemingly deserted room. In the momentary silence which followed, the
+even breathing of the woman in the adjoining room could be distinctly
+heard. It seemed to affect Mr. Ransom deeply, though he strove hard to
+maintain the business-like attitude he had assumed from the beginning
+of this unofficial examination.</p>
+
+<p>"She has confided nothing more to you since your return from the river
+bank?" suggested the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>The word came sharply, considering Mr. Ransom's usual manner. The lawyer
+showed surprise but no resentment, and turned his attention to the bag
+both had noted lying open on two chairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing equivocal here," he declared, after a moment's careful scrutiny
+of its remaining contents. "The only comment I should make in regard to
+what I find here is that all the articles are less carefully chosen than
+you would expect from one of your wife's fondness for fine appointments."</p>
+
+<p>"They were collected in a hurry and possibly by telephone," returned the
+unhappy husband, after a shrinking glance into the bag. "The ones she
+provided in anticipation of her wedding are at the hotel in New York. In
+the trunks and bags there you will find articles as elegant as you could
+wish." Here he turned to the dresser, and pointed to the various objects
+grouped upon it.</p>
+
+<p>"These show that she arranged herself with care for her meeting with you
+last night. How did she appear at that interview? Natural?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly; she was much too excited. But I had no suspicion of what she
+was cherishing in her mind. I thought her intentions whimsical, and
+endeavored to edge in a little advice, but she was in no mood to receive
+it. Her mind was too full of what she intended to do.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's where she ate her supper," he added, picking up a morsel of crust
+from a table set against the wall. "And so this door was found fastened
+on this side?" he proceeded, laying his hand on the broken lock.</p>
+
+<p>"It had to be burst open, you see."</p>
+
+<p>"And the window?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was up. The carpet, as you can tell by look and feeling, is still wet
+with the soaking it got."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harper's air changed to one of reluctant conviction.</p>
+
+<p>"The evidence seems conclusive of your wife having left this room and the
+house in the remarkable manner stated by Miss Hazen. Yet&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This <i>yet</i> showed that he was not as thoroughly convinced as the first
+phrase would show. But he added nothing to it; only stood listening,
+apparently to the even breathing of the sleeper on the other side of this
+loosely hanging door.</p>
+
+<p>As he did so, his eye encountered the hot, dry gaze of Mr. Ransom, fixed
+upon him in a suspense too cruel to prolong, and with a sudden change of
+manner he moved from the door, saying significantly as he led the way
+out:</p>
+
+<p>"Let us have a word or two in your own room. It is a principle of mine
+not to trust even the ears of the deaf with what it is desirable to keep
+secret."</p>
+
+<p>Had the glance with which he said this lingered a moment longer on his
+companion's face, he would undoubtedly have been startled at the effect
+of his own words. But being at heart a compassionate man, or possibly
+understanding his new client much better than that client supposed, he
+had turned quite away in crossing the threshold, and so missed the
+conscious flash which for a moment replaced the somber and feverish
+expression that had already aged by ten years the formerly open features
+of this deeply grieved man.</p>
+
+<p>Once in the hall, it was too dark to note further niceties of expression,
+and by the time Mr. Ransom's room was reached, purpose and purpose only
+remained visible in either face.</p>
+
+<p>As they were crossing the threshold, the lawyer wheeled about and cast a
+quick look behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"I observe," said he, "that you have a full and unobstructed view from
+here of the whole hall and of the two doors where our interest is
+centered. I presume you kept a strict watch on both last night. You let
+nothing escape you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing that one could see from this room."</p>
+
+<p>With a thoughtful air, the lawyer swung to the door behind them. As it
+latched, the face of Mr. Ransom sharpened. He even put out a hand and
+rested it on a table standing near, as if to support himself in
+anticipation of what the lawyer would say now that they were again
+closeted together.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harper was not without his reasons for a corresponding agitation, but
+he naturally controlled himself better, and it was with almost a judicial
+air that he made this long-expected but long-deferred suggestion:</p>
+
+<p>"You had better tell me now, and as explicitly as possible, just what is
+in your mind. It will prevent all misunderstanding between us, as well as
+any injudicious move on my part."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom hesitated, leaning hard on the table; then, with a sudden
+burst, he exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds like folly, and you may think that my troubles have driven me
+mad. But I have a feeling here&mdash;a feeling without any reason or proof to
+back it&mdash;that the woman now sleeping off her exhaustion in Anitra's room
+is the woman I courted and married&mdash;Georgian Hazen, now Georgian Ransom,
+my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! I have made no mistake. That is my thought, too," responded the
+lawyer.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>ANITRA</h3>
+
+
+<p>A few minutes later they were discussing this amazing possibility.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no reason for this conclusion,&mdash;this hope," admitted Mr. Ransom.
+"It is instinct with me, an intuition, and not the result of my judgment.
+It came to me when she first addressed me down by the mill-stream. If you
+consider me either wrong or misled, I confess that I shall not be able to
+combat your decision with any argument plausible enough to hold your
+attention for a moment."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't consider you either wrong or misled," protested the other.
+"That is," he warily added, "I am ready to accept the correctness of the
+possibility you mention and afterwards to note where the supposition will
+lead us. Of course, your first sensation is that of relief."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be when I am no longer the prey of doubts."</p>
+
+<p>"Notwithstanding the mystery?"</p>
+
+<p>"Notwithstanding the mystery. The one thing I have found it impossible to
+contemplate is her death;&mdash;the extinction of all hope which death alone
+can bring. She has become so blended with my every thought since the hour
+she vanished from my eyes and consequently from my protection, that I
+should lose the better part of my self in losing her. Anything but that,
+Mr. Harper."</p>
+
+<p>"Even possible shame?"</p>
+
+<p>"How, shame?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some reason very strong and very vital must underlie her conduct if what
+we suspect is true, and she has not only been willing to subject you and
+herself to a seeming separation by death, but to burden herself with the
+additional misery of being obliged to assume a personality cumbered by
+such a drawback to happiness and even common social intercourse as this
+of the supposed Anitra."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean her deafness?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that, yes. What could Mrs. Ransom's motive be (if the woman
+sleeping yonder is Mrs. Ransom) for so tremendous a sacrifice as this you
+ascribe to her? The rescue of her sister from some impending calamity?
+That would argue a love of long standing and of superhuman force; one far
+transcending even her natural affection for the husband to whom she has
+just given her hand. Such a love under such circumstances is not
+possible. She has known this long lost sister for a few days only. Her
+sense of duty towards her, even her compassion for one so unfortunate,
+might lead her to risk much, but not so much as that. You must look for
+some other explanation; one more reasonable and much more personal."</p>
+
+<p>"Where? where? I'm all at sea; blinded, dazed, almost at my wits' end. I
+can see no reason for anything she has done. I neither understand her nor
+understand myself. I ought to shrink from the poor creature there,
+sleeping off&mdash;I don't know what. But I don't. I feel drawn to her,
+instead, irresistibly drawn, as if my place were at her bedside to
+comfort and protect."</p>
+
+<p>At this impulsive assertion springing from a depth of feeling for which
+the staid lawyer had no measure, a perplexed frown chased all the
+urbanity from his face. Some thought, not altogether welcome, had come to
+disturb him. He eyed Mr. Ransom closely from under his clouded brows. He
+could do this now with impunity, for Mr. Ransom's glances were turned
+whither his thoughts and inclinations had wandered.</p>
+
+<p>"I would advise you," came in slow comment from the watchful lawyer, "not
+to be too certain of your conclusions till doubt becomes an absolute
+impossibility. Instinct is a good thing but it must never be regarded as
+infallible. It may be proved that it is your wife who has fled, after
+all. In which case it would be a great mistake to put any faith in this
+gipsy girl, Anitra."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom's face hardened; his eyes did not leave the direction in which
+they were set.</p>
+
+<p>"I will remember," said he.</p>
+
+<p>His companion did not appear satisfied, and continued emphatically:</p>
+
+<p>"Whether the woman now here is Mrs. Ransom or her wild and irresponsible
+sister, she is a person of dangerous will and one not to be lightly
+regarded nor carelessly dealt with. Pray consider this, Mr. Ransom, and
+do not allow impulse to supersede judgment. If you will take my advice&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Speak."</p>
+
+<p>"I should treat her as if she were the woman she calls herself, or, at
+least, as if you thought her so. Nothing&mdash;" this word he repeated as he
+noted the incredulity with which the other listened&mdash;"would be so likely
+to make her betray herself as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go back and listen again at her door," was Mr. Ransom's emphatic
+but inconsequent reply.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer desisted from further advice, but sighed as he followed his
+new client into the hall. At the turn of the staircase they were stopped
+by the sound of wrangling voices in the office below. Mr. Harper heard
+his name mentioned and hastened to interfere. Assuring Mr. Ransom of his
+speedy return, he stepped down-stairs, and in a few minutes reappeared
+with a middle-aged man of characteristic appearance, whom he introduced
+to Mr. Ransom as Mr. Goodenough. The sight of the uncouth head of their
+youthful acquaintance of the morning peering up after him from the foot
+of the stairs was warranty sufficient that this was the man who had met
+the strange young lady on the highway early that morning.</p>
+
+<p>At sight of him Mr. Ransom felt that inner recoil which we all experience
+at the prospect of an immediate and definite termination of a long
+brooding doubt. In another instant and with one word this uncultured and
+hitherto unknown man would settle for him the greatest question of his
+life. And he did not feel prepared for it. He had an impulse almost of
+flight, as if in this way he could escape a certainty he feared. What
+certainty? Perhaps he could not have answered had he been asked. His mind
+was in a turmoil. He had feelings&mdash;instincts; that was all.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer, noting his condition, undertook the leadership of affairs.
+Beckoning Mr. Goodenough into Mr. Ransom's room, he softly closed the
+door upon the many inquiring ears about, and, assuming the manner most
+likely to encourage the unsophisticated but straightforward looking man
+with whom he had to deal, quietly observed:</p>
+
+<p>"We hear that you met this morning a young girl going towards the Ferry.
+There is great reason why we should know just how this young girl looks.
+A lady disappeared from here last night, and though, from a letter she
+left behind her, we have every reason to believe that her body is
+somewhere in the river, yet we don't want to overlook the possibility
+of her having escaped alive in another direction. Can you describe the
+person you saw?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wa'al, I'm not much good at talk," was the embarrassed, almost halting
+reply. "I saw the gal and I remember just how she looked, but I couldn't
+put it into words to save my soul. She was pretty and chipper and walked
+along as if she was part of the mornin'; but that don't tell you much,
+does it? Yet I don't know what else to say. P'raps you could help me
+by asking questions."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll see. Was she light-complexioned? Yellow hair, you know, and blue
+eyes?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I don't think she was. Not what I call light. My Sal's light; this
+gal wasn't like my Sal."</p>
+
+<p>"Dark, then, very dark, with a gipsy color and snapping black eyes?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not that either. What I should call betweens. But more dark than
+light."</p>
+
+<p>Harper flashed a glance at Ransom before putting his next question.</p>
+
+<p>"What did she have on her head?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bless me if I can tell! It wasn't a sun-bonnet, nor was it slapped all
+over with ribbons and flowers like my darter's."</p>
+
+<p>"But she had some sort of hat on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sartain. Did you think she was just running to the neighbors?"</p>
+
+<p>"But she wore no coat?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember any coat."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember her frock?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not exactly."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you remember its color?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't it black? the skirt of it, at least?"</p>
+
+<p>"Black? Wa'al, I guess not. A gal of her age in black! No, she was as
+bright as the flowers in my wife's garden. Not a black thing on her. I
+should sooner think her clothes were red than black."</p>
+
+<p>Harper showed his surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a black skirt?" he persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir'ee. I haven't much eye for fixin's but I've eye enough to know
+when a gal's dressed like a gal and not like some old woman."</p>
+
+<p>Harper's eye stole again towards Ransom.</p>
+
+<p>"Checkmate in four moves," he muttered. "The person we are interested in
+could have worn no such clothing as Mr. Goodenough describes. Yet
+clothing can be changed. How, I cannot see in this instance; but I will
+risk no mistake. The trail we followed led too surely in the direction of
+the highway for us to drop all inquiries because of a colored skirt and a
+hat we cannot quite account for. If the face is one we know (and I
+really believe it was), we can leave the other discrepancies to future
+explanation." And turning back to the patient countryman, he composedly
+remarked: "You are positive in your recollections of the young lady's
+features. You would have no difficulty in recognizing her if you saw her
+again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit. Once I get a picter in my mind of a man or a woman I see it
+always. And I can see her as plain as plain the moment I stop to think.
+She was pretty, you see, and just a little scared to speak to a stranger.
+But that went as she saw my face, and she asked me very perlite if she
+was on the right road to the Ferry."</p>
+
+<p>"And you told her she was?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sartain; and how much time she had to get there to catch the boat."</p>
+
+<p>"I see. So you would know her again if you saw her."</p>
+
+<p>"I jest would."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer made a move towards the door which Mr. Ransom hastened to
+open. As the long vista of the hall disclosed itself, Mr. Harper turned
+upon the countryman with the quiet remark:</p>
+
+<p>"There were two ladies here, you know. Twins. Their likeness was
+remarkable. If we show you the remaining one who now lies asleep, you
+surely will be able to tell if she is like the lady you saw."</p>
+
+<p>"If she looks just like her you can bet beans against potatoes on that."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, then. You needn't feel any embarrassment, for she's not only sound
+asleep but so deaf she couldn't hear you if she were awake. You need only
+take one glance and nod your head if she looks like the other. It is very
+desirable that none of us should speak. The case is a mysterious one and
+there's enough talk about it already without the women hiding and
+listening behind every shut door you see, adding their gossip to the
+rest."</p>
+
+<p>A knowing look, a twitch at the corners of a good-natured mouth, and the
+man followed them down the hall, past one or two of the doors alluded to,
+till they reached the one against the panel of which Mr. Ransom had
+already laid his ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Still asleep," his gesture seemed to signify; and with a word of caution
+he led the way in.</p>
+
+<p>The room was very dark. Mrs. Deo had been careful to draw down the shade
+when she put her strange charge to bed, and at this first moment of
+entrance it was impossible for them to see more than the outline of a
+dark head upon a snowy pillow. But gradually, feature by feature of the
+sleeping woman's countenance became visible, and the lawyer, turning his
+acute gaze on the man from whose recognition he expected so much,
+impatiently awaited the nod which was to settle their doubt.</p>
+
+<p>But that nod did not come, not even after Mr. Ransom, astonished at the
+long pause, turned on the stranger his own haggard and inquiring eyes.
+Instead, Mr. Goodenough lifted a blank stare to either face beside him,
+and, shaking his head, stumbled awkwardly back in an endeavor to leave
+the room. Mr. Ransom, taken wholly by surprise, uttered some peremptory
+ejaculation, but a glance from the lawyer quieted him, and not till they
+were all shut up again in that convenient room at the head of the stairs
+did any of the three speak.</p>
+
+<p>And not even then without an embarrassed pause. Both the lawyer and his
+unhappy client had a deep and, in the case of the latter, a heartrending
+disappointment to overcome, and the clock on the stairs ticked out
+several seconds before the lawyer ventured to remark:</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Hazen's face is quite new to you, I perceive. Evidently it was not
+her twin sister you met on the high road this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor anything like her," protested the man. "A different face entirely;
+prettier and more saucy. Such a gal as a man like me would be glad to
+call darter."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see!" assented the lawyer. Then with the instinctive caution of
+his class, "You have made no mistake?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of a one," emphasized the other. "Sorry I can't give the
+gentleman any hope, but if the sisters look alike, it was not this
+woman's twin I met. I'm ready to take my oath on that."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. One catches at straws in a stress like this. Here's a fiver
+to pay for your trouble, and another for the lad who brought you here.
+Good day. We had no sound reason for expecting any different result from
+our experiment."</p>
+
+<p>The man bowed awkwardly and went out. Mr. Harper brought down his fist
+heavily on the table, and after a short interval of silence, during which
+he studiously avoided meeting his companion's eye, he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"I am as much taken aback as yourself. For all he had to say about her
+gay clothing, I expected a different result. The girl on the highway was
+neither Mrs. Ransom nor her sister. We have made a confounded mistake and
+Mrs. Ransom&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't say it. I'm going back to the room where that woman lies sleeping.
+I cannot yet believe that my heart is not shut up within its walls. I'm
+going to watch for her eyes to open. Their expression will tell me what I
+want to know;&mdash;the look one gives before full realization comes and the
+soul is bare without any thought of subterfuge."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. I should probably do the same if I were you. Only your
+insight may be affected by prejudice. You will excuse me if I join you
+in this watch. The experiment is of too important a character for its
+results to depend upon the correct seeing of one pair of eyes."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>"LOVE!"</h3>
+
+
+<p>She lay in the abandonment of profound slumber, one hand under her cheek,
+the other hidden by the white spread Mrs. Deo had been careful to draw
+closely about her. Both Mr. Harper and Mr. Ransom regretted this fact,
+for each instinctively felt that in her hands, if not in her sleeping
+face, they should be able to read the story of her life. If that life had
+been a hard one, such as must have befallen the waif, Anitra, her hands
+should show it.</p>
+
+<p>But her hands were covered. And so, or nearly so, was her face; the
+latter by her long and curling locks of whose beauty I have hitherto
+spoken. One cheek only was visible, and this cheek looked dark to Ransom,
+decidedly darker than Georgian's; but realizing that the room itself was
+dark, he forbore to draw the attention of the lawyer to it, or even to
+allow it to affect his own judgment to the extent it reasonably called
+for.</p>
+
+<p>His first scrutiny over, Mr. Harper crossed over to his old seat against
+the wall. Mr. Ransom remained by the bed. And thus began their watch.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long and solemn one; a tedious waiting. The gloom and quiet of
+the small room was so profound that both men, for all their suspense and
+absorption in the event they awaited, welcomed the sound of a passing
+whisper or the careful stepping of feet in the corridor without.</p>
+
+<p>If they turned to look they could just catch the outline of each other's
+countenance, but this they did not often attempt. Their attention was
+held by the silent figure on the bed, and so motionless was this figure
+in the profound slumber in which it lay enchained, and so motionless were
+they in their increasing suspense and expectation, that time seemed to
+have come to a standstill in this little room. There was one break. The
+lips which had hitherto remained mute opened in a quiet murmur, and Mr.
+Harper, watching his client, saw him clutch the headboard in sudden
+emotion before he finally rose and, with looks still fixed on the bed,
+approached him with the startling announcement:</p>
+
+<p>"The word she whispered was '<i>Love</i>'! It must be Georgian."</p>
+
+<p>Alas! the same thought struck them both. Was this a proof? Mr. Ransom
+flushed hotly and crept softly back to his post.</p>
+
+<p>Again time seemed to stop. Then there came a cautious rap on the door,
+followed by the hasty retreat of the person knocking. It caused Mr.
+Ransom to stir slightly, but did not affect the lawyer. Suddenly the
+former rose with every evidence of renewed agitation. This drew Mr.
+Harper from his seat.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he cried, softly approaching the other and whispering,
+though after events proved that he might have spoken aloud with impunity.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom pointed to her temple from which her hair had just fallen
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"The veining here. I have often studied it. I recognize its every
+convolution. It is Georgian, Georgian who lies there&mdash;ah, she's stirring,
+waking! Let me go&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He dragged himself from Mr. Harper's detaining hand, bent over the bed
+and murmured softly but with the thrilling intensity of a suffering,
+hoping heart, the name which at that moment meant the whole wide world
+to him:</p>
+
+<p>"Georgian!"</p>
+
+<p>Would she greet this expression with recognition and a smile? The lawyer
+half expected her to and stepped near enough to see, but the eyes which
+had opened upon the white wall in front of her stared on, and when they
+did turn, as they did after one halting, agonizing minute, it was in
+response to some movement made by Mr. Ransom and not in reply to his
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>This sudden and unexpected overthrow of his secretly cherished hopes
+was terrible. As he saw her rise on one elbow and meet his gaze with
+one which revealed the astonishment and resentment of a wild creature
+suddenly entrapped, he felt, or so he afterwards declared, as if the
+viper which had hitherto clung cold and deathlike about his heart had
+suddenly sprung to life and stung him. It was the most uncanny moment
+of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Aghast at the effect of this upon his own mind, he reeled from the room,
+followed by the lawyer. As they passed down the hall they heard her voice
+raised to a scream in uncontrollable shame and indignation. This was
+followed by the snap of her key in the lock.</p>
+
+<p>They had made a great mistake, or so the lawyer decided when they again
+stood face to face in Mr. Ransom's room. That the latter made no
+immediate answer was no proof that he did not coincide in the other's
+opinion. Indeed it was only too evident that he did, for his first words,
+when he had controlled himself sufficiently to speak, were these:</p>
+
+<p>"I should have taken your advice. In future I will. To me she is
+henceforth Anitra, and I shall treat her as my wife's sister. Watch if
+I fail. Anitra! Anitra!" He reiterated the word as if he would fix it in
+his mind as well as accustom his lips to it. Then he wheeled about and
+faced Harper, whose eyes he doubtless felt on him. "Yet I am not so
+thoroughly convinced as to feel absolute peace here," he admitted,
+striking his breast with irrepressible passion. "My good sense tells me
+I am a fool, but my heart whispers that the sweetness in her sleeping
+face was the sweetness which won me to love Georgian Hazen. That gentle
+sweetness! Did you note it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I noted what you mention. But don't let that influence you too
+much. The wildest heart has its tender moments, and her dreams may have
+been pleasant ones."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom remembered her unconscious whisper and felt stunned, silenced.
+The lawyer gave no evidence of observing this, but remarked quite easily
+and with evident sincerity:</p>
+
+<p>"I am more readily affected by proof than you are. I am quite convinced
+myself, that our wits have been wool-gathering. There was no mistaking
+her look of outraged womanhood. It was not your wife who encountered your
+look, but the deaf Anitra. Of course, you won't believe me. Yet I advise
+you to do so. It would be too dreadful to find that this woman really is
+your wife."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"I know what I am saying. Nothing much worse could happen to you. Don't
+you see where the hypothesis to which you persist in clinging would land
+you? Should the woman in there prove to be your wife Georgian&mdash;" The
+lawyer stopped and, in a tone the seriousness of which could not fail to
+impress his agitated hearer, added quietly, "you remember what I said to
+you a short time ago about <i>guilt</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Guilt!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, the word was shame. But guilt better expresses my meaning. I repeat,
+should the woman prove to be, not the lovely but ignorant girl she
+appears, but Georgian Ransom, your wife, then upon her must fall the
+onus of Anitra's disappearance if not of her possible death. No! you must
+hear me out; the time has come for plain speaking. Your wife had her
+reasons&mdash;we do not know what they were, but they were no common ones&mdash;for
+wishing this intrusive sister out of the way. Anitra, on the contrary,
+could have desired nothing so much as the preservation of her protector.
+The conclusion is not an agreeable one. Let us hope that the question it
+involves will never be presented for any man's consideration."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom sank speechless into a chair. This last blow was an
+overwhelming one and he sank before it.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harper altered his tone. He had real commiseration for his client and
+had provided himself with an antidote to the poison he had just so
+ruthlessly administered.</p>
+
+<p>"Courage!" he cried. "I only wished you to see that there were worse
+losses to consider than that of your wife's desertion, even if that
+desertion took the form of suicide. There is a reason which you have
+forgotten for acquitting Mrs. Ransom of such criminal intentions and
+of accepting as your sister-in-law the woman who calls herself Anitra.
+Recall Mrs. Ransom's will; the general terms of which I felt myself
+justified in confiding to you. In it there are no provisions made for
+this Anitra. Had Mrs. Ransom, for any inexplicable reason, planned an
+exchange of identities with her sorely afflicted sister, she would have
+been careful to have left that sister some portion of her great fortune.
+But she did not remember her with a cent. This fact is very significant
+and should give you great comfort."</p>
+
+<p>"It should, it should, in face of the other alternative you have
+suggested as possible. But I fear that I am past comfort. In whatever
+light we regard this tragedy, it all means woe and disaster to me. I have
+made a mess of my life and I have got to face the fact like a man." Then
+rising and confronting Mr. Harper with passionate intensity, he called
+out till the room rang again:</p>
+
+<p>"Georgian is dead! You hear me, Georgian is dead!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>"I DON'T HEAR"</h3>
+
+
+<p>The afternoon passed without further developments. Mr. Harper, who had
+his own imperative engagements, left on the evening train for New York,
+promising to return the next day in case his presence seemed
+indispensable to his client.</p>
+
+<p>That client's final word to him had been an injunction to keep an eye on
+Georgian's so-called brother and to report how he had been affected by
+the news from Sitford; and when, in the lull following the lawyer's
+departure, Mr. Ransom sat down in his room to look his own position
+resolutely in the face, this brother and his possible connection with the
+confusing and unhappy incidents of this last fatal week regained that
+prominent place in his thoughts which the doubts engendered by the
+unusual character of these incidents had for a while dispelled.</p>
+
+<p>What had been the hold of this strange and uncongenial man on Georgian?
+And was his reappearance at the same time with that of a supposedly long
+deceased sister simply a coincidence so startling as to appear unreal?</p>
+
+<p>He had not seen Anitra again and did not propose to, unless the meeting
+came about in a natural way and without any show of desire on his part.
+If any suspicion had been awakened in the house by his peculiar conduct
+in the morning, he meant it to be speedily dissipated by the careful way
+in which he now held to his r&ocirc;le of despairing husband whose only
+interest in the girl left on his hands was the dutiful one of a reluctant
+brother-in-law, who doubts the kindly feelings of his strange and
+unwelcome charge.</p>
+
+<p>The landlady, with a delicacy he highly appreciated, cared for the young
+girl without making her conspicuous by any undue attention. No tidings
+had come in of any discovery in the mill-stream or in the river into
+which it ran, and there being nothing with which to feed gossip, the
+townsfolk who had gathered about the hotel porches gradually began to
+disperse, till only a few of the most persistent remained to keep up
+conversation till midnight.</p>
+
+<p>Finally these too left and the house sank into quiet, a quiet which
+remained unbroken all night; for everybody, even poor Mr. Ransom, slept.</p>
+
+<p>He was up, however, with the first beam entering his room. How could he
+tell but that news of a definite and encouraging nature awaited him? Some
+one might have come in early from town or river. All search had not been
+abandoned. There were certain persistent ones who had gone as far as
+Beardsley's. Some of these might have returned. He would hasten down and
+see. But it was only to find the office empty, and though the household
+presently awoke and the great front door was thrown open to all comers,
+no eager straggler came rushing in with the tidings he equally longed and
+dreaded to receive.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past ten the representative of the county police called on Mr.
+Ransom, but with small result. Shortly after his departure, the mail
+came in and with it the New York papers. These he read with avidity. But
+they added nothing to his knowledge. Georgian's death was accepted as
+a fact, and the peculiarities of their history since their unfortunate
+wedding-day were laid bare with but little consideration for his feelings
+or the good name of his bride. With a sorer heart than ever, he flung the
+papers from him and went out to gather strength in the open air.</p>
+
+<p>There was a corner of the veranda into which he had never ventured. It
+was likely to be a solitary one at this hour, and thither he now went.
+But a shock awaited him there. A lady was pacing its still damp boards.
+A lady who did not turn her head at his step, but whom he instantly
+recognized from her dress, and wilful but not ungraceful bearing, as her
+whom he was determined to call, nay recognize, as Anitra Hazen.</p>
+
+<p>His judgment counseled retreat, but the fascination of her presence held
+him, and in that moment of hesitation she turned towards him and flight
+became impossible.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first opportunity he had had of observing her features in
+broad daylight. The effect was a confused one. She was Georgian and she
+was not Georgian. Her skin was decidedly darker, her eyes more lustrous,
+her bearing less polished and at the same time more impassioned. She was
+not so tall or quite so elegantly proportioned;&mdash;or was it her rude
+method of dressing her hair and the awkward cut of her clothes which made
+the difference. He could not be sure. Resolved as he was to consider her
+Anitra, and excellent as his reasons were for doing so, the swelling of
+his heart as he met her eye roused again the old doubt and gave an
+unnatural tone to his voice as he advanced towards her with an impetuous
+utterance of her name:</p>
+
+<p>"Anitra!"</p>
+
+<p>She shrunk, not at the word but at his movement, which undoubtedly was
+abrupt; but immediately recovered herself and, meeting him half-way,
+cried out in the unnaturally loud tones of the very deaf:</p>
+
+<p>"They don't bring my sister back. She is drowned, drowned. But you still
+have Anitra," she exclaimed in child-like triumph. "Anitra will be good
+to you. Don't forsake the poor girl. She will go where you go and be very
+obedient and not get angry ever again."</p>
+
+<p>He felt his hair rise. Something in her look, something in her manner of
+making evident the indefinable barrier between them even while expressing
+her desire to accompany him, made such a disturbance in his brain that
+for the moment he no longer knew himself, nor her, nor the condition of
+things about him. If she saw the effect she produced, she gave no
+evidence of it. She had begun to smile and her smile transformed her. The
+wild look which was never long out of her eyes softened into a milder
+gleam, and dimples he had been accustomed to see around lips he had
+kissed and called the sweetest in the world flashed for a moment in the
+face before him with a story of love he dared not read, yet found it
+impossible to forget or see unmoved.</p>
+
+<p>"What trial is this into which my unhappy fate has plunged me!" thought
+he. "Can reason stand it? Can I see this woman daily, hourly, and not go
+mad between my doubts and my love?"</p>
+
+<p>His face had turned so stern that even she noticed it, and in a trice the
+offending dimples disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"You are angry," she pouted. "You don't want Anitra. Nod if it is so, nod
+and I will go away."</p>
+
+<p>He did not nod; he could not. She seemed to gather courage at this, and
+though she did not smile again, she gave him a happy look as she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have no home now, nor any friend since sister has gone. I don't want
+any if I can stay with you and learn things. I want to be like sister.
+She was nice and wore pretty clothes. She gave me some, but I don't know
+where they are. I don't like this dress. It's black and all bad round the
+bottom where I fell into the mud."</p>
+
+<p>She looked down at her dress. It showed, in spite of Mrs. Deo's effort at
+cleaning it, signs of her tramp through the wet lane. He looked at it
+too, but it was mechanically. He was debating in his mind a formidable
+question. Should he grasp her hand, insist that she was Georgian and
+demand her confidence and the truth? or should he follow the lawyer's
+advice and continue to accept appearances, meet her on her own ground and
+give her the answer called for by her lonely and forsaken position? He
+found after a moment's thought that he had no choice; that he could not
+do the first and must do the last.</p>
+
+<p>"You shall come with me," said he quietly. "I will see that you have
+every suitable protection and care."</p>
+
+<p>She surveyed him with the same unmoved inquiry burning in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't hear," said she.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her, his lips set, his eyes as inquiring as her own.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it," he muttered just above his breath.</p>
+
+<p>The steady stare of her eyes never faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"You loved sister, love me," she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>He fell back from her. This was not Georgian. This was the untutored girl
+about whom Georgian had written to him. Everything proved it, even her
+hands upon which his eyes now fell. Why had he not noticed them before?
+He had meant to look at them the first thing. Now that he did, he saw
+that he might have spared himself some of the miserable uncertainties of
+the last few minutes. They were small and slight like Georgian's, but
+very brown and only half cared for. That they were cared for at all
+astonished him. But she soon explained that. Seeing where his eyes were
+fixed, she cried out:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look at my hands. I know they are not real nice like sister's. But
+I'm learning. She showed me how to rub them white and cut the nails. A
+woman did it for me the first time and I've been doing it ever since, but
+they don't look like hers, for all the pretty rings she bought me. Was I
+foolish to want the rings? I always had rings when I was with the
+gipsies. They were not gold ones, but I liked them. And Mother Duda liked
+rings too and made me one once out of beads. It was on my finger when my
+sister took me home with her. That is why she brought me these. She
+didn't think the bead one was good enough. It wasn't much like hers."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom recalled the diamonds and the rich sapphires he had been
+accustomed to see on his bride's hand.</p>
+
+<p>But this did not engage him long. Some method of communication must be
+found with this girl, which could be both definite and unmistakable.
+Feeling in his pocket, he brought out pencil and a small pad. He would
+write what he had to say, and was hesitating over the words with which to
+open this communication, when he saw her hand thrust itself between his
+eyes and the pad, and heard these words uttered in a resolute tone, but
+not without a hint of sadness:</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot read. I have never been taught."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_III" id="PART_III"></a>PART III</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Money</span></h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>GOD'S FOREST, THEN MAN'S</h3>
+
+
+<p>The pencil and pad fell from Mr. Ransom's hands. He stared at the girl
+who had made this astonishing statement, and his brain whirled.</p>
+
+<p>As for her, she simply stooped and picked up the pad.</p>
+
+<p>"You feel badly about that," said she. "You want me to read. I'll learn.
+That will make me more like sister. But I know some things now. I know
+what you are thinking about. You are curious about my life, what it has
+been and what kind of a girl I am. I'll tell you. I can talk if I cannot
+hear. I heard up to two years ago. Shall I talk now? Shall I tell you
+what I told Georgian when she found me crying in the street and took me
+home to her house?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded blindly.</p>
+
+<p>With a smile as beautiful as Georgian's&mdash;for a moment he thought more
+beautiful&mdash;she drew him to a seat. She was all fire and purpose now. The
+spark of intelligence which was not always visible in her eye burned
+brightly. She would have looked lovely even to a stranger, but he was not
+thinking of her looks, only of the hopelessness of the situation, its
+difficulties and possibly its perils.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember all that has happened to me," she began, speaking very
+fast. "I never tried to remember, when I was little; I just lived, and
+ran wild in the roads and woods like the weasels and the chipmunks. The
+gipsies were good to me. I had not a cross word in years. The wife of the
+king was my friend, and all I knew I learned from her. It was not much,
+but it helped me to live in the forest and be happy, as long as I was a
+little girl. When I grew up it was different. It was the king who was
+kind then, and the woman who was fierce. I didn't like his kindness, but
+she didn't know this, for after one day when she caught him staring at me
+across the fire, she sent me off after something she wanted in a small
+town we were camping near, and when I came back with it, the band was
+gone. I tried to follow, but it was dark and I didn't know the way;
+besides I was afraid&mdash;afraid of him. So I crept back to the town and
+slept in the straw of a barn I found open. Next day I sold my earrings
+and got bread. It didn't last long and I tried to work, but that meant
+sleeping under a roof, and houses smothered me, so I did my work badly
+and was turned out. Then I sold my ring. It was my last trinket, and when
+the few cents I got for it were gone, I wandered about hungry. This I was
+used to and didn't mind at first, but at last I went to work again, and
+I did better now for a little while, till one evening I saw, through the
+stable window of the inn where I was working, two black eyes staring in
+just as they stared across the dying embers of the gipsy camp. I did not
+scream, but I hid myself, and when they were gone away stole out and
+got on the cars, and gave the man my last dollar&mdash;all the money I had
+earned&mdash;for a ride to New York. I did not know any better. I knew he
+never went to New York, and I thought I would be safe from him there. But
+of the difference between the woods and a forest of brick and stone I
+never thought; of night with no shelter but the wall of some blind alley;
+of hunger in the sight of food, and wild beasts in the shape of men. I
+didn't know where to go or who to speak to. If any one stared at me long,
+I turned and ran away. I ran away once from a policeman. He thought me a
+thief, and started to run after me. But people slipped in between us and
+I got away. What happened next I don't know. Perhaps I was thrown down,
+perhaps I fell. I had come a long way and I was tired. When I did know
+anything, I was lying on my back in a narrow street, looking up at a tall
+building that seemed to go right up into the sky like the great rocks I
+had sometimes slept under when I was with the gipsies. Only there were
+windows in the rock, out of which looked faces, and I got looking back
+at one of these faces and the face looked at me, and I liked it and got
+up on my knees and held up my arms, and the face drew back out of sight,
+and I felt very sorry and cried and almost laid down again. I seemed so
+alone and hurt and hungry. But the children&mdash;there were crowds of
+children&mdash;wouldn't let me. They got in a ring and pulled at me, and some
+one cried: 'Big cheeks is coming! Big cheeks will eat her up,' and I was
+angry and got up on my feet. But I couldn't walk; I screamed when I tried
+to, which frightened the children, and they all ran away. But I didn't
+fall; an arm was round me, a good, kind arm, and though I didn't see the
+face of the woman who helped, for she had her head wrapped up in an old
+shawl, I felt that it was the same which had looked out of the window
+at me, and went willingly enough when she began to draw me toward the
+house and up the first flight of stairs, though I could hardly help
+screaming every time my foot touched the ground. At the top of the first
+flight I stopped; I could go no further. The woman heard me pant, and
+pushing the covering from her eyes, she turned my face towards the light
+and looked at it. I thought she wanted to see if I was strong enough to
+go on, but that wasn't it at all, for in a minute I heard her say, in a
+voice so sweet I thought I had never heard the like, 'Yes, you're pretty;
+I want a pretty girl to stay with me and go about selling my things. I
+love pretty girls; I never was pretty myself. Will you stay with me if I
+take you up to my room and take care of you? I'll be good to you, little
+duckling, everybody about here will tell you that; everybody but the
+children, they don't like me.' I moaned, but it was from happiness. It
+seemed too good to hear that cooing voice in my ear. I thought of my
+mother&mdash;a dream&mdash;and my arms went up as they had in the street below. 'I
+will stay,' I said. She caught my hands and that is all I remember till I
+found myself in bed, with my ankle bound up and a gentle hand smoothing
+my hair. It was a month before I walked again. All the time this woman
+tended me, but always from behind. I did not see her face&mdash;not well&mdash;only
+by glimpses and then only partly, for the shawl was always over her head,
+covering everything but her eyes and mouth. These were small, the
+smallest I ever saw, little pig eyes, and little screwed up mouth; but
+the look of them was kindly and that was all I cared about then; that and
+her talk, which made me cry one minute and laugh the next. I have never
+cried so much or laughed so much in my life as I did that one month. She
+told such sad things and she told such funny ones. She made me glad to
+see her come in and sorry to see her go out. She let no one else come
+near me. I did not care; I liked her too well. I was never tired of
+listening to her praises and she praised me a great deal. I even did not
+mind sleeping under a roof as much as I had before, perhaps because we
+were so near it; perhaps because the room was so full of all sorts of
+things, I never got tired of looking at them. Pretty things she called
+them, but when I saw more things, things outside in shop windows and the
+houses I afterwards went into, I knew they were very cheap things and not
+always pretty. But she thought they were, and used to talk about them by
+the hour and tell me stories she had made up about the pictures she had
+cut out of newspapers. And I learned something; I could not help it, and
+even began to think a bit&mdash;something I had never done before. But when I
+got on my feet again, and was given the choice of staying there all the
+time, I did not know at first whether I wanted to or not. For Mother Duda
+had been very honest with me, and the minute she found that I could walk
+again had told me that I would have to have great patience if I lived
+with her, and endure a very disagreeable sight. Then she pulled off her
+shawl and I saw her as she was and almost screamed, she looked so horrid
+to me, but I didn't quite, for her eyes wouldn't let me. They seemed to
+ask me not to care, but to love her a little though she was a fright to
+look at, and I tried but I couldn't, I could only keep from screaming.</p>
+
+<p>"She had a goitre; that is what she called it, and the great pocket of
+flesh hanging down on either side of her neck frightened me. It
+frightened everybody; she was used to that, but she said she loved me and
+felt my fear more than she did others. Could I bear to live with her,
+knowing what her shawl hid? If I could she would be good to me, but if I
+couldn't she would do what she could to get me honest work in some other
+place. I didn't answer at first, but I did before she had put her shawl
+on again. I told her that I would forget everything but her good smile,
+and stay with her a little while. I stayed three years, helping her by
+going about and selling the tatting work she made.</p>
+
+<p>"She could make beautiful patterns and so neat, but she couldn't sell
+them, on account of her awful appearance. So I was very useful to her,
+and felt I was earning my meat and drink and the kind looks and words
+which made them taste good. It taught me a lot, going around. I saw
+people and how they lived and what was nice and what wasn't. I was only
+sorry that Mother Duda couldn't go too. She loved pretty things so. But
+she never went out except at a very early hour in the morning, so early
+that it was still dark. It seemed a terrible hour to me, but she always
+came in with a smile, and when one day I asked her why, she said, because
+she saw so many other poor creatures out at this same hour, who were
+worse to look at than she was. This didn't seem possible to me, and once
+I went out with her to see. But I never went again. Such faces as we met;
+such deformity&mdash;men who never showed themselves by day&mdash;women who loved
+beauty and were hideous. We saw them on street corners&mdash;coming up cellar
+steps, slinking in and out of blind alleys&mdash;never where it was light&mdash;and
+they shrank from each other, but not from the policeman. They were not
+afraid of his eye; they were used to him and he to them. After I had
+passed a dozen such miserable creatures, I felt myself one of them and
+never wanted to go out at this hour again.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you believe this part of my story," she suddenly asked, looking up
+into Mr. Ransom's troubled face? "Ask the policeman who tramps about
+those streets every night; he'll tell you."</p>
+
+<p>The question on Ransom's lips died. What use of asking what she could not
+hear.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I knew what you were thinking," she now murmured softly, so
+softly that he hardly caught the words. "But I never shall, I never
+shall. I will tell you now how I became deaf," she promised after a
+moment of wistful gazing. "Is there any one near? Can anybody hear me?"
+she continued, with a suspicious look about her.</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. It was the first movement he had made since she began
+her story.</p>
+
+<p>This apparently reassured her, for she proceeded at once to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Mother Duda had never told me anything about herself. It scared me then
+when one morning I found sitting at the breakfast table a man who she
+said was her son. He was big and pale looking, and had a slight swelling
+on one side of his neck which made me sick; but I tried to be polite,
+though I did not like him at all and had a sudden feeling of having no
+home any more. That was the first day. The next two were worse. For he
+didn't hate me as I did him, and wouldn't leave the house while I was
+there, saying he could not bear to be away from his mother. But he
+skipped out quick enough after I was gone, so the neighbors said, and
+sometimes I think he followed me. Mother Duda wasn't like her old self at
+all. She loved him, he was her son, but she didn't like all he did. She
+wanted him to work; he wouldn't work. He sat and stared at me as the
+gipsy king used to stare, and if I grew red and hot it was from shame and
+fear and horror of the great throat I saw growing from day to day, and
+which would some time be like his mother's. He knew I didn't like him,
+but he wasn't good like Mother Duda, and told me one day that he was
+going to make me his wife, whether I wanted him to or not, and talked
+about a great secret, and the big man he would be some day. This made me
+angry, and I said that all the bigness he would ever have would be in his
+neck. At which he struck me, right across the ear, hard, so hard that I
+fell on the floor with a scream, and Mother Duda came running. He was
+sorry then and threw down the thing he had in his hand; but the harm had
+been done and I was sick a month and had doctors and awful pain, and when
+I was well again I couldn't hear a sound with that ear. Hans wasn't there
+while I was ill; I shouldn't have got well if he had been; but he came
+back when I was up again and was very meek though he didn't stop looking
+at me. I thought I would run away one day, and went out without my
+basket, but after I had tried two whole days to get work and couldn't, I
+went back. Mother Duda almost squeezed the heart out of me for joy, and
+Hans went down on his knees and promised not to do or say anything more
+that I didn't like. He even promised to go to work, but his work was of a
+queer kind. It kept him in his little room and meant spending money, and
+not getting it. Men came to see him and were locked up with him in his
+little room. And if he went out, he locked the door and took the key
+away, and said great times were coming and that I would be glad to marry
+him some day, whether his neck was big or small. But I knew I shouldn't
+and kept very close to Mother Duda and begged her to get me a new home,
+and she promised and I was feeling happier, when one day Hans was called
+out by a man and went away so fast that he forgot to lock his door, and
+Mother Duda and I went into the room, and it was then that the thing
+happened which spoiled all my life. I don't understand it. I never did,
+for no one could tell me anything after that day. Mother Duda had gone
+up to a table and was moving things about, trying to see what they were,
+when everything turned black, the room shook, and I was whirling all
+about, trying to take hold of things which seemed to be falling about me,
+till I too fell. When I knew anything, there was lots of people looking
+at me; people of the house, men, women, and children, but what was
+strangest of all was the awful stillness. No one made any sound&mdash;nothing
+made any sound, though I saw an old book-shelf tumble down from the wall
+while I was looking, and people moved about and opened their lips and
+seemed to be talking. Had Hans struck me again? I began to think so, and
+got up from the floor where I was lying and tried to call out, but my
+voice made no noise though people looked around as if it had, and I felt
+an awful fright, not only for myself but for Mother Duda, who was being
+carried out of the door by two men, and who did not move at all and who
+never moved again. Poor Mother Duda, she was killed and I was deaf. I
+knew it after a little while, but I don't know what did it; something
+that Hans had; something that Mother Duda touched&mdash;a square something&mdash;I
+had just caught a glimpse of it in Mother Duda's hand when the room flew
+into a wreck and I became what I am now."</p>
+
+<p>"Dynamite," murmured Ransom; then paused and had a small struggle with
+his heart, for she was looking up into his face, demanding sympathy with
+Georgian's eyes; and being close together on the short seat, he could not
+help but feel her shudders and share the intense excitement which choked
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she cried, as he laid his hand a moment on her arm and then took it
+away again, "one minute to hear! the next to find the world all still,
+always still,&mdash;a poor girl&mdash;not knowing how to read or write! But you
+cannot care about that; you cannot care about me. It's sister you want
+to hear about, how she came to find me; how we came here for new and
+terrible things to happen; always for new and terrible things to happen
+which I don't understand.</p>
+
+<p>"Hans never came back. All sorts of policemen came into the house,
+doctors came, priests came, but no Hans. Mother Duda was buried, I rode
+in a coach at the funeral, but still no Hans. The old life was over, and
+when the food was all gone from the shelves, I took my little basket and
+went out, not meaning to come back again. And I did not. I sold my basket
+out; got a handful of pennies and went to the market to get something to
+eat. Then I went into a park, where there were benches, and sat down to
+rest. I did not know of any place to go to and began to cry, when a lady
+stopped before me, and I looked up and saw myself.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I was dreaming or had the fever again, as when I was sick with
+my ear, and I thought it was myself as I would look in heaven, for she
+had such beautiful clothes on and looked so happy. But when she talked, I
+could see her lips move and I couldn't hear; and I knew that I was just
+in the park with my empty basket and my onion and bread, and that the
+lady was a lady and no one I knew, only so like what I had seen of myself
+in the glass that I was shaking all over, and she was shaking all over,
+and neither of us could look away. And still her lips moved, and seeing
+her at last look frightened and angry that I didn't answer, I spoke and
+said that I was deaf; that I was very sorry that I couldn't hear because
+we looked so much alike, though she was a great lady and I was a very,
+very poor girl who hadn't any home or any friends, or anything to wear or
+eat but what she saw. At this her eyes grew bigger even than before, and
+she tried to talk some more, and when I shook my head she took hold of my
+arm and began drawing me away, and I went and we got on the cars, and she
+took me to a house and into a room where she took away my basket and put
+me in a chair, and took off first her hat, then my own, and showed me the
+two heads in a glass, and then looked at me so hard that I cried out,
+'Sister,' which made her jump up and put her hand on her heart, then look
+at me again harder and harder, till I remembered way back in my life, and
+I said:</p>
+
+<p>"'When I was a little girl I had a sister they called my twin. That was
+before I lived in the woods with the gipsies. Are you that sister grown
+up? The place where we played together had a tall fence with points at
+the top. There were flowers and there were bushes with currants on them
+all round the fence.'</p>
+
+<p>"She made a sudden move, and I felt her arms about my neck. I think she
+cried a little. I didn't, I was too glad. I knew she was that sister the
+moment our faces touched, and I knew she would care for me, and that I
+needn't go back into the streets any more. So I kissed her and talked a
+good deal and told her what I've been telling, and she tried to answer,
+tried as you did to write, but all I could understand was that she meant
+to keep me, but not in the place where we were, and that I was to go out
+again. But she fixed me up a little before we went out, and she bought
+me some things, so that I looked different. Then we went into another
+house, where she talked with a woman for a long time, and then sat down
+with me and moved her lips very patiently, motioning me to watch and try
+to understand. But I was frightened and couldn't. So she gave up and,
+kissing me, made motions with her hands which I understood better; she
+wanted me to stay there while she went away, and I promised to if she
+would come back soon. At this she took out her watch. I was pleased with
+the watch, and she let me look at it, and inside against the cover I saw
+a picture. You know whose it was."</p>
+
+<p>The depths to which her voice sank, the trembling of her tones, startled
+Ransom. Had she been less unfortunate, he would have moved to a different
+seat, but he could not show her a discourtesy after so pitiful a tale.
+But the nod he gave her was a grave one, and her cheek flushed and her
+head fell, as she softly added: "It was the first time I ever saw a face
+I liked&mdash;you won't mind my saying so,&mdash;and I wanted to keep the watch,
+but sister carried it away. She didn't tell me what it meant, her having
+your picture where she could see it all the time, but when she came again
+she made me know that you and she were married, by pointing at the
+picture and then throwing something white over her head; I didn't ask for
+the watch after that, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A far-away look, a trembling of her whole body, finished this ingenuous
+confession. Ransom edged himself away and then was sorry for it, for her
+lip quivered and her hands, from being quiet, began that nervous
+interlacing of the fingers which bespeaks mental perturbation.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very ignorant," she faltered; "perhaps I have said something wrong.
+I don't mean to, I want to be a good girl and please you, so that you
+won't send me away now sister is gone. Ah, I know what you want," she
+suddenly broke out, as he seized her by the arm and looked inquiringly at
+her. "You want me to tell why I jumped out of the carriage that night and
+vexed Georgian and was naughty and wouldn't speak to her. I can't, I
+can't. You wouldn't like it if I did. But I'm sorry now, and will never
+vex you, but do just what you want me to. Shall I go up-stairs now?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. How could he let her go with so much unsaid? She had
+talked frankly till she had reached the very place where his greatest
+interest lay. Then she had suddenly shown shyness of her subject and
+leaped the gap, as it were, to the present moment. How recall her to the
+hour when she had seen Georgian for the second time? How urge her into a
+description of those days succeeding his wife's flight from the hotel, of
+which he had no account, save the feverish lines of the letter she had
+sent him. He was racking his brain for some method of communicating his
+wishes to Anitra, when he heard steps behind him, and, turning, saw the
+clerk approaching him with a telegram.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at her slyly as he took it. Somehow he couldn't get used to
+her deafness, and expected her to give some evidence of surprise or
+curiosity. But she was still studying her hands, and as his eyes lingered
+on her downcast face he saw a tear well from her lids and wet the cheek
+she held partly turned from him. He wanted to kiss that tear, but
+refrained and opened his telegram instead. It was from Mr. Harper, and
+ran thus:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Expect a visitor. The man we know has left the St. Denis.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>IN MRS. DEO'S ROOM</h3>
+
+
+<p>A prey to fresh agitation, he stepped back to Anitra's side. Surely she
+must understand that it was Georgian and not herself about whom he was
+most anxious to hear. But she did not seem to. The smile with which she
+greeted him suggested nothing of the past. It spoke only of the future.</p>
+
+<p>"I will learn to be like sister," she impulsively cried out, rising and
+beaming brightly upon him. "I will forget the old gipsy ways and Mother
+Duda's ways, and try to be nice and pretty like my sister. And you shall
+learn me to read and write. I've known deaf people who learned. Then I
+shall know what you think; now I only know how you feel."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head, a little sadly, perhaps. There were people who could
+teach her these arts, but not he. He had neither the ability, the
+courage, nor the patience.</p>
+
+<p>"Then some one shall learn me," she loudly insisted, her cheek flushing
+and her eye showing an angry spark. "I will not be ignorant always; I
+will not, I will not." And turning, she fled from his side, and he was
+left to think over her story and ask himself for the hundredth time what
+it all meant, what his own sensations meant, and what would be the
+outcome of conditions so complicated.</p>
+
+<p>The possibly speedy appearance on the scene of Georgian's so-called
+brother did not detract from his difficulty. He felt helpless without
+the support of Mr. Harper's presence, and spent a very troubled forenoon
+listening to the mingled condolences and advice of people who had no
+interest in his concerns save such as sprang from curiosity and a morbid
+craving for excitement.</p>
+
+<p>At two o'clock occurred the event of which he had been forewarned. A
+carriage drove up to the hotel and from it stepped two travelers; one
+of them a stranger, the other the man with the twisted jaw. Mr. Ransom
+advanced to meet the latter. He was anxious to listen to his first
+inquiries and, if possible, be the person to answer them.</p>
+
+<p>He was successful in this. Mr. Hazen no sooner saw him than he accosted
+him without ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>"What is this I hear and read about Georgian and her so-called twin?" he
+cried. "Nothing that I can believe, I want you to know. Georgian may have
+drowned herself. That is credible enough. But that the girl we read about
+in the papers and whom she evidently induced to come to this place with
+her should be the dead girl we called Anitra&mdash;why, that is all bosh&mdash;a
+tale to deceive the public, and possibly you, but not one to deceive me.
+The coincidence is much too improbable."</p>
+
+<p>"'There are stranger things in heaven and earth'"&mdash;quoted Ransom; but
+Hazen was already in conversation with the group of hotel idlers who had
+crowded up at sound of his loud voice.</p>
+
+<p>After a careful look which had taken in all of their faces, he had
+approached one young fellow, covering the lower part of his face as he
+did so.</p>
+
+<p>"Halloo! Yates," he called out. "Don't you remember the day we tied two
+chickens together, leg to leg, and sent them tumbling down the hill back
+of old Wylie's barn?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alf Hazen!" shouted the fellow, thus accosted. "Why, I thought you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dead, eh? Of course you did. So did everybody else. But I've come to
+life, you see. With sad marks of battle on me," he continued, dropping
+his hand. "You all recognize me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," rose in one acclaim from a dozen or more throats after a
+moment of awkward uncertainty.</p>
+
+<p>"I know the eyes," vigorously asserted one.</p>
+
+<p>"And the voice," chimed in another. After which rose a confused babel of
+ejaculations and exclamatory questions, among which one could detect:</p>
+
+<p>"How did it happen, Alf?" "What took off your jaw?" and other equally
+felicitous expressions.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you all about that later," he replied, after silence had in a
+measure been restored. "What I want to say now is this. Is it believable
+that simultaneously with my own return from the grave another member of
+my family should reappear before you from an older and much more certain
+burying? I tell you no. The riddle is one which calls for quite another
+solution and I have come to assist you in finding it."</p>
+
+<p>Here he cast a sinister glance at Ransom.</p>
+
+<p>The latter met the implied accusation with singular calmness.</p>
+
+<p>"Any assistance will be welcome," said he, "which will enable us to solve
+this very serious problem." Then, as Hazen's lip curled, he added with
+dignified candor, "I scorn to retort by throwing any doubt on your
+assertion of relationship to my lost wife, or the possibility of these
+good people being misled by your confident bearing and a possible
+likeness about the eyes to the boy they knew. But one question I will
+hazard, and that before we have gone a step further. Why does it seem so
+credible to you that Georgian, a much loved and loving woman, should have
+leaped to a watery death within a week of her marriage? You have just
+stated that you found no difficulty in that. Does not that statement call
+for some explanation? All your old friends here must see that this is my
+due as well as hers."</p>
+
+<p>For an instant the man hesitated, but in that instant his hand slipped
+from his mouth over which he had again laid it, and his whole face, with
+its changed lines and the threatening, almost cruel expression which
+these gave it, appeared in all its combined eagerness and force. A murmur
+escaped the watchful group about him, but this affected him little. His
+eyes, which he had fixed on Ransom, sharpened a trifle, perhaps, and his
+tone grew a thought more sarcastic as he finally retorted:</p>
+
+<p>"I will explain myself to you but not to this crowd. And not to you till
+I am sure of the facts which as yet have reached me only through the
+newspapers. Let me hear a full account of what has transpired here since
+you all came to town. I have an enormous interest in the matter;&mdash;a
+family interest, as you are well aware for all your badly hidden
+insinuations."</p>
+
+<p>"Follow me," was the quiet reply. "There is a room on this very floor
+where we can talk undisturbed."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hazen cast a quick glance behind him at the man who had driven up
+with him and whom nobody had noticed till now. Then without a word he
+separated himself from the chattering group encircling him and stepped
+after Mr. Ransom into the small room where the latter had held his first
+memorable conversation with the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said he as the door swung to behind them, "plain language and not
+too much of it. I have no time to waste, but the truth about Georgian I
+must know."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom settled himself. He felt bound to comply with the other's request,
+but he wished to make sure of not saying too much, or too little. Hazen's
+attack had startled him. It revealed one of two things. Either this man
+of mystery had assumed the offensive to hide his own connection with this
+tragedy, or his antagonism was an honest one, springing from an utter
+disbelief in the circumstances reported to him by the press and such
+gossips as he had encountered on his way to Sitford.</p>
+
+<p>With the first possibility he felt himself unable to cope without the aid
+of Mr. Harper; the second might be met with candor. Should he then be
+candid with this doubter, relate to him the facts as they had unrolled
+themselves before his own eyes;&mdash;secret facts&mdash;convincing ones&mdash;facts
+which must prove to him that whether Georgian did or did not lie at the
+bottom of the mill-stream, the woman now in the house was his sister
+Anitra, lost to him and the rest of the family for many years, but now
+found again and restored to her position as a Hazen and Georgian's twin.
+The discovery might not prove welcome. It would have a tendency to throw
+Mr. Hazen's own claim into the disrepute he would cast on hers. But this
+consideration could have no weight with Mr. Ransom. He decided upon
+candor at all costs. It suited his nature best, and it also suited the
+strange and doubtful situation. Mr. Harper might have concluded
+differently, but Mr. Harper was not there to give advice; and the matter
+would not wait. Little as he understood this Hazen, he recognized that he
+was not a man to trifle with. Something would have to be said or done.</p>
+
+<p>Meeting the latter's eye frankly, he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"I have no wish to keep anything back from you. I am as much struck
+as you are by the mystery of this whole occurrence. I was as hard to
+convince. This is my story. It involves all that is known here with the
+exception of such facts as have been kept from us by the three parties
+directly concerned&mdash;of which three I consider you one."</p>
+
+<p>As the last four words fell from his lips he looked for some change,
+slight and hardly perceptible perhaps, in the other's expression. But he
+was doomed to disappointment. The steady regard held, nothing moved about
+the man, not even the hand into which the poor disfigured chin had
+fallen. Ransom suppressed a sigh. His task was likely to prove a blind
+one. He had a sense of stumbling in the dark, but the gaze he had hoped
+to see falter compelled him to proceed, and he told his story without
+subterfuge or suppression.</p>
+
+<p>One thing, and only one thing, caused a movement in the set figure before
+him. When he mentioned the will which Georgian had made a few hours prior
+to her disappearance, Hazen's hand slipped aside from the wound it had
+sought to cover, and Ransom caught sight of the sudden throb which
+deepened its hue. It was the one infallible sign that the man was not
+wholly without feeling, and it had sprung to life at an intimation
+involving <i>money</i>.</p>
+
+<p>When his tale was quite finished, he rose. So did Hazen.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us see this girl," suggested the latter.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first word he had spoken since Ransom began his story.</p>
+
+<p>"She is up-stairs. I will go see&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, <i>we</i> will go see. I particularly desire to take her unawares."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom offered no objection. Perhaps he felt interested in the experiment
+himself. Together they left the room, together they went up-stairs. A
+turmoil of questions followed them from the throng of men and boys
+gathered in the halls, but they returned no answer and curiosity remained
+unsatisfied.</p>
+
+<p>Once in the hall above, Ransom stopped a moment to deliberate. He could
+not enter Anitra's room unannounced, and he could not make her hear by
+knocking. He must find the landlady.</p>
+
+<p>He knew Mrs. Deo's room. He had had more than one occasion to visit it
+during the last two days. With a word of explanation to Hazen, he passed
+down the hall and tapped on the last door at the extreme left. No one
+answered, but the door standing ajar, he pushed it quietly open, being
+anxious to make sure that Mrs. Deo was not there.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment he was beckoning to Hazen.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" said he, holding the door open with one hand and pointing with
+the other to a young girl sitting on a low stool by the window, mending,
+or trying to mend, a rent in her skirt.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's Georgian!" exclaimed Hazen, and hastily entering he
+approached the anxious figure laboriously pushing her needle in and out
+of the torn goods, and pricking herself more than once in the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>"Georgian!" he cried again and yet more emphatically, as he stepped up in
+front of her.</p>
+
+<p>The young girl failed to notice. Awkwardly drawing her thread out to its
+extreme length, she prepared to insert her needle again, when her eye
+caught sight of his figure bending over her, and she looked up quietly
+and with an air of displeasure, which pleased Ransom,&mdash;he could hardly
+tell why. This was before her eyes reached his face; when they had, it
+was touching to see how she tried to hide the shock caused by its
+deformity, as she said with a slight gesture of dismissal:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm quite deaf. I cannot hear what you say. If it is the landlady you
+want, she has gone down-stairs for a minute; perhaps, to the kitchen."</p>
+
+<p>He did not retreat, if anything he approached nearer, and Ransom was
+surprised to observe the force and persuasive power of his expression
+as he repeated:</p>
+
+<p>"No nonsense, Georgian," opening and shutting his hands as he spoke, in
+curious gesticulations which her eye mechanically followed but which
+seemed to convey no meaning to her, though he evidently expected them to
+and looked surprised (Ransom almost thought baffled) when she shook her
+head and in a sweet, impassive way reiterated:</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot hear and I do not understand the deaf and dumb alphabet. I'm
+sorry, but you'll have to go to some one else. I'm very unfortunate. I
+have to mend this dress and I don't know how."</p>
+
+<p>Hazen, who could hardly tear his eyes from her face, fell slowly back as
+she painfully and conscientiously returned to her task. "Good God!" he
+murmured, as his eye sought Ransom's. "What a likeness!" Then he looked
+again at the girl, at the wave of her raven black hair breaking into
+little curls just above her ear; at the smooth forehead rendered so
+distinguished by the fine penciling of her arching brows; at the delicate
+nose with nostrils all alive to the beating of an over-anxious heart; at
+the mouth, touching in its melancholy so far beyond her years; and lastly
+at the strong young figure huddled on the little stool; and bending
+forward again, he uttered two or three quick sentences which Ransom could
+not catch.</p>
+
+<p>His persistence, or the near approach of his face to hers, angered her.
+Rising quickly to her feet, she vehemently cried out:</p>
+
+<p>"Go away from here. It is not right to keep on talking to a deaf girl
+after she has told you she cannot hear you." Then catching sight of
+Ransom, who had advanced a step in his sympathy for her, she gave a
+little sigh of relief and added querulously:</p>
+
+<p>"Make this man go away. This is the landlady's room. I don't like to have
+strangers talk to me. Besides&mdash;" here her voice fell, but not so low as
+to be inaudible to the subject of her remark, "he's not pretty. I've seen
+enough of men and women who are&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At this point Ransom drew Hazen out into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think now?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Hazen did not reply. The room they had just left seemed to possess a
+strange fascination for him. He continued to look back at it as he
+preceded Ransom down the hall. Ransom did not press his questions, but
+when they were on the point of separating at the head of the stairs, he
+held Hazen back with the words:</p>
+
+<p>"Let us come to some understanding. Neither of us can desire to waste
+strength in wrong conclusions. Can that woman be other than your own
+sister?"</p>
+
+<p>"No." The denial was absolute. "She is my sister."</p>
+
+<p>"Anitra?" emphasized Ransom.</p>
+
+<p>The smile which he received in reply was strangely mirthless.</p>
+
+<p>"I never rush to conclusions," was Hazen's remark after a moment of
+possibly mutual heart-beat and unsettling suspense. "Ask me that same
+question to-morrow. Perhaps by then I shall be able to answer you."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>BETWEEN THE ELDERBERRY BUSHES</h3>
+
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>The word came from Ransom. He had reached the end of his patience and was
+determined to have it out with this man on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>"Come into my room," said he. "If you doubt her, you doubt me; and in the
+present stress of my affairs this demands an immediate explanation."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no time to enter your room, and I cannot linger here any longer
+talking on a subject which at the present moment is not clear to either
+of us," was the resolute if not quite affable reply. "Later, when my
+conclusions are made, I will see you again. Now I am going to eat and
+refresh myself. Don't follow me; it will do you no good."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to descend. Ransom had an impulse to seize him by his twisted
+throat and drag from him the secret which his impassive features refused
+to give up. But Ransom was no fool and, stepping back out of the way of
+temptation, he allowed him to escape without further parley.</p>
+
+<p>Then he went to his room. But, after an hour or two spent with his own
+thoughts, his restlessness became so great that he sought the gossips
+below for relief. He found them all clustered about Hazen, who was
+reeling off stories by the mile. This was unendurable to him and he was
+striding off, when Hazen burst away from his listeners and, joining
+Ransom, whispered in his ear:</p>
+
+<p>"I saw her go by the window just now on her way up-street. What can she
+find there to interest her? Where is she going?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. She doesn't consult me as to her movements. Probably she
+has gone for a walk. She looks as if she needs it."</p>
+
+<p>"So do you," was the unexpected retort given by Hazen, as he stepped back
+to rejoin his associates.</p>
+
+<p>Ransom paused, watching him askance in doubt of the suggestion, in doubt
+of the man, in doubt of himself. Then he yielded to an impulse stronger
+than any doubt and slipped out into the highway, where he turned, as she
+had turned, up-street.</p>
+
+<p>But not without a struggle. He hated himself for his puppet-like
+acceptance of the hint given him by a man he both distrusted and
+disliked. He felt his dignity impaired and his self-confidence shaken,
+yet he went on, following the high road eagerly and watching with wary
+eye for the first glimpse of the slight figure which was beginning to
+make every scene alive to him.</p>
+
+<p>It had rained heavily and persistently the last time he came this way,
+but to-day the sun was shining with a full radiance, and the trees
+stretching away on either side of the road were green with the tender
+tracery of early leafage; a joy-compelling sight which may have accounted
+for the elasticity of his step as he ascended one small hill after
+another in the wake of a fluttering skirt.</p>
+
+<p>It was the cemetery road, and odd as the fancy was, he felt that he
+should overtake her at the old gate, behind which lay so many of her
+name. Here he had seen her name before its erasement from the family
+monument, and here he should see&mdash;could he say Anitra if he found her
+bending over those graves; the woman who could not hear, who could not
+read,&mdash;whose childish memory, if she had any in connection with this
+spot, could not be distinct enough or sufficiently intelligent to guide
+her to this one plot? No. Human credulity can go far, but not so far as
+that. He knew that all his old doubts would return if, on entering the
+cemetery, he found her under the brown shaft carved with the name of
+Hazen.</p>
+
+<p>The test was one he had not sought and did not welcome. Yet he felt
+bound, now that he recognized it as such, to see it through and accept
+its teaching for what it surely would be worth. Only he began to move
+with more precaution and studied more to hide his approach than to give
+any warning of it.</p>
+
+<p>The close ranks of the elderberry bushes lining the fences on the final
+hill-top lent themselves to the concealment he now sought. As soon as he
+was sure of her having left the road he drew up close to these bushes and
+walked under them till he was almost at the gate. Then he allowed himself
+to peer through their close branches and received an unexpected shock at
+seeing her figure standing very near him, posed in an uncertainty which,
+for some reason, he had not expected, but which restored him to himself,
+though why he had not the courage, the time, nor the inclination to ask.</p>
+
+<p>She was babbling in a low tone to herself, an open sesame to her mind,
+which Ransom hailed with a sense of awe. If only he might distinguish the
+words! But this was difficult; not only was her head turned partly away,
+but she spoke in a murmur which was far from distinct. Yet&mdash;yes, that one
+sentence was plain enough. She had muttered musingly, anxiously, and with
+a searching look among the graves:</p>
+
+<p>"It was on this side. I know it was on this side."</p>
+
+<p>Watching her closely lest some chance glance of hers should stray his
+way, he listened still more intently and was presently rewarded by
+catching another sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"A single grave all by itself. I fell over it and my mother scolded me,
+saying it was my father's. There was a bush near it. A bush with white
+flowers on it. I tried to pick some."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom's heart was growing lighter and lighter. She did not even know
+that there had been placed over that grave a monument with her name on it
+and that of the mother who had scolded her for tripping over her father's
+sod. Only Anitra could be so ignorant or expect to find a grave by means
+of a bush blooming with flowers fifteen years ago. As she went wandering
+on, peering to right and left, he thought of Hazen and his doubts, and
+wished that he were here beside him to mark her perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>When quite satisfied that she would never find what she sought without
+help, Ransom stepped from his hiding-place and joined her among the
+grassy hillocks. The start of pleasure she gave and her almost childish
+look of relief warmed his heart, and it was with a smile he waited for
+her to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"My father's grave!" she explained. "I was looking for my father's grave.
+I remember my mother taking me to it when I was little. There was a bush
+close by it&mdash;oh! I see what you think. The bush would be big now&mdash;I
+forgot that. And something else! You are thinking of something else. Oh,
+I know, I know. He wouldn't be lying alone any more. My mother must have
+died, or sister would have taken me to her. There ought to be two
+graves."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, and taking her by the hand led her to the family monument. She
+gazed at it for a moment, amazed, then laid her finger on one of the
+inscriptions.</p>
+
+<p>"My father's name?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>She hung her head thoughtfully for a moment, then slipping to the other
+side of the stone laid her hand on another.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother's?"</p>
+
+<p>Again he signified yes.</p>
+
+<p>"And this? Is this sister's name? No, she's not buried yet. I had a
+brother. Is it his?"</p>
+
+<p>Ransom bowed. How tell her that it was a false inscription and that the
+man whose death it commemorated was not only alive but had only a little
+while before spoken to her.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't like my brother. He was cruel and liked to hurt people. I'm
+glad he's dead."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom drew her away. Her frankness was that of a child, but it produced
+an uncomfortable feeling. He didn't like this brother either, and in this
+thoughtless estimate of hers he seemed to read a warning to which his own
+nature intuitively responded.</p>
+
+<p>"Come!" he motioned, leading the way out.</p>
+
+<p>She followed with a smile, and together they entered the highway. As they
+did so, Ransom caught sight of a man speeding down the hill before them
+on a bicycle. He had not come front the upper road, or they would have
+seen him as he flew past the gateway. Where had he come from, then? From
+the peep-hole where Ransom himself had stood a few minutes before. No
+other conclusion was possible, and Ransom felt both angry and anxious
+till he could find out who the man was. This he did not succeed in doing
+till he reached the hotel. There a bicycle leaning against a tree gave
+point to his questions, and he learned that it belonged to a clerk in one
+of the small stores near by, but that the man who had just ridden it up
+and down the road on a trial of speed was the stranger who had just come
+to town with Mr. Hazen.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>ON THE CARS</h3>
+
+
+<p>This episode, which to Ransom's mind would bear but one interpretation,
+gave him ample food for thought. He decided to be more circumspect in the
+future and to keep an eye out for inquisitive strangers. Not that he had
+any thing to conceal, but no man enjoys having his proceedings watched,
+especially where a woman is concerned.</p>
+
+<p>That Hazen was antagonistic to him he had always known; but that he was
+regarded by him with suspicion he had not realized till now. Hazen
+suspicious of <i>him</i>! that meant what? He wished that he had Mr. Harper
+at his side to enlighten him.</p>
+
+<p>It was now five o'clock and he was sitting in his room awaiting the usual
+report from the river, when a quick tap at his door was followed by the
+entrance of the very man he was thinking about. He rose eagerly to
+receive him, determined, however, to allow no inconsiderate impulse to
+drive him into unnecessary speech.</p>
+
+<p>"I have already said too much," he reminded himself in self-directed
+monition. "It's time he did some of the talking."</p>
+
+<p>Hazen seemed willing enough to do this. Taking the seat proffered him, he
+opened the conversation as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ransom, I have been doing you an injustice. I do not consider it
+necessary to tell you just how I have found this out, but I am now
+convinced that you are as much in the dark as myself in regard to this
+unfortunate affair, and are as willing as I am to take all justifiable
+means to enlighten yourself. I own that at first I thought it more than
+probable you were in collusion with the girl here to deceive me. That I
+wouldn't stand. I'm glad to find you as truly a victim of this mystery as
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom straightened himself.</p>
+
+<p>"If this is an apology," he returned, "I am willing to accept it in the
+spirit in which it is proffered. But I should like something more than
+apology from you. Candor for candor;&mdash;your whole story in return for
+mine."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it would be a trifle tedious,&mdash;my whole story," smiled Hazen.
+"If you mean such part of it as concerns Georgian's peculiar actions and
+the complications with which we are at this moment struggling, I can only
+repeat what I have already told you, both at the St. Denis in New York
+and here. I am Georgian's returned brother, saved from the jaws of hell
+to see my own country again. I arrived in New York on the tenth.
+Naturally, after securing a room at the hotel, I took up the papers. They
+were full of the approaching marriage of Miss Hazen. I recognized my
+sister's name, though not her splendor, for we were the sole survivors of
+a poor country family and I knew nothing of the legacy I am now told she
+received. Anxious to see her, I attended the ceremony. She recognized me.
+I had not expected this, and feeling old affections revive, I followed
+her friends to the house and was presented to them and to you. What
+I whispered to her on this occasion were my assumed name and the place
+where I was to be found. My changed countenance called for explanations,
+for which a bridal reception offered no opportunity. Besides, as I have
+already said, I stood in sore need of a definite amount of money. I meant
+her to come and see me, but I did not expect her to play a trick on you
+in order to do so. This had its birth in the to me unaccountable mystery
+embodied in the girl you call Anitra, but whom I'm not ready yet to name.
+For when I do, action must follow conviction and that without mercy or
+delay."</p>
+
+<p>"Action?" repeated Ransom, with quick suspicion and a confused rush of
+contradictory visions in his mind. "What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+<p>Hazen covered his chin with his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I will try and explain," he replied. "If I am abrupt in my language, it
+is owing to the exigencies of the case. I have no time to waste and no
+disposition to whitewash a rough piece of work. To speak to the point, I
+have an intense interest in my sister Georgian. I have little or none in
+my sister Anitra. Georgian's intelligence, good-will, and command of
+money would be of inestimable benefit to me. Anitra, on the contrary,
+could be nothing but a burden, unless&mdash;" here he cast a very sharp glance
+at Ransom&mdash;"unless Georgian should have been sufficiently considerate to
+leave her a good share of her fortune in the will you say she made just
+before her disappearance and supposed death."</p>
+
+<p>"That I can say nothing about," rejoined Ransom in answer to this feeler.
+"The will is in the hands of her lawyer, but if it will help your
+argument any we will suppose that she left her sister to the care of her
+friends without any especial provision for her in the way of money."</p>
+
+<p>The steady fingers clutching the scarred neck loosed their grip to wave
+this supposition aside.</p>
+
+<p>"A hardly supposable case," was the cold comment with which he
+supplemented this disclaimer; "but one which would make the girl a burden
+indeed; a burden which for many reasons I could not assume." Here he
+struck himself sharply on the neck, with the first display of passion he
+had shown. "My advantages are not such as to make it easy for me to
+support myself. It would be simply impossible for me to undertake the
+care of any girl, least of all of one with a manifest infirmity."</p>
+
+<p>"Anitra will prosper without your care," replied Ransom, overlooking the
+heartlessness of the man in the mad, unaccountable sense of relief with
+which he listened to his withdrawal from concerns for which he showed so
+little sympathy. "There are others who will be glad to do all that can be
+done for Georgian's forsaken sister."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. That is all right, but&mdash;" Here Hazen squared himself across the top
+of the table before which he had been sitting; "I must be made sure that
+the facts have been rightly represented to me and that the girl now in
+this house <i>is</i> Georgian's deserted sister. I'm not yet satisfied that
+she is, and I must be convinced not only on this point but on many
+others, before this day is over. Business of great importance calls me
+back to the city and, it may be, out of the country. I may never be able
+to spend another day on purely personal affairs, so this one must tell. I
+have a scheme (it is a very simple one) which, if carried out as I have
+planned, will satisfy me as nothing else will as to the identity of the
+girl we will call, from lack of positive knowledge, Anitra. Will you help
+me in its furtherance? It lies with you to do so."</p>
+
+<p>"First, your reasons for doubting the girl," retorted Ransom. "They must
+be excellent ones for you to resist the evidence of such conclusive
+proofs as you have yourself been witness to since entering this house. I
+am Georgian's husband. I have the strongest wish in the world to see her
+again at my side; yet with the exception of her wonderful likeness to my
+wife, I find nothing in this raw if beautiful girl, of the polished,
+highly trained woman I married. I have not even succeeded in startling
+her ear&mdash;something which I should have been able to do if she were not
+the totally deaf woman she appears. Confide to me then your reasons for
+demanding additional proofs of her identity. If they carry conviction
+with them, I will aid you in any scheme you can propose which will
+neither frighten nor afflict her."</p>
+
+<p>Hazen rose to his feet. Narrow as the room was, he yielded to his
+restless desire to move about and began pacing up and down the restricted
+quarters bounded by the edge of the table and the door. Not until he had
+made the second turning did he speak; then it was with seeming openness.</p>
+
+<p>"It's like putting the torch to my last ship," said he; "but this is no
+time to hesitate. Mr. Ransom, I do not trust my eyes, I do not trust my
+ears, nor your eyes, nor your ears, nor those of any one here, because I
+have talked with a man who was on the same train with my sisters. He
+noticed them because of their similar appearance and close intimacy.
+They were not dressed alike, but they were veiled alike and one did not
+move without the other. More than that, they not only walked about the
+various stations where they waited, arm in arm, but they sat thus closely
+joined in the cars all the way from New York. This interested him
+especially as he noted great anxiety and incessant movement in the one,
+and complete passiveness in the other. She who sat in the outer seat was
+watchful, busy, and ready to press the other's arm at the least
+provocation, but if either spoke it was always the other. It was not till
+the quick rush and shrill whistle of a passing train made one start and
+not the other, that he got the idea that one of them was deaf. As this
+was the one by the window, he felt that their peculiar actions were now
+accounted for, and indeed thus far it all tallied with what we might
+expect from Georgian traveling with the hapless Anitra. But there
+remained a fact to be told, which rouses doubt. When they reached
+G&mdash;&mdash; and he saw from their quick rising that they were about to leave
+the train, he naturally glanced their way again, and this time he caught
+a glimpse of the inner one's neck. Her veil had become slightly
+disarranged, exposing the whole nape. It was unexpectedly dark, almost
+brunette in color, and quite devoid of delicacy; such a skin as one might
+look for in the gipsy Anitra after years of outdoor living and a long
+lack of nice personal attention, but not such as I saw and admired a few
+hours ago on the neck of the woman bending over her work in the
+landlady's room. Oh, I recognized the difference; I have an eye for
+necks."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, coming to a standstill in the middle of the room, to see what
+effect his words had had on Ransom.</p>
+
+<p>"I have that man's name," he continued, "and can produce him if I have
+time and it seems to be necessary. But I had rather come to my own
+decision without any outside interference. This is not an affair for
+public gossip or newspaper notoriety. It is a question of justice to
+myself. If this girl is Georgian&mdash;" His whole face changed. For a moment
+Ransom hardly knew him. The quiet, self-contained man seemed to have
+given way to one of such unexpected power and threat that Ransom rose
+instinctively to his feet in recognition of a superiority he could no
+longer deny.</p>
+
+<p>The action seemed to recall Hazen to himself. He wheeled about and
+recommenced his quiet pacing to and fro.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg pardon," he quietly finished. "If it is Georgian, she must stand
+my friend. That is all I was going to say. If it is, against all reason
+and probability, her strangely restored twin, I shall leave this house by
+midnight, never probably to see any of you again. So you perceive that it
+is incumbent upon us to work promptly. Are you ready to hear what I have
+to propose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Hazen paused again, this time in front of the door. Laying his hand
+lightly on one of the panels, he glanced back at Ransom.</p>
+
+<p>"You are nicely placed here for observation. Your door directly faces the
+hall she must traverse in returning to her room."</p>
+
+<p>"That's quite true."</p>
+
+<p>"She's in her room now. Ah, you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." Ransom seemed to have no other word at his command.</p>
+
+<p>"Will she come out again before night to eat or to visit?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's no telling. She's very fitful. No one can prophesy what she
+will do. Sometimes she eats in the landlady's room, sometimes in her
+own, sometimes not at all. If you have frightened her, or she has been
+disturbed in any way by your companion who shows such interest in her
+and in me, she probably will not come out at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But she must. I expect you to see that she does. Use any messenger, any
+artifice, but get her away from this hall for ten minutes, even if it is
+only into Mrs. Deo's room. When she returns I shall be on my knees before
+this keyhole to watch her and observe. To see what, I do not mean to tell
+you, but it will be something which will definitely settle for me this
+matter of identity. Does this plan look sufficiently harmless to meet
+with your approval?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but looks cannot always be trusted. I must know just what you mean
+to do. I will leave nothing to a mind and hand I do not trust any more
+fully than I do yours. You are too eager for Georgian's money; too little
+interested in herself; <i>and you are too sly in your ways</i>. I overlooked
+this when you had the excuse of a possible distrust of myself. But now
+that your confidence is restored in me, now that you recognize the fact
+that I stand outside of this whole puzzling affair and have no other wish
+than to know the truth about it and do my duty to all parties concerned,
+secrecy on your part means more than I care to state. If you persist in
+it I shall lend myself to nothing that you propose, but wait for time to
+substantiate her claim or prove its entire falsity."</p>
+
+<p>"You will!"</p>
+
+<p>The words rang out involuntarily. It almost seemed as if the man would
+spring with them straight at the other's throat. But he controlled
+himself, and smiling bitterly, added:</p>
+
+<p>"I know the marks of human struggle. I have read countenances from my
+birth. I've had to, and only one has baffled me&mdash;<i>hers</i>. But we are going
+to read that too and very soon. We are going to learn, you and I, what
+lies behind that innocent manner and her rude, uncultivated ways. We are
+going to sound that deafness. I say <i>we</i>," he impressively concluded,
+"because I have reconsidered my first impulse and now propose to allow
+you to participate openly, and without the secrecy you object to, in all
+that remains to be done to make our contemplated test a success. Will
+that please you? May I count on you now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Ransom, returning to his old monosyllable.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then, see if you can make a scrawl like this."</p>
+
+<p>Pulling a piece of red chalk from his pocket, he drew a figure of a
+somewhat unusual character on the bare top of the table between them;
+then he handed the chalk over to Ransom, who received it with a stare of
+wonder not unmixed with suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not an adept at drawing," said he, but made his attempt,
+notwithstanding, and evidently to Hazen's satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll do," said he. "That's a mystic symbol once used by Georgian
+and myself in place of our names in all mutual correspondence, and
+on the leaves of our school-books and at the end of our exercises. It
+meant nothing, but the boys and girls we associated with thought it did
+and envied us the free-masonry it was supposed to cover. A ridiculous
+make-believe which I rate at its full folly now, but one which cannot
+fail to arouse a hundred memories in Georgian. We will scrawl it on
+her door, or rather you shall, and according to the way she conducts
+herself on seeing it, we shall know in one instant what you with your
+patience and trust in time may not be able to arrive at in weeks."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom recalled some of the tests he had himself employed, many of which
+have been omitted from this history, and shrugged his shoulders mentally,
+if not physically. If Hazen noted this evidence of his lack of faith, he
+remained entirely unaffected by it, and in a few minutes everything had
+been planned between them for the satisfactory exercise of what Hazen
+evidently regarded as a crucial experiment. Ransom was about to proceed
+to take the first required step, when they heard a disturbance in front,
+and the coach came driving up with a great clatter and bang and from it
+stepped the lean, well-groomed figure of Mr. Harper.</p>
+
+<p>"Bah!" exclaimed Hazen with a violent gesture of disappointment. "There
+comes your familiar. Now I suppose you will cry off."</p>
+
+<p>"Not necessarily," returned Ransom. "But this much is certain. I shall
+certainly consult him before hazarding this experiment. I am not so sure
+of myself or&mdash;pardon me&mdash;of yourself as to take any steps in the dark
+while I have at hand so responsible a guide as the man whom you choose to
+call my familiar."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>A SUSPICIOUS TEST</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Let him make his experiment. It will do no harm, and if it rids us of
+him, well and good."</p>
+
+<p>Such was Mr. Harper's decision after hearing all that Mr. Ransom had to
+tell him of the present situation.</p>
+
+<p>"His disappointment when he learns that he has nothing to hope for from
+his sister's generosity calls for some consideration from us," proceeded
+the lawyer. "Go and have your little talk with the landlady or take
+whatever other means suggest themselves for luring this girl from her
+room. I will summon Hazen and hold him very closely under my eye till the
+whole affair is over. He shall get no chance for any hocus-pocus
+business, not while I have charge of your interests. He shall do just
+what he has laid out for himself and nothing more; you may rely on that."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom expressed his satisfaction, and left the room with a lighter heart
+than he had felt since Hazen came upon the scene. He did not know that
+all he had been through was as nothing to what lay before him.</p>
+
+<p>It was an hour before he returned. When he did, it was to find Hazen and
+the lawyer awaiting him in ill-concealed impatience. These two were much
+too incongruous in tastes and interests to be very happy in a forced and
+prolonged t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you done it?" exclaimed Hazen, leaping eagerly to his feet as the
+door closed softly behind Ransom. "Is she out of her room? I have
+listened and listened for her step, but could not be sure of it. There
+seem to be a lot of people in the house to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Too many," quoth Ransom. "That is why I couldn't get hold of Mrs. Deo
+any sooner. Anitra is having her hair brushed or something else of equal
+importance done for her in one of the rear rooms. So we can proceed
+fearlessly. Have you looked to see if you can get a good glimpse of her
+door through the keyhole of this one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you already made a trial of that? Then do so now," suggested
+Hazen, drawing out the key and laying it on the table.</p>
+
+<p>But this was too uncongenial a task for Ransom.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be satisfied," said he, "if Mr. Harper tells me that it can."</p>
+
+<p>"It can," asserted that gentleman, falling on his knees and adjusting his
+eye to the keyhole. "Or rather, you can see plainly the face of any one
+approaching it. I don't suppose any of us expected to see the door
+itself."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is not the door, but the woman entering the door, we want to see.
+Did you ask for an extra lamp?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and saw it placed. It is on a small table almost opposite her
+room."</p>
+
+<p>"Then everything is ready."</p>
+
+<p>"All but the mark which I am to put on the panel."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good. Here is the chalk. Let us see what you mean to do with it
+before you risk an attempt on the door itself."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom thought a minute, then with one quick twist produced the
+following:</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/symbol.png"><img src="images/symbol.png" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Correct," muttered Hazen, with what Harper thought to be a slight but
+unmistakable shudder. "One would think you had been making use of this
+very cabalistic sign all your life."</p>
+
+<p>"Then <i>one</i> would be mistaken. I have simply a true eye and a ready
+hand."</p>
+
+<p>"And a very remarkable memory. You have recalled every little line and
+quirk."</p>
+
+<p>"That's possible. What I have made once I can make the second time. It's
+a peculiarity of mine."</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistaking the continued intensity of Hazen's gaze. Ransom
+felt his color rise, but succeeded in preserving his quiet tone, as he
+added:</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, this character is not a wholly new one to me. My attention was
+called to it months ago. It was when I was courting Georgian. She was
+writing a note one day when she suddenly stopped to think and I saw her
+pen making some marks which I considered curious. But I should not have
+remembered them five minutes, if she had not impulsively laid her hand
+over them when she saw me looking. That fixed the memory of them in my
+mind, and when I saw this combination of lines again, I remembered it.
+That is why I lent myself so readily to this experiment. I lent that what
+you said about her acquaintance with this odd arrangement of lines was
+true."</p>
+
+<p>Hazen's hand stole up to his neck, a token of agitation which Ransom
+should have recognized by this time.</p>
+
+<p>"And her account of the use we made of it tallied with mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"She gave me no account of any use she had ever made of it."</p>
+
+<p>"That was because you didn't ask her."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so. Why should I ask her? It was a small matter to trouble her
+about."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," acquiesced Hazen, wheeling himself away towards the
+window. Then after a momentary silence, "It was so then, but it is likely
+to prove of some importance now. Let me see if the hall is empty."</p>
+
+<p>As he bent to open the door, the lawyer, who had not moved nor spoken
+till now, turned a quick glance on Ransom and impulsively stretched out
+his hand. But he dropped it very quickly and subsided into his old
+attitude of simple watchfulness, as Hazen glanced back with the remark:</p>
+
+<p>"There's nobody stirring; now's your time, Ransom."</p>
+
+<p>The moment for action had arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Ransom stepped into the hall. As he passed Hazen, the latter whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't forget that last downward quirk. That was the line she always
+emphasized."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom gave him an annoyed look. His nerves as well as his feelings were
+on a keen stretch, and this persistence of Hazen's was more than he could
+bear.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not forget the least detail," he answered shortly, and passed
+quickly down the hall, while Hazen watched him through the crack of the
+door, and the lawyer watched Hazen.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Mr. Harper's brow wrinkled. Hazen had uttered such a sigh of
+relief that the lawyer was startled. In another moment Ransom re-entered
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>"She's coming," said he, striving to hide his extreme emotion. "I heard
+her voice in the hall beyond."</p>
+
+<p>Hazen sprang to the door which Ransom had carefully closed, and was about
+to fall on his knees before the keyhole when he suddenly stiffened
+himself and, turning towards the lawyer, cried with a new strain of
+loftiness in his tone:</p>
+
+<p>"You. You shall do the looking, only promise to be very minute in your
+description of her behavior. It's a great trust I repose in you. See that
+you honor it."</p>
+
+<p>The revulsion of feeling caused in the lawyer by this show of confidence
+was not perceptible. But it softened his step as well as his manner as he
+crossed to do the other's bidding.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining two stood at his side breathless, waiting for his first
+word.</p>
+
+<p>It came in a whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"She's approaching her room. She looks tired. Her eyes are stealing this
+way;&mdash;no, they are resting on her own door. She sees the sign. She stands
+staring at it, but not like a person who has ever seen it before. It's
+the stare of an uneducated woman who runs upon something she does not
+understand. Now she touches it with one finger and glances up and down
+the hall with a doubtful shake of the head. Now she is running to another
+door, now to another. She is looking to see if this scrawl is to be found
+anywhere else; she even casts her eye this way&mdash;I feel like leaving my
+post. If I do, you may know that she's coming&mdash;No, she's back at her own
+door and&mdash;gentlemen, her bringing up or rather coming up asserts itself.
+She has put her palm to her mouth and is vigorously rubbing off the
+marks."</p>
+
+<p>The next instant Mr. Harper rose. "She's gone into her room," said he.
+"Listen and you will hear her key click in the lock."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom sank into a seat; Hazen had walked to the window. Presently he
+turned.</p>
+
+<p>"I am convinced," said he. "I will not trouble you gentlemen further.
+Mr. Ransom, I condole with you upon your loss. My sister was a woman of
+uncommon gifts."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ransom bowed. He had no words for this man at a moment of such
+extreme excitement. He did not even note the latent sting hidden in the
+other's seeming tribute to Georgian. But the lawyer did and Hazen
+perceived that he did, for pausing in his act of crossing the room, he
+leaned for a moment on the table with his eyes down, then quickly
+raising them remarked to that gentleman:</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to leave by the midnight train for New York. To-morrow I
+shall be on the ocean. Will it be transgressing all rules of propriety
+for me to ask the purport of my sister's will? It is a serious matter to
+me, sir. If she has left me anything&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She has <i>not</i>," emphasized the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>A shadow darkened the disappointed man's brow. His wound swelled and his
+eyes gleamed ironically as he turned them upon Ransom.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly that gentleman spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I have received but a moiety," said he. "You need not envy me the
+amount."</p>
+
+<p>"Who has it then?" briskly demanded the startled man. "Who? who? <i>She?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harper never knew why he did it. He was reserved as a man and,
+usually, more than reserved as a lawyer, but as Hazen lifted his hands
+from the table and turned to leave, he quietly remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"The chief legatee&mdash;the one she chose to leave the bulk of her very large
+fortune to&mdash;is a man we none of us know. His name is Josiah Auchincloss."</p>
+
+<p>The change which the utterance of this name caused in Hazen's expression
+threw them both into confusion.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you tell me that in the beginning?" he cried. "I needn't have
+wasted all this time and effort."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes shone, his poor lips smiled, his whole air was jubilant. Both
+Mr. Harper and his client surveyed him in amazement. The lines so fast
+disappearing from his brow were beginning to reappear on theirs.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Harper," this hard-to-be-understood man now declared, "you may
+safely administer the estate of my sister. She is surely dead."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A STARTLING DECISION</h3>
+
+
+<p>Before Mr. Ransom and the lawyer had recovered from their astonishment,
+Hazen had slipped from the room. As Mr. Harper started to follow, he saw
+the other's head disappearing down the staircase leading to the office.
+He called to him, but Hazen declined to turn.</p>
+
+<p>"No time," he shouted back. "I shall have to make use of somebody's
+automobile now, to get to the Ferry in time."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer did not persist, not at that moment; he went back to his
+client and they had a few hurried words; then Mr. Harper went below and
+took up his stand on the portico. He was determined that Hazen should not
+leave the place without some further explanation.</p>
+
+<p>It was light where he stood and he very soon felt that this would not
+do, so he slipped back into the shade of a pillar, and seeing, from the
+bustle, that Hazen was likely to obtain the use of the one automobile
+stored in the stable, he waited with reasonable patience for his
+reappearance in the road before him.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile he had confidence in Ransom, who he felt sure was watching
+them both from the window overhead. If he should fail in getting in
+the word he wanted, Ransom was pledged to shout it out without regard
+to appearances. But this was not likely to occur. He knew his own
+persistency to equal Hazen's. Nothing should stop the momentary interview
+he had promised himself.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! A well-known whirr and clatter is heard. The automobile was leaving
+the stable. Hazen was already in it and the man who had come up from New
+York was with him. This was bad; they would flash by&mdash;No; he would not be
+balked thus. Stepping out into the road, he stopped full in the glare of
+the office lights and held up his hand. They could not but see him and
+they did. The chauffeur reversed the lever and the machine stopped to
+the accompaniment of low muttered oaths from Hazen, which were rather
+disagreeable than otherwise to Harper's ear.</p>
+
+<p>"One word," said he, approaching to the side where Hazen sat. "I thought
+you ought to know before leaving that we can take no proceedings in the
+matter we were speaking of till we have undisputed proof that your sister
+is dead. That we may not get for a long time, possibly never. If you are
+interested in having this Auchincloss receive his inheritance, you had
+better prepare both yourself and him for a long wait. The river seems
+slow to give up its dead."</p>
+
+<p>The quiver of impatience which had shaken Hazen at the first word had
+settled into a strange rigidity.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment," he said in a command to the chauffeur at his side. Then in
+a low, strangely sounding whisper to Harper: "They think the body's in
+the Devil's Cauldron. Nothing can get it out if it is. Would some proof
+of its presence there be sufficient to settle the fact of her death?"</p>
+
+<p>"That would depend. If the proof was unmistakable, it might pass in the
+Surrogate's Court. What is the matter, Hazen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing." The tone was hollow; the whole man sat like an image of death.
+"I&mdash;I'm thinking&mdash;weighing&mdash;" he uttered in scattered murmurs. Then
+suddenly, "You're not deceiving me, Harper. Some proof will be necessary,
+and that very soon, for this man Auchincloss to realize the money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the monosyllable was as dry as it was short. Harper's patience
+with this unnatural brother was about at an end.</p>
+
+<p>"And who will venture to obtain this proof for us? No one. Not even
+Ransom would venture down into that watery hole. They say it is almost
+certain death," babbled Hazen.</p>
+
+<p>Harper kept silence. Strange forces were at work. The head of another
+gruesome tragedy loomed vaguely through the shadows of this already
+sufficiently tragic mystery.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!" suddenly shouted Hazen, leaning forward to the chauffeur. But
+the next instant his hand was on the man's sleeve. "No, I have changed my
+mind. Here, Staples," he called out as a man came running down the steps,
+"take my bag and ask the landlady to prepare me a room. I'll not try for
+the train to-night." Then as the man at his side leaped to the ground, he
+turned to Harper and remarked quietly, but in no common tone:</p>
+
+<p>"The steamer must sail without me. I'll stay in this place a while and
+prove the death of Georgian Ransom myself."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DEVIL'S CAULDRON</h3>
+
+
+<p>The solemnity of Hazen's whole manner impressed Mr. Harper strongly. As
+soon as the opportunity offered he cornered the young man in the office
+where he had taken refuge, and giving him to understand that further
+explanations must pass between them before either slept, he drew him
+apart and put the straight question to him:</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Josiah Auchincloss?"</p>
+
+<p>The answer was abrupt, almost menacing in its emphasis and tone.</p>
+
+<p>"A trunk-maker in St. Louis. A man she was indebted to."</p>
+
+<p>"How indebted to&mdash;a trunk-maker?"</p>
+
+<p>"That I cannot, do not desire to state. It is enough that she felt she
+owed him the bulk of her fortune. Though this eliminates me from benefits
+of a wealth I had some rights to share, I make no complaint. She knew her
+business best, and I am disposed to accept her judgment in the matter
+without criticism."</p>
+
+<p>"You are?" The tone was sharp, the sarcasm biting. "I can understand
+that. For Auchincloss, in this will, read Hazen; but how about her
+husband? How about her friends and the general community? Do you not
+think they will ask why a beautiful and socially well-placed young woman
+like your sister should leave so large a portion of her wealth to an
+obscure man in another town, of whom her friends and even her business
+agent have never heard? It would have been better if she had left you her
+thousands directly."</p>
+
+<p>The smile which was Hazen's only retort was very bitter.</p>
+
+<p>"You drew up her will," said he. "You must have reasoned with her on this
+very point as you are now trying to reason with me?"</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer waved this aside.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know at that time the social status of the legatee; nor did I
+know her brother then as well as I do now."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know me now."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that you are very pale; that the determination you have just made
+has cost you more than you perhaps are willing to state. That there is
+mystery in your past, mystery in your present, and, possibly, mystery
+threatening your future, and all in connection with your great desire for
+this money."</p>
+
+<p>Hazen made a forcible gesture, but whether of denial or depreciation, it
+was not easy to decide.</p>
+
+<p>"Would it not then be better for all parties," pursued the lawyer, "for
+you to give me some idea of the great obligation under which your sister
+lay to this man, that I may have an answer ready when people ask me why
+she passed you so conspicuously by, in order to enrich this stranger?"</p>
+
+<p>"The story is not mine. Had she wished you to know it, she would have
+confided it to you herself. I must decline&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harper interrupted the other impressively. "Do you realize what a
+shadow may be thrown upon your sister's memory by this reticence on your
+part? Her death was suggestive enough without the complications you
+mention. In justice to your relationship you should speak. If, as I
+think, the money is really meant for you, say so. The subterfuge may be
+difficult of explanation, but it will not hurt her memory as much as this
+extraordinary silence on your part."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry," began Hazen. But Harper cut him short.</p>
+
+<p>"You expect the money&mdash;you yourself," said he. "Nothing else would force
+you into an attempt so perilous. You would risk death. Risk something
+less final; risk your place in my esteem, your standing among men, and
+confess the full truth about this matter. If it involves crime&mdash;why, I'm
+a lawyer and can see you through better than you can win through by your
+own misdirected efforts. The truth, my lad, the truth, nothing else will
+serve you."</p>
+
+<p>The look he received he will never forget.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a man of limited experience, Mr. Harper," were the words which
+accompanied it. "You would not understand the truth, Georgian or me.
+Ransom might, but I shall not even risk Ransom's discretion. Now this
+is all I am going to say about this matter. Georgian's last will and
+testament, followed though it was by suicide, was a perfectly regular
+one. The only impediment to its being so recognized and acted upon is the
+doubt as to her actual decease. If the body of my poor young sister has
+become lodged in the Devil's Cauldron, I am going there to seek it. As
+the project calls for courage and, above all, a good condition of body
+and mind, I shall be obliged to you if you will allow me the benefit of
+the sleep I most certainly need. To-morrow I may have something more to
+say to you, and I may not. Perhaps I shall want to make <i>my will</i>, who
+knows?" And with a smile full of sarcastic meaning, he pushed Mr.
+Harper's arm aside and made for the staircase, up which he presently
+vanished without another attempt on the lawyer's part to hold him back.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later the lawyer was getting what information he could
+about the so-called Devil's Cauldron.</p>
+
+<p>It seems that this was a very deep hole in which, on account of the rocky
+formation surrounding it, the water swept in an eddy which had the force
+of a whirlpool. No one had ever sounded its depths and nothing had ever
+been seen again which had once been sucked into its deathly hollow. That
+Georgian's body had found its everlasting grave there, many had believed
+from the first, and if the conviction had not yet been publicly expressed
+it was out of consideration for Mr. Ransom, to whose hopes it could but
+ring a final knell.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the hole? How far from the waterfall?" queried Mr. Harper.</p>
+
+<p>"A good mile," muttered one man. "Quite around the bend of the stream.
+It's a horrid place, sir. We've always been mortal careful about rowing
+down that side of the river. Children are never allowed to. Only a man's
+strength could get him free again if he once struck the eddy."</p>
+
+<p>"Would anything floating down from the falls be apt to strike this eddy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very apt. It would be a miracle if it didn't. That is why we all turned
+out so willingly the first day. We knew that if Mrs. Ransom's body was to
+be found at all, it would be found then; another day it would be beyond
+our reach."</p>
+
+<p>"You say that no one has ever sounded the depths of that hole. Has any
+one ever tried to?"</p>
+
+<p>"More than once. Scientific men and others."</p>
+
+<p>"Did they ever emerge&mdash;any of them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, one, a powerful sort of chap with Indian blood in him. But he
+didn't advise any one to try it; said the knowledge wasn't worth the
+strain to heart and muscle."</p>
+
+<p>"What was the knowledge? We can imagine the strain."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he said as how the walls of the vortex&mdash;didn't he call it a
+vortex&mdash;was all stone, and he spoke of a ledge&mdash;I didn't hear what
+else."</p>
+
+<p>"To go down there a man would have to take his life in his hand, I see.
+Well, I don't think I will try," dryly observed the lawyer as he left the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>He could no longer hide his excitement at the thought that Hazen
+meditated this undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>"How he must want money!" thought he. That a man should face such a
+horror for another man's profit did not seem likely enough to engage his
+consideration for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>Lawyer Harper knew the world&mdash;or thought he did.</p>
+
+<p>Next day the whole town was thrown into a hubbub. Word had gone out
+through every medium possible to so small a place, that Alfred Hazen,
+Georgian's long-lost brother, was going to dare Death Eddy in a final
+attempt to recover his sister's body.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PART_IV" id="PART_IV"></a>PART IV</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Man of Mystery</span></h3>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>DEATH EDDY</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was a gray day, chill and ominous. As the three most interested in the
+event came together on the road facing the point from which Hazen had
+decided to make his desperate plunge, the dreariness of the scene was
+reflected in the troubled eye of the lawyer and that of the still more
+profoundly affected Ransom. Only Hazen gazed unmoved. Perhaps because
+the spot was no new one to him, perhaps because an unsympathetic sky,
+a stretch of rock, the swirl of churning waters without any of the
+lightness and color which glancing sunlight gives, meant for him but one
+thing&mdash;the thing upon which he had fixed his mind, his soul.</p>
+
+<p>The rocky formation into which the stream ran at this point as into a
+pocket, revealed itself in the bald outlines of the point which, curving
+half-way upon itself, held in its cold embrace the unseen vortex. One
+tree, and one only, disturbed the sky line. Stark and twisted into an
+unusual shape from the steady blowing of the prevalent east winds, it
+imprinted itself at once upon the eye and unconsciously upon the
+imagination. To some it was the keeper of that hell-gate; the contorted
+sentinel of bygone woes and long-buried horrors, if not the gnomish
+genius of others yet to come. To-day it was the sign-post to a strange
+deed&mdash;the courting of an uncanny death that one of the many secrets
+hidden in that hole of miseries might be unlocked.</p>
+
+<p>Under this tree a small group of strong and determined men was already
+collected; not as spectators but helpers in the adventurous attempt about
+to be undertaken by their old friend and playmate. The spectators had
+been barred from the point and stood lined up in the road overlooking the
+eddy. They were numerous and very eager. Hazen's brows drew together in
+his first exhibition of feeling, as he saw women and even children in the
+crowd, and caught the expression of morbid anticipation with which they
+all turned as he stepped with his two associates over the rope which had
+been stretched across the base of the out-curving head line.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/river.jpg"><img src="images/river.jpg" alt=""/></a>
+</div>
+
+<h4>"Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast
+of death, but they will be disappointed."</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>"Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast of death, but
+they will be disappointed." He was almost bitter. "I shall survive this
+plunge. I have no wish for my death to be the holiday for a hundred
+gloating eyes, I am not handsome enough. When I die, it will be quietly,
+with some hand near, kind enough to cover my poor face with a napkin."</p>
+
+<p>Harper and Ransom both remembered this remark a little while later.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Hazen?" It was Harper who spoke. They had passed a little thicket
+of brush and were drawing near the group under the tree. "Have you duly
+considered what you are about to do? I have talked with several men of
+judgment and experience about this attempt, and they all say it can have
+but one termination."</p>
+
+<p>"I know. That is because they know little or nothing of the life I have
+led since I left this town. There is not a man amongst them so slight and
+seemingly frail of figure as myself, but none of them, not one, has been
+so often up to the very gates of death and escaped, as I have. My
+schooling has been long and severe, perhaps in preparation for this day.
+I have been through fire; I have been through water. The swirling of my
+own native stream does not appall me. I rather welcome it; it is but
+another experience."</p>
+
+<p>"But for money?" broke in Ransom. "You acknowledge it is for no other
+purpose. Will it pay? I own that in my eyes no amount of money could pay
+a man for so superhuman a risk as this. Take a few thousands from me&mdash;I
+had rather give them to you than see you leap into that water opening
+beneath us like a hungry maw."</p>
+
+<p>Hazen stood silent, his eye glistening, his hand almost outstretched.
+Harper thought he would yield; the offer must have struck him as generous
+and very tempting&mdash;a good excuse for a hot-headed man to withdraw from a
+very doubtful adventure. But he did not know Hazen. This latter advanced
+his hand and squeezed Ransom's warmly, but his answer, when he was ready
+to give one, conveyed no intention of a change of mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Will your thousands amount to a clean million?" he smiled. "That is the
+amount, I believe, bequeathed by your wife to Mr. Auchincloss. Nothing
+less will suffice. Yet I thank you, Ransom."</p>
+
+<p>The latter bowed and fell a little behind the others. The struggle in his
+mind had been severe; it was severe yet; he did not know but that it was
+his duty to stop this Hazen from his intended action by force. He was not
+sure but that the onus of this whole desperate undertaking would yet fall
+upon him. Certainly it would fall upon his conscience if the end was
+fatal. He had had proof of that in the long night of wakeful misery he
+had just passed; a night in which he had faced the furies; in which this
+inexorable question had forced itself upon him despite every effort on
+his part to evade it.</p>
+
+<p>Why had he, a humane man, consented to this attempt on the part of the
+devoted Hazen? That his mind might be free to mourn his beautiful young
+bride whose fatal and mysterious secret he was still as far from knowing
+as in the hour he turned to welcome her to their first home and found her
+fled from his arms and heart? Or had this suspense, this feeling of
+standing now, as never before, at the opening door of fate, a deeper
+significance, a more active meaning? Was this meditated test a crucial
+one, because it opened to him the only possible releasement of soul and
+conscience to the undivided care of one who had no other refuge in life
+save that offered by his devotion? The horror of this self-probing was
+still upon him as he followed Hazen's slight and virile figure across the
+rocks, but it fled as he felt the spray of the tossing waters dash its
+chilling reminder in his face.</p>
+
+<p>The event was upon him and he must add to his former actions that of
+a complete and determined opposition to the risk proposed or possibly
+forfeit his peace of mind forever. Quickening his pace, he reached Hazen
+and the lawyer just as the men awaiting them had advanced on their side.
+Instantly he knew it was too late. There was neither time nor opportunity
+for any weak protests on his part now. Older men were speaking; men who
+knew the river, the danger, and the man, but even they said nothing to
+him in way of dissuasion. They only pointed out what especial points of
+suction were to be avoided, and showed him the chain they had brought for
+his waist and how he was to pull upon it the very instant he felt his
+senses or his strength leaving him.</p>
+
+<p>He answered as a courageous man might, and making ready by taking off his
+coat and shoes he gave himself into their hands for the proper fastening
+on of the chain. Then, while the murmur of expectation rose from the
+crowd on the river bank, he stepped back to Mr. Ransom and whispered
+hurriedly in his ear:</p>
+
+<p>"You have a good heart, a better heart than I ever gave you credit for.
+Promise that in case I never come out of those waters alive, that you
+will put no obstacle in the way of Mr. Auchincloss inheriting his fortune
+in good time. He's a man worthy of all the assistance which money can
+bring. <i>You</i> do not need her wealth; Anitra&mdash;well, she will be cared for,
+but Auchincloss&mdash;promise&mdash;brother."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom half drew back in his amazement. Then started forward again. This
+man whom he had always distrusted, whom he had looked upon as Georgian's
+possible enemy, certainly his own, was looking into his eyes with a gaze
+of trust, almost of affection. The money was not for himself; he showed
+it by the noble, almost grand look with which he waited for his answer;
+a look that carried conviction despite Ransom's prejudice and great
+dislike.</p>
+
+<p>"You will give me that much additional nerve for the task lying before
+me?" he added. And Ransom could only bow his head. The man's mastery was
+limitless; it had reached and moved even him.</p>
+
+<p>Another moment and a gasp went up from fifty or more throats. Hazen had
+taken the chain in his hand, walked to the edge of the rock and slipped
+into the quietest water he saw there.</p>
+
+<p>"Strike left!" called out a voice. And he struck left. The eddy seized
+him and they could see his head moving slowly about in the great circle
+which gradually grew smaller and smaller till he suddenly disappeared. A
+groan muffled with horror went up from the shore. But the man who held
+the chain lifted up his hand, and silence&mdash;more pregnant of anticipation
+than any sound&mdash;held that whole crowd rigid. The man played out the
+chain; Harper stared at the seething, tumbling water, but Ransom looked
+another way. The torture in his soul was taking shape, the shape of a
+ghost rising from those tossing waters. Suddenly the pent-in breath of
+fifty breasts found its way again to the lips.</p>
+
+<p>The men who held the chain were pulling it in with violent reaches. It
+dragged more slowly, stuck, loosened itself, and finally brought into
+sight a face white as the foam it rose amongst.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead! Drowned!" the whisper went around.</p>
+
+<p>But when Hazen was dragged ashore and Ransom had thrown himself at his
+feet, he saw that he yet lived, and lived triumphantly. Ransom could not
+have told more; it was for others to see and point out the smile that
+sweetened the wan lips, and the passion with which he held against his
+breast some sodden and shapeless object which he had rescued from those
+awful depths, and which, when spread out and clean of sand, betrayed
+itself as that peculiar article of woman's clothing, a small side bag.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember that bag," said Harper. "I saw it, or one exactly like it, in
+Mrs. Ransom's hand when she got into the coach the day we all rode up
+from the ferry. What will he have to say about it? and could he have seen
+the body from which it has evidently been torn?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>HAZEN</h3>
+
+
+<p>"An unfathomable man," grumbled Mr. Harper, entering Mr. Ransom's room in
+marked disorder. "They say that he has not spoken yet; but the coroner is
+with him and we shall hear something from him soon. I expect&mdash;" here the
+lawyer's voice changed and his manner took on meaning&mdash;"that his report
+will be final."</p>
+
+<p>"Final? You mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What his fainting face showed. For all its pallor and the exhaustion it
+expressed, there was triumph in its every feature. The little bag was not
+all he saw in that pit of hell. You must prepare yourself for no common
+ordeal, Ransom; it will take all your courage to listen to his story."</p>
+
+<p>"I know." The words came with difficulty but not without a certain manly
+courage. "I shall try not to make you too much trouble." Then after a
+moment of oppressive silence, "Did you notice, when we all came in, the
+figure of a woman disappearing up the stair way? It was Anitra's and it
+paused before it reached the top, and I saw her eyes staring down at
+Hazen's helpless figure with a wildness in its inquiry that has sapped
+all my courage. How are we to answer that girl when she asks us what has
+happened? How make her know that Hazen is her brother and that he has
+just risked his life to satisfy himself and us that Georgian was really
+lost in that dreadful pool."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer, darting a keen glance at the speaker, softly shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not thinking of Miss Hazen," said he. "I'm wondering how far the
+proof he has obtained will go." He paused, listening, then made a gesture
+towards the hall. "There's some one there," he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Ransom rose, and with a quick turn of the wrist pulled open the door.</p>
+
+<p>A man was standing on the threshold, a ghastly figure before which Ransom
+involuntarily stepped back.</p>
+
+<p>"Hazen!" he cried; then, as the other tottered, he sprang forward again
+and, reaching out his hand to steady him, drew him in with the remark,
+"We were expecting a summons from you. We are happy that you find
+yourself able to come to us."</p>
+
+<p>"The coroner has just gone. The doctors I dismissed. I have something to
+say to you&mdash;to both of you," he added as he caught sight of Mr. Harper.</p>
+
+<p>Entering slowly, he sat down in the chair proffered him by the lawyer.
+There was something strange in his air, a quiet automaton-like quality
+which attracted the latter's notice and led him to watch him very
+closely. Ransom was busy with the door, which the strong west wind
+blowing through the hall made difficult to close.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;" The one word uttered, Hazen seemed to forget himself. Sitting quite
+still, he gazed straight before him at the open window. There was little
+to be seen there but the swaying boughs of the huge tree, but his gaze
+never left those tossing limbs, and his sentence hung suspended till the
+movement made by Ransom recrossing the room roused him, and he went on.</p>
+
+<p>"I have made the plunge, gentlemen, and fortune favored me. I&mdash;" here his
+voice failed him again, but realizing the fact more quickly than before,
+he shook off his apathy, and facing the two men, who awaited his slow
+words with inconceivable excitement, continued with sudden concentration
+upon his subject, "I saw what I went to see&mdash;poor Georgian's body. I have
+satisfied the coroner of this fact. The little bag I tore from her side
+proves her identity beyond a doubt. You saw it, Mr. Harper. They tell me
+that you recognized it at once as the same you saw in her hand in the
+stage-coach. But if you had not, the initials on it are unmistakable, G.
+Q. H., Georgian Quinlan Hazen. Auchincloss will get his money, and soon,
+will he not? Answer me plainly, Harper. Such an experience merits some
+reward. You will not make difficulties?"</p>
+
+<p>"I?" The lawyer's query had a strange ring to it. He glanced from Hazen
+to Ransom, and from Ransom back to Hazen, whose features had now become
+more composed, though they still retained their remarkable pallor.</p>
+
+<p>"If the proof is positive," he then went on, "you assuredly can trust
+both my client and myself to remember our promise to you."</p>
+
+<p>"The coroner, you say, is satisfied?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, with the proof and my sworn statement. He is obliged to be. No one
+else, least of all himself, feels any desire to go down to that whirling
+eddy for confirmation of my story. And they are wise. I do not think
+that any man with less experience than myself could sound the depths of
+that vortex and come up alive. The noise&mdash;the swirl&mdash;the sense of being
+sucked down&mdash;down in ever-increasing fury&mdash;but my purpose kept the life
+in me. I was determined not to yield, not to faint, till I had seen&mdash;and
+proved&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>The cry was from Mr. Ransom. A sudden gust of wind had torn its way
+through the room, flinging the door wide, and strewing the floor with
+flying papers from the large stand in the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing but wind," answered Harper, half rising to close the door, but
+immediately sitting down again with a strange look at Ransom. "Let be,"
+he whispered, as the other rose in his turn to restore order. "Keep Hazen
+talking. It's important; imperative. I'll see to the door."</p>
+
+<p>But it was the window he closed, not the door.</p>
+
+<p>Ransom, with that obedience natural to a client in presence of his most
+trusted adviser, did as he was bid, and turned his full attention back to
+Hazen instantly. That gentleman, upon whom the rushing wind and the havoc
+it created had made little if any impression, rushed again into words.</p>
+
+<p>"I've led an adventurous life," he declared, "and, in the last few years
+especially, passed through many perils and experienced much awful
+suffering. I have felt the pang of hunger and the pang of biting despair;
+but nothing I have ever endured can equal the horror which beclouded my
+mind and rendered powerless my body as I felt myself sliding from the
+sight of earth and heaven into the jaws of that rapacious eddy, whose
+bottom no man had ever sounded.</p>
+
+<p>"I went in young&mdash;I have come out old. Look at my hands&mdash;they shake like
+those of a man of ninety. Yet yesterday they could have pulled to the
+ground an ox."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw Mrs. Ransom's body down in that pool some fathoms below the
+surface," observed the lawyer, after waiting in vain for some word from
+the shrinking husband. "Won't you particularize, Mr. Hazen? Tell us just
+how she was lying and where. Mr. Ransom cannot but wish to know,
+difficult as he evidently finds it to ask you."</p>
+
+<p>"The coroner has the story," Hazen began, with the slow, painful gasp of
+the unwilling narrator. "But I will tell it again; it is your right, the
+painful duty which we cannot escape. She was lying, not on the bottom,
+but in a niche of rock into which she had been thrown and wedged by the
+force of the current. One arm was free and was washing about; I tried to
+clutch this arm as I went down, but it eluded me. When I arose, the rush
+and swirl of the water was against me and I felt my senses going, but
+enough instinct was left for me to snatch again at the arm as I passed,
+and though it eluded me again, my fingers closed on something, which I
+was just conscious enough to hold on to with a frenzied grip. We have
+spoken of this thing&mdash;a little bag which must have been fastened to her
+side, for the end of its connecting strap is torn away by the wrench I
+gave it."</p>
+
+<p>"Vivid enough; but I am sure you will tell me one thing more. Did you see
+the face of this body as well as the arm? It would greatly add to the
+strength of your testimony if you could describe it."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom, who had been watching Hazen, cast a sudden look back at the
+lawyer as he dropped these insinuating words. Something more than a
+cold-blooded desire for truth had prompted this almost brutal
+inquisition. He must know what it was, if anything in Harper's
+well-controlled countenance would tell him. The result transfixed him,
+for following the lawyer's gaze, which was fixed not on the man he was
+addressing but on a small mirror hanging on the opposite wall, he saw
+reflected in it the face and form of Anitra standing in the open
+doorway behind them.</p>
+
+<p>She was looking at Hazen and, as Ransom noted that look, he understood
+Harper's previous caution and all that lay behind his insistent and
+cold-blooded questions. For her gaze was no longer one of simple inquiry
+but of horrified understanding;&mdash;<i>the gaze of one who heard</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, Hazen was answering in painful gasps the lawyer's pointed
+question, "Did you see the face of this body as well as the arm?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I see&mdash;God help me, yes. Just a glimpse, but I knew it. Eyes that my
+mother had kissed, blind&mdash;staring&mdash;glassed in awe and unspeakable fright.
+The mouth, whose every curve I had studied in the old days of perfect
+affection, drawn into a revolting grin and dripping with unwholesome
+weeds brought down from the shallows. All strange, yet all familiar&mdash;my
+sister&mdash;Georgian&mdash;dead&mdash;stark&mdash;but recognizable. Don't ask me if I saw
+it. I always see it; it is before me now, the forehead&mdash;the chin&mdash;the
+eyes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Ransom sprang to his feet, Harper also.</p>
+
+<p>The girl in the doorway had gone white as death, and with outstretched
+arms and frantic, haggard eyes was striving to ward off the frightful
+vision conjured up by her brother's words. The movement made by the
+two men recalled her in an instant to herself, and she drew back&mdash;the
+hesitating, appealing, anxious-eyed girl whom they all knew. But it
+was too late. Hazen had seen as well as the others, and leaping in
+frenzy from his chair stood confronting her&mdash;a dominant and accusing
+figure&mdash;between the quietly triumphant lawyer and the crushed, almost
+unconscious Ransom.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>SHE SPEAKS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Hazen's face was frightful to see; the more so that physical weakness
+contended with the outsweep of passion, so great and overwhelming in its
+power and destructive force that to the two onlookers it seemed to spring
+from deeper sources than ordinary life and death, and have its birth, as
+well as its culmination, in the unknown and all that is most terrible
+in the human mind and human experience.</p>
+
+<p>Anitra's eye was spellbound by it. As it dilated upon this vision of
+unspeakable wrath and almost superhuman denunciation, her own exquisite
+face filled with a reflected horror, almost equaling his in force and
+meaning, till the two awed spectators saw in this moment of startled
+recognition and the up-gathering of two great natures, the oncoming of
+some hideous climax for which the many strange and contradictory
+experiences of the last few days had not served to prepare them.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>hear</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>In these words Hazen loosed out his soul.</p>
+
+<p>The keen cry of the wind running through the house was his only answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>hear</i>!" he repeated, advancing and laying a determined hand upon
+her arm. "You have made a mock of us with your pretended deafness. What
+does it mean&mdash;Stop! no more play-acting," he fiercely admonished her, as
+her eyes assumed a look of startled inquiry and wandered away in vague
+curiosity to the papers scattered over the floor&mdash;"we have had enough
+of that; you cannot deceive us&mdash;you cannot deceive <i>me</i> twice. You played
+at deafness&mdash;why? Because Anitra must have some disability to distinguish
+her from Georgian? Because you are not Anitra? Because you are Georgian
+after all?"</p>
+
+<p>Georgian!</p>
+
+<p>The word fell like a plummet into the hollow of that great expectancy.
+Ransom shivered and even Harper's hard cheek changed color. Hazen only
+stood unmoved, his look, his grasp, the spirit behind that look and
+grasp, implacable and determined. Their influence was terrible; slowly
+she succumbed to it against her will and purpose, the will and purpose of
+a very strong woman. Her eyes rose in a painful and lingering struggle to
+his face. Then, with a cry her drawn and parched lips could not suppress,
+she flashed them in agony on Ransom, and this long-suffering man read in
+them the maddening truth. They were his wife's eyes; the woman before him
+was indeed Georgian.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak!" rang out the voice of Hazen, as Harper, realizing from Ransom's
+face what Ransom had just realized from hers, stepped to the door and
+closed it. "The time is short; I have much, very much to do. For my sake,
+for the sake of this much-abused man, whom you allowed to marry you,
+speak out, tell the truth at once. You are Georgian."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," fell in almost an inaudible whisper from her lips. "I am
+Georgian." Then as he loosed his grasp from her arm and she was left
+standing there alone, some instinct of isolation, some realization of the
+mysterious pit she had dug for herself and possibly for others, in this
+avowal of her identity, wrought her brain into momentary madness, and
+flinging up her arms she fell on her knees before Hazen as under the
+stroke of some unseen thunderbolt.</p>
+
+<p>"You made me say it," she cried. "On your head be the punishment, not on
+mine nor on his." Then as Hazen drew slowly back, touched in his turn by
+some emotion to which neither his look nor gesture gave any clew, she
+rose to her feet, and fixing him with a look of strange defiance, added
+in milder but no less determined tones: "A tongue unloosed talks long and
+loud. You have made me give up my secret, but I shall not stop at that. I
+shall say more; tell all my dreadful history; yours&mdash;mine. I will not be
+thought wicked because I undertook so great a deception. I will not have
+this good man's opinion of me shaken; not for a minute; what I did, I
+did for him and he shall know it whatever penalty it may incur. He is
+my husband&mdash;his love to me is priceless, and I will hold it against
+you&mdash;against the Cause&mdash;against Heaven&mdash;yes, and against Hell."</p>
+
+<p>Here was truth. To Ransom it came like balm and a renewed life. Bounding
+across the room, he strove to seize her hand and draw her to himself.
+But Hazen would not have it. His anger, indeterminate before, was
+concentrated now, and not the white pleading of her face, nor the warning
+gesture of Ransom, could hold it back.</p>
+
+<p>"Traitress!" he cried, "traitress to me and to the Cause. You thought
+to escape what is inescapable. Do you know what you have done? You
+have&mdash;" The rest hung in air. A sudden weakness had seized him and he
+sank faltering back into a chair Harper pushed towards him, still
+denouncing her, however, with lifted hand and accusing eyes, the
+image&mdash;though no longer a speaking one&mdash;of the implacable and determined
+avenger.</p>
+
+<p>Georgian, shocked into silence, stared at him in a frenzy of complicated
+emotions to which neither of them as yet had given the key capable of
+relieving the maddening tension.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the pool; the pool," she finally murmured. "Its waters have beaten
+out your life." But he calmly shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not in water to do that," he murmured. "Give me a moment. I've a
+question to ask. I think a drop of liquor&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Harper had flask in hand almost before the word had left the other's
+mouth. The draft revived Hazen; he looked up at Georgian. "I believe you,
+so do these men believe you. But you were not alone in this plot. Where
+is Anitra? Where is the deaf and solitary one you dragged from the
+streets of New York to bolster up your plot? Tell us and tell us quickly.
+Where is Anitra?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anitra? Do you ask that?" cried Harper, roused to speak for the first
+time by his boundless amazement and indignation. "You have described the
+body in the pool&mdash;a description which fits either sister, and yet you
+would make this woman tell us what you have seen with your own eyes."</p>
+
+<p>He might as well not have spoken. Neither he nor she seemed to hear him.
+Certainly neither heeded.</p>
+
+<p>"Anitra?" she repeated softly and with a strange intonation. "I am
+Anitra. I am both Georgian and Anitra. There have never been two of us
+since I came into this house."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>FIFTEEN MINUTES</h3>
+
+
+<p>"There have never been but one of us since I came into this house."</p>
+
+<p>Monstrous assertion! or so it seemed to Ransom as the whirl of his
+thoughts settled and reason resumed its sway. Only one! But he had
+himself seen two; so had Mrs. Deo and the maids; he could even relate the
+differences between them on that first night. Yet had he ever seen them
+together, or even the shadow of one at the same moment he saw the person
+of the other? No, and with such an actress as she had shown herself to be
+these last two days, such changes of appearance might be possible, though
+why she should engage in such a deep, almost incredible plot was a
+mystery to make the hair rise,&mdash;she, the tender, exquisite, the beloved
+woman of his dreams.</p>
+
+<p>She saw the maddening nature of his confusion and, springing to him, fell
+on her knees with the imploring cry:</p>
+
+<p>"Patience! Do not try to think&mdash;I will tell you. It can all be said in a
+word. I was bound to this brother of mine, to do his bidding, to follow
+his fortunes through life, and up to death, by promises and oaths to
+which those uttered by me at the marriage altar were but toys and empty
+air. Anitra, or the dream sister my misery took from the dead, was not
+so bound, so I strove to secure our joy by the seeming death of Georgian
+and a new life as her twin. You do not understand; you cannot. You have
+no measure with which to gauge such men as my brother. But it will be
+given you. There is no hope now. The weakness of a moment has undone us."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom must have heard her, after events proved that he did, but he gave
+no token of it. The visions that were whirling through his mind still
+held it engrossed. He saw her, not as she stood before him now, trembling
+and appealing, but as she had looked to him in the hall that first night,
+as she had looked to him down by the mill-stream, as she had looked when
+she told her story as Anitra, and later when she had faced the landlady
+as Georgian, and the confusion of it all left no room in his conscience
+for any other impression. But Mr. Harper, though surprised as he had
+never been before in all his professional career, lost himself in no such
+abyss. With the freedom which long-delayed insight into the truth gives
+to a man of his positive nature and training, he left speculation and all
+endeavor to reconcile events with her declaration, and plunged at once to
+the obvious question of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Fixing his keen gaze on Hazen, he observed very quietly, but with an
+underlying note of sarcasm:</p>
+
+<p>"If this lady is your sister, Georgian Ransom, and there is no Anitra
+save the fast fading memory of the child commemorated in your family's
+monument, then your statement as to the body you saw under the ledge was
+false?"</p>
+
+<p>The answer came deliberately, unaffected both by the manner of the
+accusation or by the accusation itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly so," said he, "I saw no body. Perhaps my description would
+have been less vivid if I had. My intention you know. This woman had
+deceived me to the point of making me believe that she was indeed Anitra,
+the twin, and not my millionaire sister, and Georgian's fortune being
+necessary to her heir, I wished to cut short the law's delay by an
+apparent identification. I never doubted from the moment this woman faced
+with such well-played ignorance the mark of great meaning we had placed
+upon her door, that Georgian was in the river, as you all believed. Why
+then not give her a positive resting-place, since this would smooth out
+all difficulties and hasten the very end for which she had apparently
+sacrificed herself."</p>
+
+<p>If there was any irony in his heart, his tongue did not show it. Indeed
+his manner betrayed little. Immobility had again replaced all tokens of
+anger, and immobility which only yielded now and then to a slight
+contortion more expressive of physical pain than of mental agitation.
+Yet in Georgian's eyes he had lost none of his formidable qualities, for
+the dismay with which she followed his words grew as she listened, and
+reached its height as he added in final explanation:</p>
+
+<p>"The bag I did draw out of the pool, but only because I had taken it down
+there in my blouse front. Did you think a man could see that or anything
+else indeed in that maddening swirl of water?"</p>
+
+<p>"But it was Mrs. Ransom's bag," came from Harper in ill-disguised
+amazement. Even his sang-froid was leaving him before these evidences
+of a plot so deep as to awaken awe. "Where did you get it? Not from Mrs.
+Ransom herself? Her own surprise is warranty for that."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I got it from the river, another reason why I credited her drowning.
+It was fished up from the sand, a little way from the Fall. My man found
+it; I had sent him there in a vain hope that he might find evidence of
+the tragedy which others had overlooked. He did, but he told no one but
+me. You flung the thing too far," he remarked to Georgian. "You should
+have dropped it nearer the bank. Only such a prodder as my man Ives would
+ever have discovered it."</p>
+
+<p>Georgian shook her head, impatient at such banalities, in the face of the
+important matters they had to discuss. "To the point," she cried, "tell
+these men what will clear me of everything but a wild attempt at
+freedom."</p>
+
+<p>"I have said what I had to say," returned her brother.</p>
+
+<p>Georgian's head fell. For a moment her courage seemed to fail her.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harper rose and locked the door.</p>
+
+<p>"We must have no intruders here," said he, pausing with a certain sense
+of shock, as he noticed the faint smile, full of some sinister meaning,
+which for an instant twisted Hazen's lips at these words.</p>
+
+<p>But the delay was but momentary. With an odd sense of haste he rushed at
+once to the attack.</p>
+
+<p>Stepping in front of Hazen, he observed with force and unmistakable
+resolution:</p>
+
+<p>"Your devotion to the legatee Auchincloss cannot possibly be explained by
+any ordinary feeling of obligation. Your sister has mentioned a Cause.
+Can he by any possibility be the treasurer of that Cause?"</p>
+
+<p>But Hazen was as impervious to direct attack as he had been to a covert
+one.</p>
+
+<p>"Georgian will tell you," said he. "When a woman looks as she looks now,
+and is so given over to her own personal longings that she forgets the
+most serious oaths, the most binding promises, nothing can hold back her
+speech. She will talk, and since this must be, let her talk now and in
+my presence. But let it be briefly," he admonished her, "and with
+discretion. An unnecessary word will weigh heavily in the end. You know
+in what scales. You shall have just fifteen minutes."</p>
+
+<p>He looked about for a clock, but seeing none drew out his watch from his
+vest pocket and laid it on the table. Then he settled himself again in
+his chair, with a look and gesture of imperative command towards
+Georgian.</p>
+
+<p>Struck with dismay, she hesitated and he had time to add: "I shall not
+interrupt unless you pass the bounds where narrative ends and disclosure
+begins." And Harper and Ransom, glancing up at this, wondered at his
+rigidity and the almost marble-like quiet into which his restless eye and
+frenzied movements had now subsided.</p>
+
+<p>Georgian seemed to wonder also, for she gave him a long and piercing look
+before she spoke. But once she had begun her story, she forgot to look
+anywhere but at the man whose forgiveness she sought and for the
+restoration of whose sympathy she was unconsciously pleading.</p>
+
+<p>Her first words settled one point which up to this moment had disturbed
+Ransom greatly.</p>
+
+<p>"You must forget Anitra's story. It was suggested by facts in my own
+life, but it was not true of me or mine in any of its particulars.
+Nor must you remember what the world knows, or what my relations say
+about my life. The open facts tell little of my real history, which
+from childhood to the day I believed my brother dead was indissolubly
+bound up in his. Though our fathers were not the same and he has
+old-world blood in his veins, while I am of full American stock, we loved
+each other as dearly and shared each other's life as intimately as if the
+bond between us had been one in blood as it was in taste and habit. This
+was when we were both young. Later, a change came. Some old papers of his
+father fell into his hands. A new vision of life,&mdash;sympathies quite
+remote from those which had hitherto engrossed him, led him further and
+further into strange ways and among strange companions. Ignorant of what
+it all meant, but more alive than ever to his influence, I blindly
+followed him, receiving his friends as my friends and subscribing to such
+of their convictions as they thought wise to express before me. Another
+year and he and I were living a life apart, owning no individual
+existence but devoting brain, heart, all we had and all we were, to the
+advancement and perpetuation of an idea. I have called this idea the
+Cause. Let that name suffice. I can give you no other."</p>
+
+<p>Pausing, she waited for some look of comprehension from the man she
+sought to enlighten. But he was yet too dazed to respond to her mute
+appeal, and she was forced to continue without it. Indicating Hazen with
+a gesture, she said, with her eyes still fixed on those of her husband:</p>
+
+<p>"You see him now as he came from under the harrow; but in those days&mdash;I
+must speak of you as you were, Alfred&mdash;he was a man to draw all eyes and
+win all hearts. Men loved him, women adored him. Little as he cared for
+our sex, he had but to speak, for the coldest breast to heave, the most
+indifferent eye to beam. I felt his power as strong as the rest, only
+differently. No woman was more his slave than I, but it was a sister's
+devotion I felt, a devotion capable of being supplanted by another. But I
+did not know this. I thought him my whole world and let him engross me in
+his plans and share his passions for subjects I did not even seek to
+understand.</p>
+
+<p>"I was only seventeen, he twenty-five. It was for him to think, not me.
+And he did think but to my eternal undoing. The Cause needed a woman's
+help, a woman's enthusiasm. Without considering my motherless condition,
+my helplessness, the immaturity of my mind, he drew me day by day into
+the secret meshes of his great scheme, a scheme which, as I failed to
+understand till it had absorbed me, meant the unequivocal devotion of my
+whole life to the exclusion of every other hope or purpose. Favored, he
+called it, favored to stand for liberty, the advancement of men, the
+right of every human being to an untrammeled existence. And favored I
+thought myself, till one awful day when my brother, coming suddenly into
+my room, found me making plans for an innocent pleasure and told me such
+things were no longer for me, that a great and immortal duty awaited me,
+one that had come sooner than he expected, but which my youth, beauty,
+and spirit eminently fitted me to carry on to triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"I was frightened. For the first time in my memory of him he looked like
+his Italian father, the man we had all tried to forget. Once while
+rummaging amongst my mother's treasures I had come across a miniature of
+Signor Toritti. He was a handsome man but there was something terrible in
+his eye; something to make the ordinary heart stand still. Alfred's
+burned with the same meaning at this moment, and as I noted his manner,
+which was elevated, almost godlike, I realized the difference in our
+heredity and how natural to him were the sacrifices for which my mind and
+temper were as naturally unprepared. With difficulty I asked him to
+explain himself, and it was with terror that I listened when he did.
+He may have been made to ask, but I was not made to hear such words. He
+saw my inner rebellion and stopped in mid-harangue. He has never forgiven
+me the disappointment of that moment. I have never forgiven him for
+making me sign away my independence, my holdings, and my life to a Cause
+I did not thoroughly understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Your life?" echoed Ransom, roused to involuntary expression by this
+word.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely not your life," echoed the lawyer, with the slow credulity of the
+matter-of-fact man.</p>
+
+<p>"I have said it," she murmured, her head falling on her breast. At which
+token of weakness, Hazen stirred and took the words from her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"The organization," said he, "is a secret one and its code is
+self-sacrifice. To the band of noble men and women, of whose integrity
+and far-reaching purpose you can judge little from the whinings of a
+love-sick girl, life and all personal gratifications are as dust in the
+balance against the preservation and advancement of universal happiness
+and the great Cause. I thought my sister, young as she was, sufficiently
+great-minded to comprehend this and sufficiently great-hearted to do the
+society's bidding with joy at the sacrifice. But I found her lacking,
+and&mdash;" He stopped and almost lost himself again, but roused and cried
+with sudden fire, "Tell what I did, Georgian."</p>
+
+<p>"You took my duty on yourself," she conceded, but coldly. "That was
+brotherly; that was noble, if you had not exacted a vow from me in
+return, destined to lay waste my whole life. Released from this one great
+duty, I was to hold myself ready to fulfil all others. At the lift of a
+hand&mdash;a finger&mdash;I was to leave whatever held me and go after the one who
+beckoned in the name of the Cause. No circumstances were to be
+considered; no other human duty or affection. If it were to enter upon a
+fuller and more adventurous life, well and good; if it were to encounter
+death and the cessation of all earthly things, that was well too, and a
+good to be embraced with ardor. Obedience was all, and obedience at a
+mere signal! I took the oath and then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, <i>then</i>&mdash;" emphasized Hazen in wavering but peremptory tones.</p>
+
+<p>"He told me what had led to all this misery. That as yet this compact was
+between us two, and us two only. That he had considered my youth, and in
+speaking of me to the Chief had held back my name even while promising
+my assistance. That he should continue to consider it, by keeping my name
+in reserve till he had returned from his mission, and if that mission
+failed, or succeeded too well, and he did not return, I might regard
+myself as freed from the Cause, unless my enlarging nature led me to
+attach myself to it of my own free will. That said, he went, and for a
+year I lived under the dread of his return and all the obligations that
+return would entail. Then came tidings of his death, tidings for which he
+may not have been responsible, but which he never contradicted, and I
+thought myself free&mdash;free to enjoy life, and the fortune that had so
+unexpectedly come to me; free to love and, alas! free to marry. And that
+is why," she pursued, in all the anguish of a dreadful retrospect, "I
+recoiled in such horror and hung, a dead weight on your arm, when on
+turning from the altar where we had just pledged ourselves to mutual love
+and mutual life, I saw among the faces before me the changed but still
+recognizable one of my brother, and beheld him make the fatal sign which
+meant, 'You are wanted. Come at once.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Wretch!" issued from the frenzied lips of the half-maddened bridegroom,
+as his glance flashed on Hazen. "Had you no mercy? Have you no mercy now,
+that you should torture her young, credulous soul with these fanciful
+obligations; obligations which no human being has any right to impose
+upon another, whatsoever the Cause, holy or unholy, he represents?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy? It is the weakness of the easy soul. There is no ease here," he
+cried, touching his breast with no gentle hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you forget my money," suggested Georgian. "Can you expect mercy
+from a man who sees a million just within his grasp? I know," she
+acknowledged, as Hazen lifted that same ungentle hand in haughty protest,
+"that it was not for himself. I do not think Alfred would disturb a fly
+for his own comfort, but he would wreck a woman's hopes, a good man's
+happiness for the Cause. He admitted as much to me, <i>and more</i>, in the
+interview we held that afternoon at the St. Denis. I had to go to him at
+once, and I had to employ subterfuge in order to do so," she went on in
+rapid explanation, as she saw her husband's eye refill with doubt under a
+remembrance of the shame and anguish of that unhappy afternoon. "I had
+not the courage to leave you openly at the carriage door. Besides, I
+hoped to work on Alfred's pity in our interview together, or, if not
+that, to buy my release and return to you a free woman. But the wound
+which had changed his face for me had changed and made hard his heart. He
+had other purposes for me than quiet living with a man who could have no
+real interest in the Cause. The money I inherited, the rare and growing
+beauty which he declared me to have, were too valuable to the brethren
+for me to hope for any existence in which their interests were not
+paramount. I might return to you, subject to the same authoritative beck
+and call which had put me in my present position, or I might leave you at
+once and forever. No half measures were possible. Was I, a bride, loving
+and beloved by my husband, to listen to either of these alternatives? I
+rebelled, and then the thunderbolt fell.</p>
+
+<p>"I was no longer on probation, no longer subject to his will alone. I was
+a fully affiliated member. That day my name had been sent to the Chief.
+This meant obedience on my part or a vengeance I felt it impossible to
+consider. While I lived I need never hope again for freedom without
+penalty.</p>
+
+<p>"'While I lived'; the words rang in my ears. I did not need to weigh
+them; I knew that they were words of truth. There is no power on earth
+so inescapable as that exercised by a secret society, and this one has
+a terrible safeguard. None but he who keeps the list knows the members.
+You, Roger, might be one, and I never suspect it, unless you chose to
+give me the sign. Knowing this, I realized that my life was not worth the
+purchase if I sought to cross the will of my own brother. Nor yours,
+either. It was the last thought which held me. While I dutifully
+listened, my mind was working out the deception which was to release me,
+and when I left him it was to take the first step in the complicated plot
+by which I hoped to recover my lost happiness. And I nearly succeeded.
+You have seen what I have borne, what difficulties I have faced, what
+discoveries eluded, but this last, this greatest ordeal, was too much. I
+could not listen unmoved to a description of my own drowned body. I, who
+had calculated on all, had not calculated on this. The horror overcame
+me&mdash;I forgot&mdash;perhaps because God was weary of my many deceptions!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>"THERE IS ONE WAY"</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Have you done?"</p>
+
+<p>Hazen was on his feet and, rigid still, but oscillating from side to
+side, as though his strength did not suffice to hold him quite erect, was
+surveying them with eyes sunk so deeply in his head that they looked like
+dying sparks reanimated for an instant by some passing breath.</p>
+
+<p>The half-fainting woman he addressed did not answer. She was looking up
+at Ransom for the sympathy and pardon he was as yet too dazed to show.</p>
+
+<p>Hazen made a move. It was that of physical suffering sternly endured.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me speak," he urged. "I have a question to ask. I must ask it now.
+Who was the woman who came up from New York with you? There were two of
+you then."</p>
+
+<p>Without turning her head Georgian replied:</p>
+
+<p>"That was Bela, my maid; the same one who personated me on the afternoon
+of my wedding."</p>
+
+<p>"That accounts for the coarseness of her neck," Hazen explained with a
+certain grim humor to the lawyer, who had given a slight start of
+surprise or humiliation. Then quietly to Georgian:</p>
+
+<p>"Was it she who threw the comb and dropped your bag where my man found
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I threw the comb; threw it from my window before I uttered that loud
+shriek. It did not go very far; but I had to be satisfied with the fact
+that it lay in the direction of the waterfall. But it was to Bela I
+entrusted the flinging of the bag. I gave it to her when she left the
+coach. I had explained to her long before just what a place she would
+find herself in when she was set down at the foot of the lane; how she
+was to make her way in the darkness till she came to where there were
+no more trees, when she was to strike across to the stream, led by the
+noise of the waterfall. I was very particular in my directions, because I
+knew the danger she incurred of slipping into the chasm. It was her fear
+of this and the more than ordinary darkness, I presume, which made her
+throw the bag hap-hazard. I simply wanted it dropped on the bank above
+the waterfall."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the girl," Mr. Harper broke in. "She wore a black skirt like the
+one you now wear, a black blouse and a red-checked handkerchief knotted
+about her throat. But the young woman who was seen leaving these parts
+the next morning had on some kind of a red dress and wore a hat. Bela had
+thrown away her hat; it was picked up where the coach stopped and
+afterwards brought here."</p>
+
+<p>"I know. My plans went deep; I foresaw the possibility of her being
+recognized by her clothes. To guard against this, I had her skirt and
+blouse made double, the one side black, the other a bright color. She had
+simply to turn them. The extra hat she carried with her; it was small and
+easily concealed. Her neckerchief she probably tucked away. I had its
+mate in my pocket, and when I left my room by the window, as I did the
+moment after I had locked the two rooms, it was with my hair pulled down
+and this neckerchief about my shoulders. How did I dare the risk! I
+wonder now; but it was life, life I was after; life and love; nothing
+else would have made me so fearless; nothing else would have given me
+such confidence in myself or lent such speed to my feet, running as I did
+in the darkness."</p>
+
+<p>"You ran around the house to the lane, and entered it by the turn-stile."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and so quickly that I had time to splash myself with mud and lose
+all my natural characteristics before any one came to find me. It was
+Anitra they met, panting and disheveled, at the head of the lane; Anitra
+in appearance, Anitra in heart. I did not act a part; I <i>was</i> Anitra;
+Anitra as I had conceived her. To me she was and is an active, living
+personality. Whenever I faced you in her character, I thought with her
+half-educated mind; felt with her half-disciplined heart. I even shut my
+ears to sounds; I would not hear; half the time I did not. Nor did I fall
+back into my old ways when I was alone. From the minute Georgian closed
+her door upon you for the last time, and I darkened my skin in
+preparation for a permanent assumption of Anitra's individuality, I
+became the imaginary twin, in thought, feeling, and action. It was my
+only safeguard. Alas! had I only gone one step further and made myself
+really deaf!"</p>
+
+<p>The cry was bitterness itself, but it passed unheeded. Mr. Ransom could
+not speak and Hazen had other cares in mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is this woman Bela now?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Georgian was too absorbed or too unwilling, to answer.</p>
+
+<p>He repeated the question, this time with an authority she could not
+resist. Rising slowly, she faced him for one impressive moment.</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" came from her lips in startled surprise. "How pale you are! Sit
+down or you will fall."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing. Answer my question. Where is this Bela now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. She is beyond my reach&mdash;and <i>yours</i>. I told her to lose
+herself. I think she is clever enough to do so. The money I paid her was
+worth a few years spent in obscurity."</p>
+
+<p>The spark lighting his eye brightened into baleful flame, but she met
+it calmly. An indomitable spirit confronted one equally indomitable, and
+his was the first to succumb. Turning from her, Hazen took out pencil
+and paper from his pocket, and, crossing to the window with that same
+peculiar and oscillating motion of which he seemed unconscious, or which
+he found it impossible to subdue, he wrote a line, folded it, and before
+even Harper was aware of his purpose threw up the sash and flung it out,
+uttering a quick, sharp whistle as he did so.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that you're up to?" shouted the lawyer, rushing to the window and
+peering over the other's shoulder into the open space below, from which a
+man was just disappearing.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I a prisoner of the police that you should ask me that?" returned
+Hazen, haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>"No, but you should be," retorted Harper. "I don't like your ways, Hazen.
+I don't like what you and your sister have said about the Cause and the
+conscienceless obedience exacted from its members. I don't like any of
+it; least of all this passing over of poor Bela's name to one whose duty
+it will possibly be to make trouble for her."</p>
+
+<p>Hazen smiled and moved from the window. No one there had ever seen such a
+smile before, and the oppression which it brought heightened Georgian's
+fear to terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Let be!" she cried, lifting her hands towards Harper in inconceivable
+anxiety. "A quarrel with him will not help you and it may greatly injure
+<i>me</i>. Alfred, what am I to expect? Something dreadful, I can see. Your
+face is not the face of one who forgives, or who sees in a gift of money
+an adequate recompense for a cowardly withdrawal."</p>
+
+<p>"You read rightly," said he. "Your fortune will be accepted by the Chief,
+but he will never forget the cowardice. What faith can he put in one who
+prefers her own happiness to the general good? You must prepare for
+punishment."</p>
+
+<p>"Punishment!" broke scornfully from Harper's lips.</p>
+
+<p>She hushed him with a look before which even he stood aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"You will only waste words," she cried. "If he says punishment, I may
+expect punishment." And turning back to Ransom, in a burst of longing and
+passion, she raised her eyes to him again, saying, "You do not forgive
+because you do not realize my danger. But you will realize it when I am
+gone."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom, under a sudden releasement of the tension of doubt and awe which
+had hitherto held him speechless, gave her one wild stare, then caught
+her to his breast.</p>
+
+<p>She uttered a happy sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" she murmured in the soft ecstasy and boundless relief of the
+moment, "how I have learned to love you during the fears and agonies
+of this awful week."</p>
+
+<p>"And I you," was the whispered answer. "Too deeply," he impetuously added
+in louder tones, "to let any harm come to you now."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled; but desperation fought with love in that smile. Gently
+releasing herself, she cast another glance at Hazen, upon whose gray
+and distorted countenance there had settled a great gloom, and
+passionately exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"Had law or love been able to interfere with the judgment of our Chief, I
+should not have been driven into the herculean task of deceiving you and
+the whole world as to my real identity." Then with slowly drooping head,
+and the manner of one who has heard his doom pronounced, she hoarsely
+whispered; "The death-mark was scrawled upon my door last night. This is
+never done without the consent of the Chief. No one can save me now, not
+even my own brother."</p>
+
+<p>"False. I scrawled those lines," declared Ransom. "It was a test&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Which <i>I</i> commanded you to make," put in Hazen. Then in fainter and less
+strenuous tones, "She's right. Georgian Ransom is doomed; no one can save
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"False again!" This time it was Harper who interposed. "I can and will.
+You forget that I know the name of your Chief. Conspiracy such as you
+hint at is indictable in this country. I am a lawyer. I shall protect,
+not only your sister, but her money."</p>
+
+<p>The smile he received in return evinced no ordinary scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"Try it," said he. Then with a laugh so low as to be almost inaudible,
+yet so full of meaning that even Harper's cheek lost color, he calmly
+declared: "No one knows the name of our Chief. Auchincloss is a member
+and a valuable one&mdash;the only one whose name Georgian positively knows;
+but he's but a unit in a thousand. You cannot reach the Head or even the
+Heart of this great organization through him, and if you did and punished
+it, the Cause would grow another head and you would be as far from
+injuring us as you are now. Georgian is right. Not even I can save her
+now." Then, with a steady look into each of their faces, he smiled again
+and one and all shuddered. "But the Cause will go on," he cried in tones
+ringing with enthusiasm. "Mankind will drop its shackles and we, we shall
+have unriveted one of its chains. It is worth dying for, I, Alfred Hazen,
+say it."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he sank back into his chair. The pallor which had astounded all
+from the first had now become the ghastly mask of a soul whose only token
+of life glimmered through the orbits of his fast glazing eyes. He
+breathed, but in great pants. Georgian became alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" she cried, forgetting her own fears and threats in the
+horror which his appearance excited. "This is something more than
+exhaustion from the pounding of that murderous eddy. What have you done?
+Tell me, Alfred, tell me."</p>
+
+<p>For the first time since his entrance into the room a suggestion of
+sweetness crept into his tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Simply forestalled the verdict of the Chief," said he. "I was under oath
+to leave the country to-day on no ordinary errand. I failed to keep my
+word, believing that the interests of the Cause could be better served by
+what I have here undertaken than by the fulfilment of my primal duty. But
+we are not allowed the free exercise of our own judgment, else what man
+could be depended on? With us, neglect means death, no matter what the
+excuse or the Cause's benefit. I knew this when I made my choice last
+night. I have been dying ever since, but only actually since I came into
+this room. When the doctors decided that I had received no mortal hurt in
+the eddy, I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Alfred!" The sister-heart spoke at last. "Not&mdash;not poison!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what you may call it here," said he, with a return to his old
+imperious manner, "but later and to the world it will be kindness on your
+part to name it exhaustion&mdash;the effect of my battle with the water. The
+doctors will reconsider their diagnosis and blame my poor heart. You will
+have no trouble about it. It <i>is</i> my heart&mdash;I feel it failing&mdash;failing&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was sinking, but suddenly his whole nature flared up. Bounding to his
+feet, he stood before them, with eyes aflame and a passionate strength in
+his attitude which held them spellbound.</p>
+
+<p>"What can law, what can selfish greed, what can self-aggrandizement and
+the most pitiless ambition effect against men who own to such discipline
+as this? Nothing. The world will go on, you will try your little ways,
+your petty reforms, your slow-moving legislation and promise of justice
+to the weak, but the invincible is the ready; ready to act; ready to
+suffer, ready to die so that God is justified of his children and man
+lifted into brotherhood and equality. You cannot strive against the
+unseen and the fearless. The Cause will triumph though all else fails.
+Georgian, I am sorry&mdash;" He was tottering now, but he held them back
+with a stern gesture, "I don't think I ever knew just what love was.
+There is one way&mdash;only one&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But from those lips the explanation of this one way never came. As they
+saw the change in him and rushed to his support, his head fell forward on
+his breast and all was over.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>NOT YET</h3>
+
+
+<p>They had laid him on the bed and Mr. Harper, in his usual practical way,
+was hastening to rouse the house, when Georgian stepped before him and
+laid her hand upon the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," said she with authority. "He said there was a way&mdash;let us find
+it before we give up our secret and our possible safety. Mr. Harper, have
+you guessed that way?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, except the usual one of protection through the law which he scouts.
+I do not believe, Mrs. Ransom, in any other being necessary. Your
+brother's threats answered a very good purpose while he was alive, but
+now that he is dead they need not trouble you. I'm not even sure that I
+believe in the organization. It was mostly in your brother's brain, Mrs.
+Ransom; there's no such band, or if there is, its powers are not so
+unlimited as he would make you believe."</p>
+
+<p>She simply pointed to the motionless form and the distorted face which
+were slowly assuming an expression of great majesty.</p>
+
+<p>"There is my answer," said she. "Men of his strong attributes do not kill
+themselves from fancy. He knew what he did."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That I will not live a week if I pass that door under the name of
+Georgian Ransom. Mr. Harper, I am sure of it; Roger, I beg you to believe
+what I say. It may not come here&mdash;but it will come. The mark has been set
+against my name. Death only will obliterate this mark. But the name&mdash;that
+is already a dead one&mdash;shall it not stay so?&mdash;It is the one way&mdash;the way
+he meant."</p>
+
+<p>"Georgian!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a cry of infinite protest. Such a cry as one might expect from the
+long-suffering Ransom. It drew her from the door; it brought her to his
+side. As their eyes and hands met, Harper stepped back to the bedside,
+and remembering the sensitiveness of the man before him, softly covered
+his poor face. When he turned back, Mrs. Ransom was slowly shaking her
+head under her husband's prolonged look and saying softly:</p>
+
+<p>"No, not Georgian, Anitra. Henceforth Anitra, always Anitra. Can you
+endure the ordeal for the sake of the safety and peace of mind it will
+bring?"</p>
+
+<p>"I endure it! Can you? Remember the deafness that marks Anitra."</p>
+
+<p>"That can be cured." Her smile turned almost arch. "We will travel; there
+are great physicians abroad."</p>
+
+<p>"A sister&mdash;not a wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your wife in time&mdash;Ah, it will mean a new courtship and&mdash;Anitra is a
+different woman from Georgian&mdash;she has suffered&mdash;you will love her
+better."</p>
+
+<p>"O God! Harper, are we living, awake, sane? Help me at this crisis. I do
+not know where I am or what this is she really asks."</p>
+
+<p>"She asks the impossible. She asks what you can, perhaps, give, but not
+what I can. You forget that this deception calls for connivance on my
+part, and whatever you may think of me or my profession, deception is
+foreign to my nature and very repugnant to me."</p>
+
+<p>"And you refuse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Ransom, I must."</p>
+
+<p>The hope which had held her up, the life which had returned to body and
+spirit since this prospect of a possible future had dawned upon her,
+faded from glance and smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Then good-by, Roger, we shall never have those happy days together of
+which we have often dreamt. I may stay with you a week, a month, a year,
+but the horror of a great fear will be over us, and never, never can we
+know joy."</p>
+
+<p>She threw herself into her husband's arms; she clung to him.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment," she cried, "one moment of perfect happiness before the
+shadow falls. Oh, how I must love you, Roger, to say such words, to think
+such thoughts, with the body of the brother I loved so deeply once, lying
+there dead before us, killed by his own hand."</p>
+
+<p>Ransom softly drew her aside where her eyes could not fall upon the bed.</p>
+
+<p>Harper stopped still where he was, the picture of gloom and uncertainty.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be settled now," said Ransom. "As we leave this room, our
+relations must remain."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot but think your fears all folly," muttered Harper. "Yet the
+responsibility you force upon me is terrible. If it were not for that
+will! How can I present it to the Surrogate when I know the testator is
+still alive?"</p>
+
+<p>"You need not. I will do that," said Ransom.</p>
+
+<p>"And the property! Given to a man we none of us know. Property that is
+not legally his."</p>
+
+<p>"I will make it so," cried Georgian with a burst of new and
+uncontrollable hope as she saw, as she thought, this conscientious lawyer
+yielding. "There is paper here; draw up a deed of gift. I will sign it
+and you shall hold it so that whether I live or die, Auchincloss' title
+to his money shall be absolute. Thus much I wish to do, that Alfred's
+life should not have been sacrificed for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me think."</p>
+
+<p>Harper was wavering.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A half-hour later the door of Ransom's room was flung hurriedly open, and
+loud cries for Mrs. Deo and the office clerk rang through the house. And
+when they and others came running at the call, it was to find Mr. Ransom
+and the lawyer hanging over the recumbent figure of the dead Hazen, and
+the deaf girl Anitra pointing at the group, with wild and inarticulate
+cries.</p>
+
+
+<p>THE END</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2><a name="Works_by_Anna_Katharine_Green" id="Works_by_Anna_Katharine_Green"></a>Works by Anna Katharine Green</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>THE LEAVENWORTH CASE. A Lawyer's Story.</p>
+
+<p>"She has worked up a <i>cause c&eacute;l&egrave;bre</i> with a fertility of device and
+ingenuity of treatment hardly second to Wilkie Collins or Edgar
+Allan Poe."&mdash;<i>Christian Union</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE</p>
+
+<p>"A most ingenious and absorbingly interesting story. The
+readers are held spellbound until the last page."&mdash;<i>Cincinnati
+Commercial</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. A Story of New York Life.</p>
+
+<p>"'The Sword of Damocles' is a book of great power, which far
+surpasses either of its predecessors from her pen, and places her
+high among American writers. The plot is complicated and is
+managed adroitly.... In the delineation of characters she has
+shown both delicacy and vigor."&mdash;<i>Congregationalist</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>BEHIND CLOSED DOORS</p>
+
+<p>" ... She has never succeeded better in baffling the reader."&mdash;<i>Boston
+Christian Register</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>HARD AND RING</p>
+
+<p>"It is a tribute to the author's genius that she never tires and
+never loses her readers.... It moves on clean and healthy....
+It is worked out powerfully and skilfully."&mdash;<i>N. Y. Independent</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>THE MILL MYSTERY</p>
+
+
+<p>X. Y. Z. and 7 TO 12: DETECTIVE STORIES</p>
+
+<p>"Well written and extremely exciting and captivating.... She
+is a perfect genius in the construction of a plot."&mdash;<i>N. Y. Commercial
+Advertiser</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>THE OLD STONE HOUSE, AND OTHER STORIES</p>
+
+<p>"It is a bundle of quite cleverly constructed pieces of fiction, with
+which an idle hour may be pleasantly passed."&mdash;<i>N. Y. Independent</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>CYNTHIA WAKEHAM'S MONEY</p>
+
+<p>"'Cynthia Wakeham's Money' is a story notable even among the
+many vigorous works of Anna Katharine Green."&mdash;<i>New York Sun</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>MARKED "PERSONAL."</p>
+
+<p>"The ingenious plot is built up with all the skill of the writer of
+'The Leavenworth Case' to the very last chapter, which contains
+the surprising solutions of several mysteries."</p>
+
+
+<p>MISS HURD: AN ENIGMA</p>
+
+<p>"A strong and interesting novel in an entirely new field of romance."</p>
+
+
+<p>THE DOCTOR, HIS WIFE, AND THE CLOCK</p>
+
+<p>"The story is entertainingly told...."&mdash;<i>Cincinnati Tribune</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>DR. IZARD</p>
+
+<p>"Those who have read her other books will not need to be urged
+to read this; they will be eager to do so, and we assure them a very
+interesting story."&mdash;<i>Boston Times</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR</p>
+
+<p>"Startling in its ingenuity and its wonderful plot."&mdash;<i>Buffalo
+Enquirer</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>LOST MAN'S LANE</p>
+
+
+<p>AGATHA WEBB</p>
+
+
+<p>ONE OF MY SONS</p>
+
+
+<p>THE DEFENCE OF THE BRIDE, AND OTHER POEMS</p>
+
+
+<p>RISIFI'S DAUGHTER</p>
+
+
+<p>THE FILIGREE BALL</p>
+
+
+<p>THE MILLIONAIRE BABY</p>
+
+
+<p>THE AMETHYST BOX</p>
+
+
+<p>THE HOUSE IN THE MIST</p>
+
+
+<p>THE WOMAN IN THE ALCOVE</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHIEF LEGATEE***</p>
+<p>******* This file should be named 17999-h.txt or 17999-h.zip *******</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Chief Legatee, by Anna Katharine Green,
+Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Chief Legatee
+
+
+Author: Anna Katharine Green
+
+
+
+Release Date: March 18, 2006  [eBook #17999]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHIEF LEGATEE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 17999-h.htm or 17999-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/9/9/17999/17999-h/17999-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/9/9/17999/17999-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CHIEF LEGATEE
+
+by
+
+ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
+
+Author of
+"The Leavenworth Case," "The Woman in the Alcove," Etc., Etc.
+
+Illustrated in Water-Colors by Frank T. Merrill
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1906, by Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs
+Weinstock, Lubin & Co.
+Special Edition,
+400 to 418 K. Street, Sacramento, Cal.
+New York and London
+The Authors and Newspapers Association
+1906
+Copyright, 1906, by
+Anna Katharine Green Rohlfs
+Entered at Stationers' Hall.
+All rights reserved.
+Composition, Electrotyping,
+Printing and Binding by
+The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A young girl sitting on a low stool by the window mending
+a rent in her skirt.]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PART I.--A WOMAN OF MYSTERY
+
+CHAPTER
+
+     I. A Bride of Five Hours
+
+    II. The Lady in Number Three
+
+   III. "He Knows the Word"
+
+    IV. Mr. Ransom Waits
+
+     V. In Corridor and in Room
+
+    VI. The Lawyer
+
+   VII. Rain
+
+  VIII. Elimination
+
+    IX. Hunter's Inn
+
+
+PART II.--THE CALL OF THE WATERFALL
+
+     X. Two Doors
+
+    XI. Half-Past One in the Morning
+
+   XII. "Georgian"
+
+  XIII. Where the Mill Stream Runs Fiercest
+
+   XIV. A Detective's Work
+
+    XV. Anitra
+
+   XVI. "Love"
+
+  XVII. "I Don't Hear"
+
+
+PART III.--MONEY
+
+ XVIII. God's Forest, Then Man's
+
+   XIX. In Mrs. Deo's Room
+
+    XX. Between the Elderberry Bushes
+
+   XXI. On the Cars
+
+  XXII. A Suspicious Test
+
+ XXIII. A Startling Decision
+
+  XXIV. The Devil's Cauldron
+
+
+PART IV.--THE MAN OF MYSTERY
+
+   XXV. Death Eddy
+
+  XXVI. Hazen
+
+ XXVII. She Speaks
+
+XXVIII. Fifteen Minutes
+
+  XXIX. "There is One Way"
+
+   XXX. Not Yet
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+A young girl sitting on a low stool by the window mending a rent in her
+skirt (_Frontispiece_)
+
+"I cut them letters there fifteen years ago. Now I'm to cut 'em out"
+
+"A slight, dark form steals from the shadows and lays a hand on the
+stooping man's shoulder"
+
+"Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast of death, but they
+will be disappointed"
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Facsimile Page of Manuscript from THE LEAVENWORTH CASE
+
+"Yes, sir,"
+
+Might even have entered
+his room late at night,
+crossed it and stood at his
+side, without disturbing him
+sufficiently to cause him to
+turn his head?
+
+"Yes," her hands pressing
+themselves painfully together.
+
+"Miss Leavenworth, the key
+to the library door is missing."
+
+She made no answer.
+
+"It has been testified to,
+that previous to the actual
+discovery of the murder,
+you visited the door of the
+library above. Will you tell
+us if the key to the door
+was there in the lock?"
+
+"It was not."
+
+Anna K. Green Rohlfs]
+
+
+
+
+THE CHIEF LEGATEE
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+A Woman of Mystery
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A BRIDE OF FIVE HOURS
+
+
+"What's up?"
+
+This from the manager of the Hotel ---- to his chief clerk. "Something
+wrong in Room 81?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I've just sent for a detective. You were not to be found and
+the gentleman is desperate. But very anxious to have it all kept quiet;
+very anxious. I think we can oblige him there, or, at least, we'll try.
+Am I right, sir?"
+
+"Of course, if--"
+
+"Oh! it's nothing criminal. The lady's missing, that's all; the lady
+whose name you see here."
+
+The register lay open between them; the clerk's finger, running along the
+column, rested about half-way down.
+
+The manager bent over the page.
+
+"'Roger J. Ransom and wife,'" he read out in decided astonishment. "Why,
+they are--"
+
+"You're right. Married to-day in Grace Church. A great wedding; the
+papers are full of it. Well, she's the lady. They registered here a few
+minutes before five o'clock and in ten minutes the bride was missing.
+It's a queer story Mr. Ransom tells. You'd better hear it. Ah, there's
+our man! Perhaps you'll go up with him."
+
+"You may bet your last dollar on that," muttered the manager. And joining
+the new-comer, he made a significant gesture which was all that passed
+between them till they stepped out on the second floor.
+
+"Wanted in Room 81?" the manager now asked.
+
+"Yes, by a man named Ransom."
+
+"Just so. That's the door. Knock--or, rather, I'll knock, for I must hear
+his story as soon as you do. The reputation of the hotel--"
+
+"Yes, yes, but the gentleman's waiting. Ah! that's better."
+
+The manager had just knocked.
+
+An exclamation from within, a hurried step, and the door fell open. The
+figure which met their eyes was startling. Distress, anxiety, and an
+impatience almost verging on frenzy, distorted features naturally amiable
+if not handsome.
+
+"My wife," fell in a gasp from his writhing lips.
+
+"We have come to help you find her," Mr. Gerridge calmly assured him. Mr.
+Gerridge was the detective. "Relate the circumstances, sir. Tell us where
+you were when you first missed her."
+
+Mr. Ransom's glance wandered past him to the door. It was partly open.
+The manager, whose name was Loomis, hastily closed it. Mr. Ransom showed
+relief and hurried into his story. It was to this effect:
+
+"I was married to-day in Grace Church. At the altar my bride--you
+probably know her name, Miss Georgian Hazen--wore a natural look, and was
+in all respects, so far as any one could see, a happy woman, satisfied
+with her choice and pleased with the eclat and elegancies of the
+occasion. Half-way down the aisle this all changed. I remember the
+instant perfectly. Her hand was on my arm and I felt it suddenly stiffen.
+I was not alarmed, but I gave her a quick look and saw that something had
+happened. What, I could not at the moment determine. She didn't answer
+when I spoke to her and seemed to be mainly concerned in getting out of
+the church before her emotions overcame her. This she succeeded in doing
+with my help; and, once in the vestibule, recovered herself so
+completely, and met all my inquiries with such a gay shrug of the
+shoulders, that I should have passed the matter over as a mere attack of
+nerves, if I had not afterwards detected in her face, through all the
+hurry and excitement of the ensuing reception, a strained expression not
+at all natural to her. This was still more evident after the
+congratulations of a certain guest, who, I am sure, whispered to her
+before he passed on; and when the time came for her to go up-stairs she
+was so pale and unlike herself that I became seriously alarmed and asked
+if she felt well enough to start upon the journey we had meditated.
+Instantly her manner changed. She turned upon me with a look I have been
+trying ever since to explain to myself, and begged me not to take her out
+of town to-night but to some quiet hotel where we might rest for a few
+days before starting on our travels. She looked me squarely in the eye as
+she made this request and, seeing in her nothing more than a feverish
+anxiety lest I should make difficulties of some kind, I promised to do
+what she asked and bade her run away and get herself ready to go and say
+nothing to any one of our change of plan. She smiled and turned away
+towards her own room, but presently came hurrying back to ask if I would
+grant her one more favor. Would I be so good as not to speak to her or
+expect her to speak to me till we got to the hotel; she was feeling very
+nervous but was sure that a few minutes of complete rest would entirely
+restore her; something had occurred (she acknowledged this) which she
+wanted to think out; wouldn't I grant her this one opportunity of doing
+so? It was a startling request, but she looked so lovely--pardon me, I
+must explain my easy acquiescence--that I gave her the assurance she
+wished and went about my own preparations, somewhat disconcerted but
+still not at all prepared for what happened afterward. I had absolutely
+no idea that she meant to leave me."
+
+Mr. Ransom paused, greatly affected; but upon the detective asking him
+how and when Mrs. Ransom had deserted him, he controlled himself
+sufficiently to say:
+
+"Here; immediately after that silent and unnatural ride. She entered the
+office with me and was standing close at my side all the time I was
+writing our names in the register; but later, when I turned to ask her to
+enter the elevator with me, she was gone, and the boy who was standing by
+with our two bags said that she had slipped into the reception-room
+across the hall. But I didn't find her there or in any of the adjoining
+rooms. Nor has anybody since succeeded in finding her. She has left the
+building--left me, and--"
+
+"You want her back again?"
+
+This from the detective, but very dryly.
+
+"Yes. For she was not following her own inclinations in thus abandoning
+me so soon after the words which made us one were spoken. Some influence
+was brought to bear on her which she felt unable to resist. I have
+confidence enough in her to believe that. The rest is mystery--a mystery
+which I am forced to ask you to untangle. I have neither the necessary
+calmness nor experience myself."
+
+"But you surely have done something," protested Gerridge. "Telephoned to
+her late home or--"
+
+"Oh yes, I have done all that, but with no result. She has not returned
+to her old home. Her uncle has just been here and he is as much mystified
+by the whole occurrence as I am. He could tell me nothing, absolutely
+nothing."
+
+"Indeed! and the man, the one who whispered to her during the reception,
+couldn't you learn anything about him?"
+
+Mr. Ransom's face took on an expression almost ferocious.
+
+"No. He's a stranger to Mr. Fulton; yet Mr. Fulton's niece introduced him
+to me as a relative."
+
+"A relative? When was that?"
+
+"At the reception. He was introduced as Mr. Hazen (my wife's maiden name,
+you know), and when I saw how his presence disturbed her, I said to her,
+'A cousin of yours?' and she answered with very evident embarrassment, 'A
+relative';--which you must acknowledge didn't locate him very definitely.
+Mr. Fulton doesn't know of any such relative. And I don't believe he is
+a relative. He didn't sit with the rest of the family in the church."
+
+"Ah! you saw him in the church."
+
+"Yes. I noticed him for two reasons. First, because he occupied an end
+seat and so came directly under my eye in our passage down the aisle.
+Secondly, because his face of all those which confronted me when I looked
+for the cause of her sudden agitation, was the only one not turned
+towards her in curiosity or interest. His eyes were fixed and vacant; his
+only. That made him conspicuous and when I saw him again I knew him."
+
+"Describe the man."
+
+Mr. Ransom's face lightened up with an expression of strong satisfaction.
+
+"I am going to astonish you," said he. "The fellow is so plain that
+children must cry at him. He has suffered some injury and his mouth and
+jaw have such a twist in them that the whole face is thrown out of shape.
+So you see," continued the unhappy bridegroom, as his eyes flashed from
+the detective's face to that of the manager's, "that the influence he
+exerts over my wife is not that of love. No one could love _him_. The
+secret's of another kind. What kind, what, what, what? Find out and I'll
+pay you any amount you ask. She is too dear and of too sensitive a
+temperament to be subject to a wretch of his appearance. I cannot bear
+the thought. It stifles, it chokes me; and yet for three hours I've had
+to endure it. Three hours! and with no prospect of release unless you--"
+
+"Oh, I'll do something," was Gerridge's bland reply. "But first I must
+have a few more facts. A man such as you describe should be easy to find;
+easier than the lady. Is he a tall man?"
+
+"Unusually so."
+
+"Dark or light?"
+
+"Dark."
+
+"Any beard?"
+
+"None. That's why the injury to his jaw shows so plainly."
+
+"I see. Is he what you would call a gentleman?"
+
+"Yes, I must acknowledge that. He shows the manners of good society, if
+he did whisper words into my wife's ear which were not meant for mine."
+
+"And Mr. Fulton knows nothing of him?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Well, we'll drop him for the present. You have a photograph of your
+wife?"
+
+"Her picture was in all the papers to-night."
+
+"I noticed. But can we go by it? Does it resemble her?"
+
+"Only fairly. She is far prettier. My wife is something uncommon. No
+picture ever does her justice."
+
+"She looks like a dark beauty. Is her hair black or brown?"
+
+"Black. So black it has purple shades in it."
+
+"And her eyes? Black too?"
+
+"No, gray. A deep gray, which look black owing to her long lashes."
+
+"Very good. Now about her dress. Describe it as minutely as you can. It
+was a bride's traveling costume, I suppose."
+
+"Yes. That is, I presume so. I know that it was all right and suitable to
+the occasion, but I don't remember much about it. I was thinking too much
+of the woman in the gown to notice the gown itself."
+
+"Cannot you tell the color?"
+
+"It was a dark one. I'm sure it was a dark one, but colors are not much
+in my line. I know she looked well--they can tell you about it at the
+house. All that I distinctly remember is the veil she had wound so
+tightly around her face and hat to keep the rice out of her hair that
+I could not get one glimpse of her features. All nonsense that veil,
+especially when I had promised not to address her or even to touch her
+in the cab. And she wore it into the office. If it had not been for that
+I might have foreseen her intention in time to prevent it."
+
+"Perhaps she knew that."
+
+"It looks as if she did."
+
+"Which means that she was meditating flight from the first."
+
+"From the time she saw that man," Mr. Ransom corrected.
+
+"Just so; from the time she left her uncle's house. Your wife is a woman
+of means, I believe."
+
+"Yes, unfortunately."
+
+"Why unfortunately?"
+
+"It makes her independent and offers a lure to irresponsible wretches
+like him."
+
+"Her fortune is large, then?"
+
+"Very large; larger than my own."
+
+Every one knew Mr. Ransom to be a millionaire.
+
+"Left her by her father?"
+
+"No, by some great-uncle, I believe, who made his fortune in the
+Klondike."
+
+"And entirely under her own control?"
+
+"Entirely so."
+
+"Who is her man of business?"
+
+"Edward Harper, of--Wall Street."
+
+"He's your man. He'll know sooner or later where she is."
+
+"Yes, but later won't do. I must know to-night; or, if that is
+impossible, to-morrow. Were it not for the mortification it would cause
+her I should beg you to put on all your force and ransack the city for
+this bride of five hours. But such publicity is too shocking. I should
+like to give her a day to reconsider her treatment of me. She cannot mean
+to leave me for good. She has too much self-respect; to say nothing of
+her very positive and not to be questioned affection for myself."
+
+The detective looked thoughtful. The problem had its difficulties.
+
+"Are those hers?" he asked at last, pointing to the two trunks he saw
+standing against the wall.
+
+"Yes. I had them brought up, in the hope that she had slipped away on
+some foolish errand or other and would yet come back."
+
+"By their heft I judge them to be full; how about her hand-bag?"
+
+"She had only a small bag and an umbrella. They are both here."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"The colored boy took them at the door. She went away with nothing in her
+hands."
+
+Gerridge glanced at the bag Mr. Ransom had pointed out, fingered it, then
+asked the young husband to open it.
+
+He did so. The usual articles and indispensable adjuncts of a nice
+woman's toilet met their eyes. Also a pocketbook containing considerable
+money and a case holding more than one valuable jewel.
+
+The eyes of the officer and manager met in ill disguised alarm.
+
+"She must have been under the most violent excitement to slip away
+without these," suggested the former. "I'd better be at work. Give me two
+hours," were his parting words to Mr. Ransom. "By that time I'll either
+be back or telephone you. You had better stay here; she may return.
+Though I don't think that likely," he muttered as he passed the manager.
+
+At the door he stopped. "You can't tell me the color of that veil?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Look about the room, sir. There's lots of colors in the furniture and
+hangings. Don't you see one somewhere that reminds you of her veil or
+even of her dress?"
+
+The miserable bridegroom looked up from the bag into which he was still
+staring and, glancing slowly around him, finally pointed at a chair
+upholstered in brown and impulsively said:
+
+"The veil was like that; I remember now. Brown, isn't it? a dark brown?"
+
+"Yes. And the dress?"
+
+"I can't tell you a thing about the dress. But her gloves--I remember
+something about them. They were so tight they gaped open at the wrist.
+Her hands looked quite disfigured. I wondered that so sensible a woman
+should buy gloves at least two sizes too small for her. I think she was
+ashamed of them herself, for she tried to hide them after she saw me
+looking."
+
+"This was in the cab?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where you didn't speak a word?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"Though she seemed so very much cut up?"
+
+"No, she didn't seem cut up; only tired."
+
+"How tired?"
+
+"She sat with her head pressed against the side of the cab."
+
+"And a little turned away?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"As if she shrank from you?"
+
+"A little so."
+
+"Did she brighten when the carriage stopped?"
+
+"She started upright."
+
+"Did you help her out?"
+
+"No, I had promised not to touch her."
+
+"She jumped out after you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And never spoke?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+Gerridge opened the door, motioned for the manager to follow, and, once
+in the hall, remarked to that gentleman:
+
+"I should like to see the boy who took her bag and was with them when she
+slipped away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE LADY IN NUMBER THREE
+
+
+The boy was soon found and proved to be more observing in matters of
+dress than Mr. Ransom. He described with apparent accuracy both the color
+and cut of the garments worn by the lady who had flitted away so
+mysteriously. The former was brown, all brown; and the latter was of the
+tailor-made variety, very natty and becoming. "What you would call
+'swell,'" was the comment, "if her walk hadn't spoiled the hang of it.
+How she did walk! Her shoes must have hurt her most uncommon. I never did
+see any one hobble so."
+
+"How's that? She hobbled, and her husband didn't notice it?"
+
+"Oh, he had hurried on ahead. She was behind him, and she walked like
+this."
+
+The pantomime was highly expressive.
+
+"That's a point," muttered Gerridge. Then with a sharp look at the boy:
+"Where were you that you didn't notice her when she slipped off?"
+
+"Oh, but I did, sir. I was waiting for the clerk to give me the
+key, when I saw her step back from the gentleman's side and, looking
+quickly round to see if any one was noticing her, slide off into the
+reception-room. I thought she wanted a drink of water out of the pitcher
+on the center-table, but if she did, she didn't come back after she had
+got it. None of us ever saw her again."
+
+"Did you follow Mr. Ransom when he walked through those rooms?"
+
+"No, sir; I stayed in the hall."
+
+"Did the lady hobble when she slid thus mysteriously out of sight?"
+
+"A little. Not so much as when she came in. But she wasn't at her ease,
+sir. Her shoes were certainly too small."
+
+"I think I will take a peep at those rooms now," Gerridge remarked to the
+manager.
+
+Mr. Loomis bowed, and together they crossed the office to the
+reception-room door. The diagram of this portion of the hotel will give
+you an idea of these connecting rooms.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There are three of them, as you will see, all reception-rooms. Mr. Ransom
+had passed through them all in looking for his wife. In No. 1 he found
+several ladies sitting and standing, all strangers. He encountered no one
+in No. 2, and in No. 3 just one person, a lady in street costume
+evidently waiting for some one. To this lady he had addressed himself,
+asking if she had seen any one pass that way the moment before. Her reply
+was a decided "No"; that she had been waiting in that same room for
+several minutes and had seen no one. This staggered him. It was as if his
+wife had dissolved into thin air. True, she might have eluded him by
+slipping out into the hall by means of door two at the moment he entered
+door one; and alert to this possibility, he hastened back into the hall
+to look for her. But she was nowhere visible, nor had she been observed
+leaving the building by the man stationed at entrance A. But there was
+another exit, that of B. Had she gone out that way? Mr. Ransom had taken
+pains to inquire and had been assured by the man in charge that no
+lady had left by that door during the last ten minutes. This he had
+insisted on, and when Mr. Loomis and the detective came in their turn
+to question him on this point he insisted on it again. The mystery seemed
+complete,--at least to the manager. But the detective was not quite
+satisfied. He asked the man if at any time that day, before or after Mrs.
+Ransom's disappearance, he had swung the door open for a lady who walked
+lame. The answer was decisive. "Yes; one who walked as if her shoes were
+tight."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Oh a little while after the gentleman asked his questions."
+
+"Was she dressed in brown?"
+
+That he didn't know. He didn't look at ladies' dresses unless they were
+something special.
+
+"But she walked lame and she came from Room 3?"
+
+Yes. He remembered that much.
+
+Gerridge, with a nod to the manager, stepped into the open compartment of
+the whirling door. "I'm off," said he. "Expect to hear from me in two
+hours."
+
+At twenty minutes to ten Mr. Ransom was called up on the telephone.
+
+"One question, Mr. Ransom."
+
+"Hello, who are you?"
+
+"Gerridge."
+
+"All right, go ahead."
+
+"Did you see the face of the woman you spoke to in Room No. 3?"
+
+"Of course. She was looking directly at me."
+
+"You remember it? Could identify it if you saw it again?"
+
+"Yes; that is--"
+
+"That's all, good-by."
+
+The circuit was cut off.
+
+Another intolerable wait. Then there came a knock on the door and
+Gerridge entered. He held a photograph in his hand which he had evidently
+taken from his pocket on his way up.
+
+"Look at this," said he. "Do you recognize the face?"
+
+"The lady--"
+
+"Just so; the one who said she had seen no one come into No. 3 on the
+first floor."
+
+Mr. Ransom's expression of surprised inquiry was sufficient answer.
+
+"Well, it's a pity you didn't look at her gloves instead of at her face.
+You might have had some dim idea of having seen them before. It was she
+who rode to the hotel with you; not your wife. The veil was wound around
+her face for a far deeper purpose than to ward off rice."
+
+Mr. Ransom staggered back against the table before which he had been
+standing. The blow was an overwhelming one.
+
+"Who is this woman?" he demanded. "She came from Mr. Fulton's house. More
+than that, from my wife's room. What is her name and what did she mean by
+such an outrage?"
+
+"Her name is Bella Burton, and she is your wife's confidential maid. As
+for the meaning of this outrage, it will take more than two hours to
+ferret out that. I can only give you the single fact I've mentioned."
+
+"And Mrs. Ransom?"
+
+"She left the house at the same moment you did; you and Miss Burton. Only
+she went by the basement door."
+
+"She? _She?_"
+
+"Dressed in her maid's clothes. Oh, you'll have to hear worse things than
+that before we're out of this muddle. If you won't mind a bit of advice
+from a man of experience, I would suggest that you take things easy. It's
+the only way."
+
+Shocked into silence by this cold-blooded philosophy, Mr. Ransom
+controlled both his anger and his humiliation; but he could not control
+his surprise.
+
+"What does it mean?" he murmured to himself. "_What does it all mean?_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"HE KNOWS THE WORD"
+
+
+The next moment the doubt natural to the occasion asserted itself.
+
+"How do you know all this? You state the impossible. Explain yourself."
+
+Gerridge was only too willing to do so.
+
+"I have just come from Mr. Fulton's house," said he. "Inquiries there
+elicited the facts which have so startled you. Neither Mr. Fulton nor his
+wife meant to deceive you. They knew nothing, suspected nothing of what
+took place, and you have no cause to blame them. It was all a plot
+between the two women."
+
+"But how--why--"
+
+"You see, I had a fact to go upon. You had noticed that your so-called
+bride's gloves did not fit her; the boy below, that her shoes were so
+tight she hobbled. That set me thinking. A woman of Mrs. Ransom's
+experience and judgment would not be apt to make a mistake in two such
+important particulars; which, taken with the veil and the promise she
+exacted from you not to address or touch her during your short ride to
+the hotel, led me to point my inquiries so that I soon found out that
+your wife had had the assistance of another woman in getting ready for
+her journey and that this woman was her own maid who had been with her
+for a long time, and had always given evidence of an especial attachment
+for her. Asking about this girl's height and general appearance (for the
+possibility of a substitution was already in my mind), I found that she
+was of slight figure and good carriage, and that her age was not far
+removed from that of her young mistress. This made the substitution I
+have mentioned feasible, and when I was told that she was seen taking her
+hat and bonnet into the bride's room, and, though not expected to leave
+till the next morning, had slid away from the house by the basement door
+at the same moment her mistress appeared on the front steps, my
+suspicions became so confirmed that I asked how this girl looked, in the
+hope that you would be able to recognize her, through the description,
+as the woman you had seen sitting in Reception-room No. 3. But to my
+surprise, Mrs. Fulton had what was better than any description, the
+girl's picture. This has simplified matters very much. By it you have
+been able to identify the woman who attempted to mislead you in the
+reception-room, and I the person who rode here with you from Mr. Fulton's
+house. Wasn't she dressed in brown? Didn't you notice a similarity in her
+appearance to that of the very lady you were then seeking?"
+
+"I did not observe. Her face was all I saw. She was looking directly at
+me as I stepped into the room."
+
+"I see. She had taken off her veil and trusted to your attention being
+caught by her strange features,--as it was. But that dress was brown;
+I'm sure of it. She was the very woman. Otherwise the mystery is
+impenetrable. A deep plot, Mr. Ransom; one that should prove to you that
+Mrs. Ransom's motive in leaving you was of a very serious character. Do
+you wish that motive probed to the bottom? I cannot do it without
+publicity. Are you willing to incur that publicity?"
+
+"I must." Mr. Ransom had risen in great excitement. "Nothing can hide the
+fact that my bride left me on our wedding-day. It only remains now to
+show that she did it under an influence which robbed her of her own will;
+an influence from which she shrank even while succumbing to it. I can
+show her no greater kindness, and I am not afraid of the result. I have
+perfect confidence in her integrity"--he hesitated, then added with
+strong conviction--"and in her love."
+
+The detective hid his surprise. He could not understand this confidence.
+But then he knew nothing of the memories which lay back of it. Not to him
+could this grievously humiliated and disappointed man reveal the secrets
+of a courtship which had fixed his heart on this one woman, and aroused
+in him such trust that even this uncalled-for outrage to his pride and
+affection had not been able to shake it. Such secrets are sacred; but the
+reflection of his trust was strong on his face as he repeated:
+
+"Perfect confidence, Mr. Gerridge. Whatever may have drawn Mrs. Ransom
+from my side, it was not lack of affection, or any doubt of my sincerity
+or undivided attachment to herself."
+
+The detective may not have been entirely convinced on the first point,
+but he was discretion itself, and responded quite cheerfully with an
+emphatic:
+
+"Very well. You still want me to find her. I will do my best, sir; but
+first, cannot you help me with a suggestion or two?"
+
+"I?"
+
+"There must be some clew to so sudden a freak on the part of a young and
+beautiful woman, who, I have taken pains to learn, has not only a clean
+record but a reputation for good sense. The Fultons cannot supply it.
+She has lived a seemingly open and happy life in their house, and the
+mystery is as great to them as to you. But _you_, as her lover and now
+her husband, must have been favored with confidences not given to others.
+Cannot you recall one likely to put us on the right track? Some fact
+prior to the events of to-day, I mean; some fact connected with her past
+life; before she went to live with the Fultons?"
+
+"No. Yet let me think; let me think." Mr. Ransom dropped his face into
+his hands and sat for a moment silent. When he looked up again, the
+detective perceived that the affair was hopeless so far as he was
+concerned. "No," he repeated, this time with unmistakable emphasis,
+"she has always appeared buoyant and untrammeled. But then I have only
+known her six months."
+
+"Tell me her history so far as you know it. What do you know of her life
+previous to your meeting her?"
+
+"It was a very simple one. She had a country bringing up, having been
+born in a small village in Connecticut. She was one of three children and
+the only one who has survived; her sister, who was her twin, died when
+she was a small child, and a brother some five years ago. Her fortune was
+willed her, as I have already told you, by a great-uncle. It is entirely
+in her own hands. Left an orphan early, she lived first with her brother;
+then when he died, with one relative after another, till lastly she
+settled down with the Fultons. I know of no secret in her life, no
+entanglement, not even of any prior engagements. Yet that man with the
+twisted jaw was not unknown to her, and if he is a relative, as she said,
+you should have no difficulty in locating him."
+
+"I have a man on his track," Gerridge replied. "And one on the girl's
+too; I mean, of course, Bela Burton's. They will report here up to twelve
+o'clock to-night. It is now half-past eleven. We should hear from one or
+the other soon."
+
+"And my wife?"
+
+"A description of the clothing she wore has gone out. We may hear from
+it. But I doubt if we do to-night unless she has rejoined her maid or the
+man with a scar. Somehow I think she will join the girl. But it's hard to
+tell yet."
+
+Mr. Ransom could hardly control his impatience. "And I must sit helpless
+here!" he exclaimed. "I who have so much at stake!"
+
+The detective evidently thought the occasion called for whatever comfort
+it was in his power to bestow.
+
+"Yes," said he. "For it is here she will seek you if she takes a notion
+to return. But woman is an uncertain quantity," he dryly added.
+
+At that moment the telephone bell rang. Mr. Ransom leaped to answer;
+but the call was only an anxious one from the Fultons, who wanted to
+know what news. He answered as best he could, and was recrossing
+disconsolately to his chair when voices rose in the hall, and a man was
+ushered in, whom Gerridge immediately introduced as Mr. Sims.
+
+A runner--and with news! Mr. Ransom, summoning up his courage, waited for
+the inevitable question and reply. They came quickly enough.
+
+"What have you got? Have you found the man?"
+
+"Yes. And the lady's been to see him; that is, if the description of her
+togs was correct."
+
+"He means Mrs. Ransom," explained Gerridge. Then, as he marked his
+client's struggle for composure, he quietly asked, "A lady in a dark
+green suit with yellowish furs and a blue veil over her hat?"
+
+"That's the ticket!"
+
+"The clothes worn by the woman who went out of the basement door, Mr.
+Ransom."
+
+The latter turned sharply aside. The shame of the thing was becoming
+intolerable.
+
+"And this woman wearing those yellow furs and the blue veil visited the
+man of the broken jaw?" inquired Gerridge.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"When?"
+
+"About six this afternoon."
+
+"And where?"
+
+"At the hotel St. Denis where I have since tracked him."
+
+"How long did she stay?"
+
+"About an hour."
+
+"In the parlor or--"
+
+"In the parlor. They had a great deal to say. More than one noticed them,
+but no one heard anything. They talked very low but they meant business."
+
+"Where is this man now?"
+
+"At the same place. He has engaged a room there."
+
+"The man with the twisted jaw?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Under what name?"
+
+"Hugh Porter."
+
+"Ah, it was Hazen only five hours ago," muttered Ransom. "Porter, did you
+say? I'll have a talk with this Porter at once."
+
+"I think not to-night," put in the detective, with the mingled authority
+and deference natural to one of his kind. "To-morrow, perhaps, but
+to-night it would only provoke scandal."
+
+This was certainly true, but Mr. Ransom was not an easy man to dominate.
+
+"I must see him before I sleep," he insisted. "A single word may solve
+this mystery. He has the word. I'd be a fool to let the night go by--Ah!
+what's that?"
+
+The telephone bell had rung again. A message from the office this time. A
+note had just been handed in for Mr. Ransom; should they send it up?
+
+Gerridge was at the 'phone.
+
+"Instantly," he shouted down, "and be sure you hold the messenger. It may
+be from your lady," he remarked to Mr. Ransom. "Stranger things than that
+have happened."
+
+Mr. Ransom reeled to the door, opened it and stood waiting. The two
+detectives exchanged glances. What might not that note contain!
+
+Mr. Ransom opened it in the hall. When he came back into the room, his
+hand was shaking and his face looked drawn and pale. But he showed no
+further disposition to go out. Instead, he sank into a chair, with a
+motion of dismissal to the two detectives.
+
+"Question the boy who brought this," said he. "It is from Mrs. Ransom;
+written, as you see, at the St. Denis. She bids me farewell for a time,
+but does not favor me with any explanations. She cannot do differently,
+she says, and asks me to trust her and wait. Not very encouraging to
+sleep on; but it's something. She has not entirely forsaken me."
+
+Gerridge with a shrug turned sharply towards the door. "I take it that
+you wouldn't object to knowing all the messenger can tell you?"
+
+"No, no. Question him. Find out whether she gave this to him with her own
+hand."
+
+Gerridge obeyed this injunction, but was told in reply that the note had
+been given him to deliver by a clerk in the hotel lobby. He could tell
+nothing about the lady.
+
+This was unsatisfactory enough; but the man who had influenced her to
+this step had been placed under surveillance. To-morrow they would
+question him; the mystery was not without a promise of solution. So
+Gerridge felt; but not Mr. Ransom; for at the end of the lines whose
+purport he had just communicated to the detective were these few,
+significant words:
+
+"Make no move to find me. If you love me well enough to wait in silence
+for developments, happiness may yet be ours."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MR. RANSOM WAITS
+
+
+Gerridge rose early, primed, as he said to himself, for business. But to
+his great disappointment he found Mr. Ransom in a frame of mind which
+precluded action. Indeed, that gentleman looked greatly changed. He not
+only gave evidence of a sleepless night but showed none of the spirit of
+the previous evening, and hesitated quite painfully when Gerridge asked
+him if he did not intend to go ahead with the interview they had promised
+themselves.
+
+"That's as it may be," was the hesitating reply. "I hardly think that I
+shall visit the man you mean this morning. He interests me and I hope
+that none of his movements will escape you. But I'm not ready to talk to
+him. I prefer to wait a little; to give my wife a chance. I should feel
+better, and have less to forget."
+
+"Just as you say," returned the detective stiffly. "He's under our thumb
+at present, I can't tell when he may wriggle out."
+
+"Not while your eye's on him. And your eye won't leave him as long as you
+have confidence in the reward I've promised you."
+
+"Perhaps not; but you take the life out of me. Last night you were too
+hot; this morning you are too cold. But it's not for me to complain. You
+know where to find me when you want me." And without more ado the
+detective went out.
+
+Mr. Ransom remained alone and in no enviable frame of mind. He was
+distrustful of himself, distrustful of the man who had made all this
+trouble, and distrustful of her, though he would not acknowledge it.
+Every baser instinct in him drove him to the meeting he declined. To see
+the man--to force from him the truth, seemed the only rational thing to
+do. But the final words of his wife's letter stood in his way. She had
+advised patience. If patience would clear the situation and bring him the
+result he so ardently desired, then he would be patient--that is, for a
+day; he did not promise to wait longer. Yes, he would give her a day.
+That was time enough for a man suffering on the rack of such an
+intolerable suspense--one day.
+
+But even that day did not pass without breaks in his mood and more than
+one walk in the direction of the St. Denis Hotel. If Gerridge's eye was
+on him as well as on the special object of his surveillance, he must have
+smiled, more than once, at the restless flittings of his client about the
+forbidden spot. In the evening it was the same, but the next morning he
+remained steadfastly at his hotel. He had laid out his future course in
+these words: "I will extend the time to three days; then if I do not hear
+from her I will get that wry-necked fellow by the throat and twist an
+explanation from him." But the three days passed and he found the
+situation unchanged. Then he set as his limit the end of the week, but
+before the full time had elapsed he was advised by Gerridge that he
+himself was being followed in his turn by a couple of private detectives;
+and while still under the agitation of this discovery was further
+disconcerted by having the following communication thrust into his hand
+in the open street by a young woman who succeeded in losing herself in
+the crowd before he had got so much as a good look at her.
+
+You can judge of his amazement as he read the few lines it contained.
+
+   Read the papers to-night and forget the stranger at the St. Denis.
+
+That was all. But the writing was hers. The hours passed slowly till the
+papers were cried in the street. What Mr. Ransom read in them increased
+his astonishment, I might say his anxiety. It was a paragraph about his
+wife, an almost incredible one, running thus:
+
+  A strange explanation is given of the disappearance of Mrs. Roger
+  Ransom on her wedding-day. As our readers will remember, she
+  accompanied her husband to the hotel, but managed to slip away and
+  leave the house while he still stood at the desk. This act, for which
+  nothing in her previous conduct has in any way prepared her friends, is
+  now said to have been due to the shock of hearing, some time during her
+  wedding-day, that a sister whom she had supposed dead was really alive
+  and in circumstances of almost degrading poverty. As this sister had
+  been her own twin the effect upon her mind was very serious. To find
+  and rescue this sister she left her newly made husband in the
+  surreptitious manner already recorded in the papers. That she is not
+  fully herself is shown by her continued secrecy as to her whereabouts.
+  All that she has been willing to admit to the two persons she has so
+  far taken into her confidence--her husband and the agent who conducts
+  her affairs--is that she has found her sister and cannot leave her.
+  Why, she does not state. The case is certainly a curious one and Mr.
+  Ransom has the sympathy of all his friends.
+
+Confused, and in a state of mind bordering on frenzy, Mr. Ransom returned
+to the hotel and sought refuge in his own room. He put no confidence in
+what he had just read; he regarded it as a newspaper story and a great
+fake; but she had bid him read it, and this fact in itself was very
+disturbing. For how could she have known about it if she had not been
+its author, and if she was its author, what purpose had she expected it
+to serve?
+
+He was still debating this question when he reached his own room. On the
+floor, a little way from the sill, lay a letter. It had been thrust under
+the door during his absence. Lifting it in some trepidation, he cast a
+glance at its inscription and sank staggering into the nearest chair,
+asking himself if he had the courage to open and read it. For the
+handwriting, like that of the note handed him in the street, was
+Georgian's, and he felt himself in a maze concerning her which made
+everything in her connection seem dreamlike and unreal. It was not long,
+however, before he had mastered its contents. They were strange enough,
+as this transcription of them will show.
+
+  You have seen what has happened to me, but you cannot understand how I
+  feel. _She looks exactly like me._ It is that which makes the world
+  eddy about me. I cannot get used to it. It is like seeing my own
+  reflected image step from the mirror and walk about doing things. Two
+  of us, Roger, two! If you saw her you would call her Georgian. And she
+  says that she knows _you_, admires _you_! _and she says it in my
+  voice_! I try to shut my ears, but I hear her saying it even when her
+  lips do not move. She is as ignorant as she is afflicted and I cannot
+  leave her. She cannot hear a sound, though she can talk well enough
+  about what is going on in her own mind, and she is so wayward and
+  uncertain of temper, owing to her ignorance and her difficulty in
+  understanding me, that I don't know what she would do if once let out
+  of my sight. I love you--I love you--but I must stay right here.
+
+  Your affectionate and most unhappy
+
+  Georgian.
+
+The sheet with its tear-stained lines fell from his grasp. Then he caught
+it up again and looked carefully at the signature. It was his wife's
+without doubt. Then he studied the rest of the writing and compared it
+with that of the note which had been thrust into his hands earlier in the
+day. There was no difference between them except that there were
+evidences of faltering in the latter, not noticeable in the earlier
+communication. As he noted these tokens of weakness or suffering, he
+caught up the telephone receiver in good earnest and called out
+Gerridge's number. When the detective answered, he shouted back:
+
+"Have you read the evening papers? If you haven't, do so at once; then
+come directly to me. It's business now and no mistake; and our first
+visit shall be on the fellow at the St. Denis."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+IN CORRIDOR AND IN ROOM
+
+
+Three quarters of an hour later Mr. Ransom and Gerridge stood in close
+conference before the last mentioned hotel. The former was peremptory in
+what he had to say.
+
+"I haven't a particle of confidence in this newspaper story," he
+declared. "I haven't much confidence in her letter. It is this man who is
+working us. He has a hold on her and has given her this cock and bull
+story to tell. A sister! A twin sister come to light after fifteen years
+of supposed burial! I find the circumstance entirely too romantic. Nor
+does an explanation of this nature fit the conditions. She was happy
+before she saw _him_ in the church. He isn't her twin sister. I tell you
+the game is a deep one and she is the sufferer. Her letters betray more
+than a disturbed mind; they betray a disturbed brain. That man is the
+cause and I mean to wring his secret from him. You are sure of his being
+still in the house?"
+
+"He was early this morning. He has lived a very quiet life these last few
+days, the life of one waiting. He has not even had visitors, after that
+one interview he held with your wife. I have kept careful watch on him.
+Though a suspected character, he has done nothing suspicious while I've
+had him under my eye."
+
+"That's all right and I thank you, Gerridge; but it doesn't shake my
+opinion as to his being the moving power in this fraud. For fraud it
+is and no mistake. Of that I am fully convinced. Shall we go up? I want
+to surprise him in his own room where he cannot slip away or back out."
+
+"Leave that business to me; I'll manage it. If you want to see him in his
+room, you shall."
+
+But this time the detective counted without his host. Mr. Porter was not
+in his room but in one of the halls. They encountered him as they left
+the elevator. He was standing reading a newspaper. The disfigured jaw
+could not be mistaken. They stopped where they were and looked at him.
+
+He was intent, absorbed. As they watched, they saw his hands close
+convulsively on the sheet he was holding, while his lips muttered
+some words that made the detective look hard at his companion.
+
+"Did you hear?" he cautiously inquired, as Mr. Ransom stood hesitating,
+not knowing whether to address the man or not.
+
+"No; what did he say? Do you suppose he is reading that paragraph?"
+
+"I haven't a doubt of it; and his words were, 'Here's a damned
+lie!'--very much like your own, sir."
+
+Mr. Ransom drew the detective a few steps down the corridor.
+
+"He said that?"
+
+"Yes, I heard him distinctly."
+
+"Then my theory is all wrong. This man didn't provide her with this
+imaginary twin sister."
+
+"Evidently not."
+
+"And is as surprised as we are."
+
+"And about as much put out. Look at him! Nothing yellow there! We shall
+have to go easy with him."
+
+Mr. Ransom looked and felt a recoil of more than ordinary dislike for the
+man. The latter had put the paper in his pocket and was coming their way.
+His face, once possibly handsome, for his eyes and forehead were
+conspicuously fine, showed a distortion quite apart from that given by
+his physical disfigurement. He was not simply angry but in a mental and
+moral rage, and it made him more than hideous; it made him appalling. Yet
+he said nothing and moved along very quietly, making, to all appearance,
+for his room. Would he notice them as he went by? It did not seem likely.
+Instinctively they had stepped to one side, and Mr. Ransom's face was in
+the shadow. To both it had seemed better not to accost him while he was
+in this mood. They would see him later.
+
+But this was not to be. Some instinct made him turn, and Mr. Ransom,
+recognizing his opportunity, stepped forward and addressed him by the
+name under which he had introduced himself at the reception; that of his
+wife's family, Hazen.
+
+The effect was startling. Instead of increasing his anger, as the
+detective had naturally expected, it appeared to have the contrary
+effect, for every vestige of passion immediately disappeared from his
+face, leaving only its natural disfigurement to plead against him.
+He approached them, and Ransom, at least, was conscious of a revulsion
+of feeling in his favor, there was such restraint and yet such undoubted
+power in his strange and peculiar personality.
+
+"You know me?" said he, darting a keen and comprehensive look from one to
+the other.
+
+"We should like a few words with you," ventured Gerridge. "This gentleman
+thinks you can give him very valuable information about a person he is
+greatly interested in."
+
+"He is mistaken." The words came quick and decisive in a not unmelodious
+voice. "I am a stranger in New York; a stranger in this country. I have
+few, if any, acquaintances."
+
+"You have _one_."
+
+It was now Mr. Ransom's turn.
+
+"A man with no acquaintances does not attend weddings; certainly not
+wedding receptions. I have seen you at one, my own. Do you not recognize
+me, Mr. Hazen?"
+
+A twitch of surprise, not even Ransom could call it alarm, drew his mouth
+still further towards his ear; but his manner hardly altered and it was
+in the same affable tone that he replied:
+
+"You must pardon my short-sightedness. I did not recognize you, Mr.
+Ransom."
+
+"Did not want to," muttered Gerridge, satisfied in his own mind that this
+man was only deterred by his marked and unmistakable physiognomy from
+denying the acquaintanceship just advanced.
+
+"Your congratulations did not produce the desired effect," continued Mr.
+Ransom. "My happiness was short lived. Perhaps you knew its uncertain
+tenure when you wished me joy. I remember that your tone lacked
+sincerity."
+
+It was a direct attack. Whether a wise one or not remained to be seen.
+Gerridge watched the unfolding drama with interest.
+
+"I have reason to think," proceeded Mr. Ransom, "that the unhappy
+termination of that day's felicities were in a measure due to you.
+You seem to know my bride very well; much too well for her happiness
+or mine."
+
+"We will argue that question in my room," was the unmoved reply. "The
+open hall is quite unsuited to a conversation of this nature. Now," said
+he, turning upon them when they were in the privacy of his small but not
+uncomfortable apartment, "you will be kind enough to repeat what you just
+said. I wish to thoroughly understand you."
+
+"You have the right," returned Mr. Ransom, controlling himself under the
+detective's eye. "I said that your presence at this wedding seemed to
+disturb my wife, which fact, considering the after occurrences of the
+day, strikes me as important enough for discussion. Are you willing to
+discuss it affably and fairly?"
+
+"May I ask who your companion is?" inquired the other, with a slight
+inclination towards Gerridge.
+
+"A friend; one who is in my confidence."
+
+"Then I will answer you without any further hesitation. My presence may
+have disturbed your wife, it very likely did, but I was not to blame for
+that. No man is to blame for the bad effects of an unfortunate accident."
+
+"Oh, I don't mean that," Mr. Ransom hastened to protest. "The cause of
+her very evident agitation was not personal. It had a deeper root than
+that. It led, or so I believe, to her flight from a love she cherished,
+at a moment when our mutual life seemed about to begin."
+
+The impassive, I might almost say set features of this man of violent
+passions but remarkable self-restraint failed to relax or give any
+token of the feelings with which he listened to this attack.
+
+"Then the news given of your wife in the papers to-night is false,"
+was his quiet retort. "It professes to give a distinct, if somewhat
+fantastic, reason for her flight. A reason totally different from the
+one you suggest."
+
+"A reason you don't believe in?"
+
+"Certainly not. It is too bizarre."
+
+"I share your incredulity. That is why I seek the truth from you rather
+than from the columns of a newspaper. And you owe me this truth. You have
+broken up my life."
+
+"I? That's a strange accusation you make, Mr. Ransom."
+
+"Possibly. But it's one which strikes hard on your conscience, for all
+that. This is evident enough even to a stranger like myself. I am
+convinced that if you had not come into her life she would have been at
+my side to-day. Now, who are you? She told me you were a relative."
+
+"She told you the truth; I am. Her nearest relative. The story in the
+paper has a certain amount of truth in it. Her brother, not her sister,
+has come back from the grave. I am that brother. She was once devoted to
+me."
+
+"You are--"
+
+"Yes. Oh, there'll be no difficulty in my proving this relationship.
+I have evidence upon evidence of the fact right in this room with me;
+evidence much more convincing and far less disputable than this
+surprising twin can bring forward if _her_ identity is questioned.
+Georgian had a twin sister, but she was buried years ago. I was never
+buried. I simply did not return from a well-known and dangerous voyage.
+The struggle I had for life--you cannot want the details now--has left
+its indelible impress in the scar which has turned me from a personable
+man into what some people might call a monstrosity. And it is this scar
+which has kept me so long from home and country. It has taken me four
+years to make up my mind to face again my family and friends. And now
+that I have, I find that it would have been better for us all if I had
+stayed away. Georgian saw me and her mind wavered. In no other way can I
+account for her wild behavior since that hour. That is all I have to say,
+sir. I think I am almost as much an object of pity as yourself."
+
+And for a moment he appeared to be so, not only to Gerridge, but to Mr.
+Ransom himself. Then something in the man--his unnatural coldness, the
+purpose which made itself felt through all his self-restraint--reawakened
+Mr. Ransom's distrust and led him to say:
+
+"Your complaint is natural. If you are Mrs. Ransom's brother, there
+should be sympathy between us and not antagonism. But I feel only
+antagonism. Why is this?"
+
+A shrug, followed by an odd smile.
+
+"You should be able to account for that on very reasonable grounds," said
+he. "I do not expect much mercy from strangers. It is hard to make your
+good intentions felt through such a distorted medium as my expression has
+now become."
+
+"Mrs. Ransom has been here," Ransom suddenly launched forth. "Within two
+hours of your encounter under Mr. Fulton's roof, she was talking with you
+in this hotel. I have proof positive of that, sir."
+
+"I have no wish to deny the fact," was the steady answer. "She did come
+here and we had a talk; it was necessary; I wanted money."
+
+The last phrase was uttered with such grim determination that the
+exclamation which had risen to Mr. Ransom's lips died in a conflict
+of feeling which forbade any rejoinder that savored of sarcasm. Hazen,
+however, must have noted his first look, for he added with an air of
+haughty apology:
+
+"I repeat that we were once very fond of each other."
+
+Ransom felt his perplexities growing with every moment he talked with
+this man. He remembered the money which both he and Gerridge had seen in
+her bag,--an amount too large for her to have retained very much on her
+person,--and following the instinct of the moment, he remarked:
+
+"Mrs. Ransom is not the woman to hesitate when a person she loves makes
+an appeal for money. She handed you immediately a large sum, I have no
+doubt."
+
+"She wrote me out a check," was the simple but cold answer.
+
+Mr. Ransom felt the failure of his attempt and stole a glance at
+Gerridge.
+
+The doubtful smile he received was not very encouraging. The same thought
+had evidently struck both. The money in the bag was a blind--she had
+carried her check-book with her and so could draw on her account for
+whatever she wished. But under what name? Her maiden one or his? Ransom
+determined to find out.
+
+"I do not begrudge you the money," said he, "but Mrs. Ransom's signature
+had changed a few hours previous to her making out this check. Did she
+remember this?"
+
+"She signed her married name promising to notify the bank at once."
+
+"And you cashed the check?"
+
+"No, sir; I am not in such immediate need of money as that. I have it
+still, but I shall endeavor to cash it to-morrow. Some question may come
+up as to her sanity, and I do not choose to lose the only money she has
+ever been in a position to give me."
+
+"Mr. Hazen, you harp on the irresponsible condition of her mind. Did you
+see any tokens of this in the interview you had together?"
+
+"No; she seemed sane enough then; a little shocked and troubled, but
+quite sane."
+
+"You knew that she had stolen away from me--that she had resorted to a
+most unworthy subterfuge in order to hold this conversation with you?"
+
+"No; I had asked her to come, and on that very afternoon if possible, but
+I never knew what means she took for doing so; I didn't ask and she
+didn't say."
+
+"But she talked of her marriage? She must have said something about an
+event which is usually considered the greatest in a woman's life."
+
+"Yes, she spoke of it."
+
+"And of me?"
+
+"Yes, she spoke of you."
+
+"And in what terms? I cannot refrain from asking you, Mr. Hazen, I am
+in such ignorance as to her real attitude towards me; her conduct is so
+mysterious; the reasons she gives for it so puerile."
+
+"She said nothing against you or her marriage. She mentioned both, but
+not in a manner that would add to your or my knowledge of her intentions.
+My sister disappointed me, sir. She was much less open than I wished. All
+that I could make out of her manner and conversation was the overpowering
+shock she felt at seeing me again and seeing me so changed. She didn't
+even tell me when and where we might meet again. When she left, she was
+as much lost to me as she was to you, and I am no less interested in
+finding her than you are yourself. I had no idea she did not mean to
+return to you when she went away from this hotel."
+
+Mr. Ransom sprang upright in an agitation the other may have shared, but
+of which he gave no token.
+
+"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you cannot tell me where the woman
+you call your sister is now?"
+
+"No more than you can give me the same necessary information in regard to
+your wife. I am waiting like yourself to hear from her--and waiting with
+as little hope."
+
+Had he seen Ransom's hand close convulsively over the pocket in which her
+few strange words to him were lying, that a slight tinge of sarcasm gave
+edge to the last four words?
+
+"But this is not like my wife," protested Ransom, hesitating to accuse
+the other of falsehood, yet evidently doubting him from the bottom of his
+heart. "Why deceive us both? She was never a disingenuous woman."
+
+"In childhood she had her incomprehensible moments," observed Hazen, with
+an ambiguous lift of his shoulders; then, as Ransom made an impatient
+move, added with steady composure: "I have candidly answered all your
+questions whether agreeable or otherwise, and the fact that I am as much
+shocked as yourself by these mad and totally incredible statements of
+hers about a newly recovered sister should prove to you that she is not
+following any lead of mine in this dissemination of a bare-faced
+falsehood."
+
+There was truth in this which both Mr. Ransom and Gerridge felt obliged
+to own. Yet they were not satisfied, even after Mr. Hazen, almost against
+Mr. Ransom's will, had established his claims to the relationship he
+professed, by various well-attested documents he had at hand. Instinct
+could not be juggled with, nor could Ransom help feeling that the mystery
+in which he found himself entangled had been deepened rather than
+dispelled by the confidences of this new brother-in-law.
+
+"The maze is at its thickest," he remarked as he left a few minutes later
+with the perplexed Gerridge. "How shall I settle this new question? By
+what means and through whose aid can I gain an interview with my wife?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LAWYER
+
+
+The answer was an unexpectedly sensible one.
+
+"Hunt up her man of business and see what he can do for you. She cannot
+get along without money; nor could that statement of hers have got into
+the papers without somebody's assistance. Since she did not get it from
+the fellow we have just left, she must have had it from the only other
+person she would dare confide in."
+
+Ransom answered by immediately hailing a down-town car.
+
+The interview which followed was certainly a remarkable one. At first Mr.
+Harper would say nothing, declaring that his relations with Mrs. Ransom
+were of a purely business and confidential nature. But by degrees, moved
+by the persuasive influence of Mr. Ransom's candor and his indubitable
+right to consideration, he allowed himself to admit that he had seen Mrs.
+Ransom during the last three days and that he had every reason to believe
+that there was a twin sister in the case and that all Mrs. Ransom's
+eccentric conduct was attributable to this fact and the overpowering
+sense of responsibility which it seemed to have brought to her--a result
+which would not appear strange to those who knew the sensitiveness of her
+nature and the delicate balance of her mind.
+
+Mr. Ransom recalled the tenor of her strange letter on this subject, but
+was not convinced. He inquired of Mr. Harper if he had heard her say
+anything about the equally astounding fact of a returned brother, and
+when he found that this was mere jargon to Mr. Harper, he related what he
+knew of Hazen and left the lawyer to draw his own inferences.
+
+The result was some show of embarrassment on the part of Mr. Harper. It
+was evident that in her consultations with him she had entirely left out
+all allusion to this brother. Either the man had advanced a false claim
+or else she was in an irresponsible condition of mind which made her see
+a sister where there was a brother.
+
+Ransom made some remark indicative of his appreciation of the dilemma in
+which they found themselves, but was quickly silenced by the other's
+emphatic assertion:
+
+"I have seen the girl; she was with Mrs. Ransom the day she came here.
+She sat in the adjoining room while we talked over her case in this one."
+
+"You saw her--saw her face?"
+
+"No, not her face; she was too heavily veiled for that. Mrs. Ransom
+explained why. They were too absurdly alike, she said. It awoke comment
+and it gave her the creeps. But their figures were identical though their
+dresses were different."
+
+"So! there _is_ some one then; the girl is not absolutely a myth."
+
+"Far from it. Nor is the will which Mrs. Ransom has asked me to draw up
+for her a myth."
+
+"Her will! she has asked you to draw up her will!"
+
+"Yes. That was the object of her visit. She had entered the married
+state, she said, and wished to make a legal disposition of her property
+before she returned to you. She was very nervous when she said this; very
+nervous through all the interview. There was nothing else for me to do
+but comply."
+
+"And you have drawn up this will?"
+
+"According to her instructions, yes."
+
+"But she has not signed it?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"But she intends to?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then you will see her again?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"_Is the time set?_"
+
+The lawyer rose to his feet. He understood the hint implied and for an
+instant appeared to waver. There was something very winsome about Roger
+Ransom; some attribute or expression which appealed especially to men.
+
+"I wish I might help you out of your difficulty," said he. "But a
+client's wishes are paramount. Mrs. Ransom desired secrecy. She had every
+right to demand it of me."
+
+Mr. Ransom's face fell. Hope had flashed upon him only to disappear
+again. The lawyer eyed him out of the corner of his eye, his mouth
+working slightly as he walked to and fro between his desk and the door.
+
+"Mrs. Ransom will not always feel herself hampered by a sister, or, if
+you prefer it, a brother who has so inconveniently come back from the
+dead. You will have the pleasure of her society some day. There is no
+doubt about her affection for you."
+
+"But that isn't it," exclaimed the now thoroughly discouraged husband.
+"I am afraid for her reason, afraid for her life. There is something
+decidedly wrong somewhere. Don't you see that I must have an immediate
+interview with her if only to satisfy myself that she aggravates her own
+danger? Why should she make a will in this underhanded way? Does she fear
+opposition from me? I have a fortune equal to her own. It is something
+else she dreads. What? I feel that I ought to know if only to protect her
+against herself. I would even promise not to show myself or to speak."
+
+"I am sorry to have to say good afternoon, Mr. Ransom. Have you any
+commands that I can execute for you?"
+
+"None but to give her my love. Tell her there is not a more unhappy man
+in New York; you may add that I trust her affection."
+
+The lawyer bowed. Mr. Ransom and Gerridge withdrew. At the foot of the
+stairs they were stopped by the shout of a small boy behind them.
+
+"Say, mister, did you drop something?" he called down, coming meanwhile
+as rapidly after them as the steepness of the flight allowed. "Mr. Harper
+says, he found this where you gentlemen were sitting."
+
+Mr. Ransom, somewhat startled, took the small paper offered him. It was
+none of his property but he held to it just the same. In the middle of a
+torn bit of paper he had read these words written in his own wife's hand:
+
+    Hunter's Tavern,
+          Sitford, Connecticut.
+    At 9 o'clock April the 15th.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "no one will ever hear me say again that lawyers
+are devoid of heart?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+RAIN
+
+
+Mr. Ransom had never heard of Sitford, but upon inquiry learned that it
+was a small manufacturing town some ten miles from the direct route of
+travel, to which it was only connected by a stage-coach running once a
+day, late in the afternoon.
+
+What a spot for a meeting of this kind! Why chosen by her? Why submitted
+to by this busy New York lawyer? Was this another mystery; or had he
+misinterpreted Mr. Harper's purpose in passing over to him the address of
+this small town? He preferred to think the former. He could hardly
+contemplate now the prospect of failing to see her again which must
+follow any mistake as to this being the place agreed upon for the signing
+of her will.
+
+Meantime he had said nothing to Gerridge. This was a hope too personal to
+confide in a man of his position. He would go to Sitford and endeavor to
+catch a glimpse of his wife there. If successful, the whole temper of his
+mind might change towards the situation, if not toward her. He would at
+least have the satisfaction of seeing her. The detective had enough to do
+in New York.
+
+April the fifteenth fell on Tuesday. He was not minded to wait so long
+but took the boat on Monday afternoon. This landed him some time before
+daylight at the time-worn village from which the coach ran to Sitford. A
+railway connected this village with New York, necessitating no worse
+inconvenience than crossing the river on a squat, old-fashioned ferry
+boat; but he calculated that both the lawyer and Mrs. Ransom would make
+use of this, and felt the risk would be less for him if he chose the
+slower and less convenient route.
+
+He had given his name on the boat as Roger Johnston, which was true so
+far as it went, and he signed this same name at the hotel where he put
+up till morning. The place was an entirely unknown one to him and he was
+unknown to it. Both fortuitous facts, he thought, in the light of his own
+perplexity as to the position in which he really stood towards this
+mysterious wife of his.
+
+The coach, as I have said, ran late in the afternoon. This was to
+accommodate the passengers who came by rail. But Mr. Ransom had not
+planned to go by coach. That would be to risk a premature encounter with
+his wife, or at least with the lawyer. He preferred to hire a team, and
+be driven there by some indifferent livery-stable man. Neither prospect
+was pleasing. It had been raining all night, and bade fair to rain all
+day. The river was clouded with mist; the hills, which are the glory of
+the place, were obliterated from the landscape, and the road--he had
+never seen such a road, all little pools and mud.
+
+However, there was no help for it. The journey must be made, and seeing
+a livery-stable sign across the road, lost no time in securing the
+conveyance he needed. At nine o'clock he started out.
+
+The rain drove so fiercely from the northwest,--the very direction in
+which they were traveling,--that enjoyment of the scenery was impossible.
+Nor could any pleasure be got out of conversation with the man who drove
+him. Rain, rain, that was all; and the splash of mud over the wheels
+which turned all too slowly for his comfort. And there were to be ten
+miles of this. Naturally he turned to his thoughts and they were all of
+her.
+
+Why had he not known her better before linking his fate to hers? Why had
+he never encouraged her to talk to him more about herself and her early
+life? Had he but done so, he might now have some clew to the mystery
+devouring him. He might know why so rich and independent a woman had
+chosen this remote town on an inaccessible road, for the completion of
+an act which was in itself a mystery. Why could not the will have been
+signed in New York? But he was not inquisitive in those days. He had
+taken her for what she seemed--an untrammeled, gay-hearted girl, ready
+to love and be his happy wife and lifelong companion; and he had been
+contented to keep all conversation along natural lines and do no probing.
+And now,--this brother whom all had thought dead, come to life with
+menace in his acts and conversation! Also a sister,--but this sister he
+had no belief in. The coincidence was too startlingly out of nature for
+him to accept a brother and a sister too. A brother or a sister; but not
+both. Not even Mr. Harper's assurances should influence his credulity to
+this extent. "Money! money is at the bottom of it all," was his final
+decision. "She knows it and is making her will, as a possible protection.
+But why come here?"
+
+Thus every reflection ended.
+
+Suddenly a vanished, half-forgotten memory came back. It brought a gleam
+of light into the darkness which had hitherto enveloped the whole matter.
+She had once spoken to him of her early life. She had mentioned a place
+where she used to play as a child; had mentioned it lovingly, longingly.
+There were hills, she had said; hills all around. And woods full of
+chestnut-trees, safe woods where she could wander at will. And the
+roads--how she loved to walk the roads. No automobiles then, not even
+bicycles. One could go miles without meeting man or horse. Sometimes a
+heavily-laden cart would go by drawn by a long string of oxen; but they
+were picturesque and added to the charm. Oxen were necessary where there
+was no railroad.
+
+As he repeated these words to himself, he looked up. Through the downpour
+his eyes could catch a glimpse of the road before him, winding up a long
+hillside. Down this road was approaching a dozen yoke of oxen dragging a
+wagon piled with bales of some sort of merchandise. One question in his
+mind was answered. This spot was not an unknown one to her. It was
+connected with her childhood days. There was reason back of her choice
+of it as a place of meeting between her and her lawyer, or if not reason,
+association, and that of the tenderest kind. He felt himself relieved of
+the extreme weight of his oppression and ventured upon asking a question
+or two about Sitford, which he took pains to say he was visiting for the
+first time.
+
+The information he obtained was but meager, but he did learn that there
+was a very fair tavern there and that the manufactures of the place were
+sufficient to account for a stranger's visit. The articles made were
+mostly novelties.
+
+This knowledge he meant to turn to account, but changed his mind when
+they finally splashed into town and stopped before the tavern which had
+been so highly recommended by his driver. The house, dripping though it
+was from every eave, had such a romantic air that he thought he could
+venture to cite other reasons for his stay there than the prosaic one of
+business. That is, if the landlady should give any evidence of being at
+all in accord with her quaint home and picturesque surroundings.
+
+She showed herself and he at once gave her credit for being all he could
+wish in the way of credulity and good-nature, and meeting her with the
+smile which had done good execution in its day, he asked if she had a
+room for a writer who was finishing a book, and who only asked for quiet
+and regular meals before his own cosy fire. This to rouse her imagination
+and make her amenable to his wishes for secrecy.
+
+She was a simple soul and fell easily into the trap. In half an hour Mr.
+Ransom was ensconced in a pleasant room over the porch, a room which he
+soon learned possessed many advantages. For it not only overlooked the
+main entrance, but was so placed as to command a view of all the rooms on
+his hall. In two of those rooms he bade fair to be greatly interested,
+Mrs. Deo having remarked that they were being prepared for a lady who was
+coming that night. As he had no doubt who this lady was, he encouraged
+the good woman to talk, and presently had the satisfaction of hearing her
+say that she was very happy over this lady's coming, as she was a Sitford
+girl, one of the old family of Hazens, and though married now and very
+rich was much loved by every one in town because she had never forgotten
+Sitford or Sitford people.
+
+She was coming! He had made no mistake. And this was the place of her
+birth, just as he had decided when he saw that long line of oxen! He
+realized how fortunate he was, or rather how indebted he was to Mr.
+Harper, since in this place only could he hope to gain satisfaction on
+the mooted point raised by that same gentleman. If she had been born
+here, so had her twin sister; so had the brother whose claims lay counter
+to that sister's. Both must have been known to these people, their
+persons, their history and the circumstances of their supposed deaths.
+The clews thus afforded must prove invaluable to him. From them he must
+soon be able to ascertain in which story to place faith and which
+claimant to believe. He might have interrogated his hostess, but feared
+to show his interest in the supposed stranger. He preferred to wait a few
+hours and gather his facts from other lips.
+
+Meantime it rained.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+ELIMINATION
+
+
+At about three o'clock in the afternoon Mr. Ransom left his room. He had
+been careful almost from his first arrival to sit with his door ajar. He
+had, therefore, only to give it a slight push and walk out when he heard
+the bustle of preparation going on in the two rooms in whose future
+occupancy he was so vitally interested. A maid stood in the hall. A man
+within was pushing about furniture. The landlady was giving orders. His
+course down-stairs did not lead him so far as those rooms, so he called
+out pleasantly:
+
+"I have written till my head aches, Mrs. Deo. I must venture out
+notwithstanding the rain. In which direction shall I find the best
+walking?"
+
+She came to him all eagerness and smiles. "It's all bad, such a day,"
+said she, "but it's muddiest down by the factories. You had better climb
+the hill."
+
+"Where the cemetery is?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; do you object to cemeteries? Ours is thought to be very
+interesting. We have stones there whose inscriptions are a hundred and
+fifty years old. But it's a bad day to walk amongst graves. Perhaps you
+had better go east. I'm sorry we should have such a storm on your first
+day. Must you go out?"
+
+He forced a suffering look into his eyes, and insisting that nothing but
+outdoor air would help him when he had a headache, hastened down-stairs
+and so out. A blinding gust seized him as he faced the hill, but he drew
+down his umbrella and hurried on. He had a purpose in following her
+suggestion as to a walk in this direction. Dark as the grasses were, he
+meant to search the cemetery for the graves of the Hazens and see what he
+could learn from them.
+
+He met three persons on his way, all of whom turned to look at him.
+This was in the village. On the hillside he met nobody. Wind and rain
+and mud were all; desolation in the prospect and all but desolation in
+his heart. At the brow he first caught sight of the broken stone wall
+which separated the old burying place from the road. There lay his path.
+Happily he could tread it unnoticed and unwatched. There was no one
+within sight, high or low.
+
+He spent a half hour among the tombs before
+he struck the name he was looking for.
+Another ten minutes before he found those
+of his wife's family. Then he had his reward.
+On a low brown shaft he read the names of
+father and mother, and beneath them the following
+lines:
+
+      Sacred to the memory of
+         Anitra
+         Died June 7, 1885
+     Aged 6 years and one day.
+_Of such is the Kingdom of heaven._
+
+The twin! Georgian was mad. This record showed that her little sister lay
+here. Anitra,--yes, that was the name of her other half. He remembered it
+well. Georgian had mentioned it to him more than once. And this child,
+this Anitra, had been buried here for fifteen years.
+
+Deeply indignant at his wife's duplicity, he took a look at the opposite
+side of the shaft where still another surprise awaited him. Here was the
+record of the brother; the brother he had so lately talked to and who had
+seemingly proven his claim to the name he now read:
+
+           Alfred Francesco
+                 only son of
+  Georgian Toritti afterwards Georgian Hazen.
+          Lost at sea February, 1895.
+            Aged twenty-five years.
+
+An odd inscription opening up conjectures of the most curious and
+interesting nature. But it was not this fact which struck him at the
+time, it was the possibility underlying the simple statement, Lost
+at sea. This, as the wry-necked man had said, admitted of a possible
+resurrection. Here was no body. A mound showed where Anitra had been laid
+away; a little mound surmounted by a headstone carved with her name. But
+only these few words gave evidence of the young man's death, and
+inscriptions of this nature are sometimes false.
+
+The conclusion was obvious. It was the brother and not the sister who had
+reappeared. Georgian was not only playing him false but deceiving the
+general public. In fact, knowingly or unknowingly, she was perpetrating
+a great fraud. He was inclined to think unknowingly. He began to regard
+with less incredulity Hazen's declaration that the shock of her brother's
+return had unsettled her mind.
+
+Distressed, but no longer the prey of distracting doubt, he again
+examined the inscription before him and this time noticed its
+peculiarities. _Alfred Francesco, only son of Georgian Toritti afterwards
+Georgian Hazen._ Afterwards! What was meant by that _afterwards_? That
+the woman had been married twice, and that this Alfred Francesco was the
+son of her first husband rather than of the one whose name he bore? It
+looked that way. There was a suggestion of Italian parentage in the
+Francesco which corresponded well with the decidedly Italian Toritti.
+
+Perplexed and not altogether satisfied with his discoveries, he turned to
+leave the place when he found himself in the presence of a man carrying a
+kit of tools and wearing on his face a harsh and discontented expression.
+As this man was middle-aged and had no other protection from the rain
+than a rubber cape for his shoulders, the cause of his discontent was
+easy enough to imagine; though why he should come into this place with
+tools was more than Mr. Ransom could understand.
+
+[Illustration: "I cut them letters there fifteen years ago. Now I'm to
+cut 'em out."]
+
+"Hello, stranger." It was this man who spoke. "Interested in the Hazen
+monument, eh? Well, I'll soon give you reason to be more interested yet.
+Do you see this inscription--On June 7, 1885; Anitra, aged six, and the
+rest of it? Well, I cut them letters there fifteen years ago. Now I'm to
+cut 'em out. The orders has just come. The youngster didn't die it seems,
+and I'm commanded to chip the fifteen-year-old lie out. What do you think
+of that? A sweet job for a day like this. Mor'n likely it'll put me under
+a stone myself. But folks won't listen to reason. It's been here fifteen
+years and seventeen days and now it must come out, rain or shine, before
+night-fall. 'Before the sun sets,' so the telegram ran. I'll be blessed
+but I'll ask a handsome penny for this job."
+
+Mr. Ransom, controlling himself with difficulty, pointed to the little
+mound. "But the child seems to have been buried here," he said.
+
+"Lord bless you, yes, a child was buried here, but we all knew years ago
+that it mightn't be Hazen's. The schoolhouse burned and a dozen children
+with it. One of the little bodies was given to Mr. Hazen for burial. He
+believed it was his Anitra, but a good while after, a bit of the dress
+she wore that day was found hanging to a bush where some gipsies had
+been. There were lots of folks who remembered that them gipsies had
+passed the schoolhouse a half hour before the fire, and they now say
+found the little girl hiding behind the wood-pile, and carried her off.
+No one ever knew; but her death was always thought doubtful by every one
+but Mr. and Mrs. Hazen. They stuck to the old idee and believed her to be
+buried under this mound where her name is."
+
+"But one of the children was buried here," persisted Ransom. "You must
+have known the number of those lost and would surely be able to tell if
+one were missing, as must have been the case if the gipsies had carried
+off Anitra before the fire."
+
+"I don't know about that," objected the stone-cutter. "There was, in
+those days, a little orphan girl, almost an idiot, who wandered about
+this town, staying now in one house and now in another as folks took
+compassion on her. She was never seen agin after that fire. If she was in
+the schoolhouse that day, as she sometimes was, the number would be made
+up. No one was left to tell us. It was an awful time, sir. The village
+hasn't got over it yet."
+
+Mr. Ransom made some sympathetic rejoinder and withdrew towards the
+gateway, but soon came strolling back. The man had arranged his tools and
+was preparing to go to work.
+
+"It seems as if the family was pretty well represented here," remarked
+Ransom. "Is it the girl herself,--Anitra, I believe you called her,--who
+has ordered this record of her death removed?"
+
+"Oh, no, you don't know them Hazens. There's one of 'em who has quite a
+story; the twin of this Anitra. She lived to grow up and have a lot of
+money left her. If you lived in Sitford, or lived in New York, you'd know
+all about her; for her name's been in the papers a lot this week. She's
+the great lady who married and left her husband all in one day; and for
+what reason do you think? We know, because she don't keep no secrets from
+her old friends. _She's found this sister_, and it's her as has ordered
+me to chip away this name. She wants it done to-day, because she's coming
+here with this gal she's found. Folks say she ran across her in the
+street and knew her at once. Can you guess how?"
+
+"From her name?"
+
+"Lord, no; from what I hear, she hadn't any name. _From her looks!_ She
+saw her own self when she looked at her."
+
+"How interesting, how very interesting," stammered Mr. Ransom, feeling
+his newly won convictions shaken again. "Quite remarkable the whole
+story. And so is this inscription," he added, pointing to the words
+_Georgian Toritti_, etc. "Did the woman have two husbands, and was the
+Alfred Hazen, whose death at sea is commemorated here, the son of Toritti
+or of Hazen?"
+
+"Of Toritti," grumbled the man, evidently displeased at the question. "A
+black-browed devil who it won't do to talk about here. Mrs. Hazen was
+only a slip of a gal when she married him, and as he didn't live but a
+couple o' months folks have sort o' forgiven her and forgotten him. To us
+Mrs. Hazen was always Mrs. Hazen; and Alf--well, he was just Alf Hazen
+too; a lad with too much good in him to perish in them murderous waters a
+thousand miles from home."
+
+So they still believed Hazen dead! No intimation of his return had as yet
+reached Sitford. This was what Ransom wanted to know. But there was still
+much to learn. Should he venture an additional question? No, that would
+show more than a stranger's interest in a topic so purely local. Better
+leave well enough alone and quit the spot before he committed himself.
+
+Uttering some commonplace observation about the fatality attending
+certain families, he nodded a friendly good-by and made for the entrance.
+
+As he stepped below the brow of the hill he heard the first click of the
+workman's hammer on the chisel with which he proposed to eliminate the
+word _Anitra_ from the list of the Hazen dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HUNTER'S INN
+
+
+When Mr. Ransom re-entered the hotel, which he did under a swoop of wind
+which turned his umbrella inside out and drenched him through in an
+instant, it was to find the house in renewed turmoil, happily explained
+by the landlady, whom he ran across on the stairs.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Johnston!" she cried as she edged by him with a pile of
+bed-linen on her arm. "Please excuse all this fuss. Another guest is
+coming--I have just got a telegram. A famous lawyer from New York. Our
+house will be full to-night."
+
+"Where will you put him?" inquired Mr. Ransom with a good-natured air.
+"There seem to be no unoccupied rooms on this hall."
+
+"More's the pity," she sighed, with a half-inquiring, half deprecatory
+look at this fortunate first comer. "I shall have to put him below, poor
+man. I'm afraid he won't like it, but--" Mr. Ransom remained silent.
+"But," she went on with sudden cheerfulness, "I will make it up in the
+supper. That shall be as good a one as our kitchen will provide. Four
+city guests all in one day! That's a good many for this quiet hotel."
+
+"Four!" retorted Mr. Ransom as he turned towards his own door. "The
+number has grown by two since I went out."
+
+"Oh, I didn't tell you. The lady--her name's Mrs. Ransom--brings her
+sister with her. The little girl who--yes, I am coming." This latter to
+some perplexed domestic down the hall, who had already called her twice.
+"I mustn't stand talking here," she apologized as she hurried away. "But
+do take care of yourself. You are dreadful wet. How I wish the weather
+would clear up!"
+
+Mr. Ransom wished the same. To say nothing of his own inconvenience,
+it was a source of anxiety to him that she should have to ride these
+inevitable ten miles in such a chilling downpour. Besides, a storm of
+this kind complicated matters; gave him less sense of freedom, shut him
+in, as it were, with the mystery he was there to unravel, but which for
+some reason, hardly explainable to himself, filled him with such a sense
+of foreboding that he had moments in which he thought only of escape. But
+his part must be played and he prepared himself to play it well. Having
+changed his clothes and warmed himself with a draft of whisky, he sat
+down at his table and was busy writing when the maid came in to ask if he
+would wait for his supper till the coach came, or have it earlier and
+served in his own room.
+
+With an air of petulance, he looked up, rapped on the table, and replied:
+
+"Here! here! I'm too busy to meet strangers. An early supper and an early
+bed. That's the way I get through _my_ work."
+
+The girl stared and went softly out. Work!--that? Sitting at a table and
+just putting words on paper. If it was beds he had to drag around now, or
+a dozen hungry, clamoring men to feed all at once, and all with the best
+cuts, or stairs to run up fifty times a day, or--but I need not fill out
+her thought. It made her voluble in the kitchen and secured him the
+privacy which his incognito demanded.
+
+His supper over, he waited feverishly for the coach, which ordinarily was
+due at seven in the evening. To-night it bade fair to be late, owing to
+the bad condition of the roads and the early darkness. The wind had gone
+down, but it still rained. Not quite so tempestuously as when he roamed
+the cemetery, but steadily enough to keep eaves and branches dripping.
+The sound of this ceaseless drip was eerie enough to his strained senses,
+waiting as he was for an event which might determine the happiness or the
+misery of his life. He tried to forget it and wrote diligently, putting
+down words whose meaning he did not stop to consider, so that he had
+something to show to prying eyes if such should ever glance through his
+papers. But the sound had got on his brain, and presently became so
+insistent that he rose again and flung his window up to see if he were
+deceived in thinking he heard a deep roar mingling with the incessant
+patter, a roar which the wind had hitherto prevented him from separating
+from the general turmoil, but which now was apparent enough to call for
+some explanation.
+
+He had made no mistake; a steady sound of rushing water filled the
+outside air. A fall was near, a fall by means of which, no doubt, the
+factories were run.
+
+Why had he not thought of this? Why had its sound held a note of menace
+for him, awakening feelings he did not understand and from which he
+sought to escape? A factory fall swollen by the rain! What was there
+in this to make his hand shake and cause the deepening night to seem
+positively hateful to him? With a bang he closed the window; then he
+softly threw it up again. Surely he had heard the noise of wheels
+splashing through the pools of the highway. The coach was coming! and
+with it--what?
+
+His room was in the gable end facing the road. From it he could look
+directly down on the porch of entrance, a fact which he had thankfully
+noted at his first look. As he heard the bustle which now broke out
+below, and caught the gleam of a lantern coming round the corner of the
+house, he softly stepped to his lamp and put it out, then took his stand
+at the window. The coach was now very near; he could hear the straining
+of the harness and the shouts of the driver. In another moment it drew
+lumberingly up. A man from the hotel advanced with an umbrella; a young
+lady was helped out who, standing one moment in the full glare of the
+lights thrown upon her from the open door, showed him the face and form
+he knew so well and loved--yes, loved for all her mystery, as he knew by
+the wild beating of his heart, and the irresistible impulse he felt to
+rush down and receive her in his arms, to her great terror doubtless, but
+to his own boundless satisfaction and delight. But strong as the
+temptation was, he did not yield to it. Something in her attitude, as she
+stood there, talking earnestly to the driver, held him spellbound and
+alert. All was not right; there was passion in her movements and in her
+voice. What she said drew the heads of landlady and maid from the open
+door and caused the man with the lantern to peer past her into the coach
+and backward along the road. What had happened? Nothing that concerned
+the lawyer. Mr. Ransom could see him disentangling himself from the
+coverings in front where he had ridden with the driver, but the sister
+was not there. No other lady got out of the coach even after his young
+wife had finished her conversation with the driver and disappeared into
+the house.
+
+"How can I stand this?" thought Mr. Ransom as the coach finally rattled
+and swished away towards the stable. "I must hear, I must see, I must
+_know_ what is going on down there."
+
+This because he heard voices in the open hall. Crossing to his own
+doorway, he listened. His wife and Mr. Harper had stepped into the office
+close by the front door. He could hear now and then a word of what they
+said, but not all. Venturing a step further, he leaned over the
+balustrade which extended almost up to his own door. This was better; he
+could now catch most of the words and sometimes a sentence. They all
+referred to the sister. "Temper--her own way--deaf--_would_ walk in all
+the rain and slush.--A strange character--you can't imagine," and other
+similar phrases, uttered in a passionate and half-angry voice. Then
+ejaculations from Mrs. Deo, and a word or two of caution or injunction in
+the polished tones of the lawyer, followed by a sudden rush towards the
+staircase, over which he was leaning.
+
+"Show me my room," rang up in Georgian's bell-like tones; "then I'll tell
+you what to do about _her_. She isn't easily managed."
+
+"But she'll get her death!" expostulated Mrs. Deo; "to say nothing of her
+losing her way in this dreadful darkness. Let me send--"
+
+"Not yet," broke in his young wife's voice, with just the hint of
+asperity in it. "She must trudge out her tantrum first. I think her idea
+was to show that she remembered the old place and the lane where she used
+to pick blackberries. You needn't worry about her getting cold. She's
+lived a gipsy life too many years to mind wind and wet. But it's
+different with _me_. I'm all in a shiver. Which is my room, please?"
+
+She was now at the head of the stairs. Mr. Ransom had closed his door,
+but not latched it, and as she turned to go down the hall, followed by
+the chattering landlady, he swung it open for an instant and so caught
+one full glimpse of her beloved figure. She was dressed in a long
+rain-coat and had some sort of modish hat on her head, which, in spite of
+its simplicity, gave her a highly fashionable air. A woman to draw all
+eyes, but such a mystery to her husband! Such a mystery to all who knew
+her story, or rather her actions, for no one seemed to know her story.
+
+Events did not halt. He heard her give this and that order, open a door
+and look in; say a word of commendation, ask if the key was on her side
+of the partition, then shut the door again and open another.
+
+"Ah, this looks comfortable," she exclaimed in great satisfaction. "Is
+that my bag? Put it down, please. I'll open it. Now, if you'll leave me a
+moment alone, I'll soon be ready. But you mustn't expect me to eat till
+Anitra comes. I couldn't do that. Oh, she's a dreadful trial, Mrs. Deo;
+you have a motherly face, and I can tell you that the girl is just eating
+up my life. If she weren't my very self, deafened by hard usage, and
+rendered coarse and wilful by years of a miserable and half-starved life,
+I couldn't bear it, especially after what I've sacrificed for her. I've
+parted with my husband--but I can't talk, I can't. I would not have said
+so much if you hadn't looked so kind."
+
+All this her husband heard, followed by a sob or two, quickly checked,
+however, by a high strained laugh and the gay remark:
+
+"I'm wet enough, but she'll be dripping. I'm afraid she'll have to have
+her supper in her room. She got out at the new schoolhouse and started
+to come through the lane. It must be a weltering pool. If I'm dressed in
+time I'll come down and meet her at the door. Meanwhile don't wait for
+us; give Mr. Harper his supper."
+
+Her door closed, then suddenly opened again. "If she don't come in ten
+minutes, let some one go to the head of the lane. But be sure it's a
+careful person who won't startle her. I've got to put on another dress,
+so don't bother me. I'll hear her when she enters her own room and will
+speak to her then--if I dare; I'm not sure that I shall." And the door
+shut to again, this time with a snap of the lock. Quiet reigned once more
+in the hall save for Mrs. Deo's muttered exclamations as she made her
+laborious way down-stairs. Had this good woman been less disturbed and
+not in so much of a hurry, she might have noted that the door of her
+literary guest's room was ajar, and stopped to ask why the lamp remained
+unlit.
+
+For five minutes, for ten minutes, he watched and listened, passing
+continually to and fro from door to window. But his vigilance remained
+unrewarded by any further movement in the hall, or by the sight of an
+approaching figure up the road. He began to feel odd, and was asking
+himself what sort of fool-work this was, when a clatter of voices rose
+below, followed by heavy steps on the veranda. One or two men were going
+out, and as it seemed to him the landlady too, for he heard her say just
+as the door closed:
+
+"Let me on ahead; she must see a woman's kind face first, poor child, or
+we shall not succeed in getting her in. I know all about these wild
+ones."
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+The Call of the Waterfall
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+TWO DOORS
+
+
+The enthusiasm, the expectation in Mrs. Deo's voice were unmistakable.
+This good woman believed in this rescued waif of turbulent caprices and
+gipsy ways, and from this moment he began to believe in her too, and
+consequently to share some of the excitement which had now become
+prevalent all through the house.
+
+His suspense was destined to be short. While he was straining his eyes to
+see what might be going on down the road, a small crowd of people came
+round the corner of the house. In their midst walked a woman with a shawl
+or cape over her head--a fierce and wilful figure which shook off the
+hand kind Mrs. Deo laid on her arm, and shrank as the great front door
+fell open, sending forth a flood of light which, to one less wedded to
+wild ways and outdoor living, promised a hospitable cheer.
+
+"Georgian's form!" muttered Ransom involuntarily to himself. "And
+Georgian's face!" he felt obliged to add, as the light fell broadly
+across her. "But not Georgian's ways and not Georgian's nature," he
+impetuously finished as she slipped out of sight.
+
+Then the mystery of _the brother_ came rushing over him and he yielded
+himself again to the wonder of the situation till he was reawakened to
+realities by the shuffling of feet on the stairway and the raised tones
+of Mrs. Deo as she tried to make herself understood by her new and
+somewhat difficult guest. A maid followed in their wake, and from some
+as yet unexplored region below there rose the sound of clattering dishes.
+
+It was a trying moment for him. He longed for another glimpse of the
+girl, but feared to betray his own curiosity to the two women who
+accompanied her. Should he be forced to allow her to enter her room
+unseen? Might he not better run some small risk of detection? He had
+escaped discovery before; wasn't it possible for him to escape it again?
+He finally compromised matters by first flinging his door wide open and
+then retreating to the other end of the room where the shadows appeared
+heavy enough to hide him. From this point he cast a look down the hall
+which was in a direct line from his present standpoint, and was fortunate
+enough to catch a glimpse of the girl with her face turned in his
+direction. Her companions, on the contrary, were standing with their
+backs to him, one beside the door she had just thrown open, the other
+at his wife's door on which she had just given a significant rap.
+
+Such was the picture.
+
+The girl absorbed all his attention. The shawl--a gay one with colors in
+it--had fallen from her head and was trailing, wet and bedraggled, over
+an equally bedraggled skirt. Soused with wet, her hair disheveled, and
+all her garments awry with the passion of her movements, she yet made his
+heart stand still, as, with a sullen look at those about her, she rushed
+into the room prepared for her use and slammed the door behind her with a
+quick cry of mingled rage and relief. For with all these drawbacks of
+manner and appearance she was the living picture of Georgian; so like
+her, indeed, that he could well understand now the shock which his
+darling received when, in the unconsciousness of possessing a living
+sister, she had encountered in street or store, or wherever they had
+first met, this living reproduction of herself.
+
+"No wonder she became confused as to her duty," he muttered. "I even feel
+myself becoming confused as to mine."
+
+"Bring me up something to eat," he now heard this latest comer shout from
+her doorway. "I don't want tea and I don't want soup; I want meat, meat.
+And I shan't go down afterward, either. I'm going to stay right here.
+I've seen enough of people I don't know. And of my sister too. She was
+cross to me because I hated the coach and wanted to walk, and she shan't
+come into my room till I tell her to. Don't forget; it's meat I want,
+just meat and something sweet. Pudding's good."
+
+All shocking to Mr. Ransom's taste, but more so to his heart. For
+notwithstanding the coarseness of the expressions, the voice was
+Georgian's and laden with a hundred memories.
+
+He was still struggling with the agitation of this discovery when he
+heard Mrs. Deo give another tap on his wife's door. This time it was
+unlocked and pushed softly open, and through the crack thus made some
+whispered orders were given. These seemed to satisfy Mrs. Deo, for she
+called the maid to her and together they hurried down the hall to a rear
+staircase, communicating with the kitchen. This was fortunate for him,
+for if they had turned his way he would have had to issue from his room
+and take open part in the excitement of the moment.
+
+A few minutes of quiet now supervened. During these he decided that if
+he must keep up this watch--and nothing now could deter him from doing
+so--he must take a position consistent with his assumed character.
+Detection by Georgian was what he now feared. Whatever happened, she must
+not get the smallest glimpse of him or be led by any indiscretion on his
+part to suspect his presence under the same roof as herself. Yet he must
+see all, hear all that was possible to him. For this a continuance of the
+present conditions, an open door and no light, were positively requisite.
+But how avert the comment which this unusual state of things must awaken
+if noticed? But one expedient suggested itself. He would light a cigar
+and sit in the window. If questioned he would say that he was engaged
+in deciding how he would end the story he was writing; that such
+contemplation called for darkness but above all for good air; that had
+the weather been favorable he would have obtained the latter by opening
+the window; but it being so bad he could only open the door. Certain
+eccentricities are allowable in authors.
+
+This settled, he proceeded to take a chair and envelope himself in smoke.
+With eyes fixed on the dimly-lighted vista of the hall before him, he
+waited. What would happen next? Would his wife reappear? No; supper was
+coming up. He could hear dishes rattling on the rear stairway, and in
+another moment saw the maid coming down the hall with a large tray in her
+hands. She stopped at Anitra's door, knocked, and was answered by the
+harsh command:
+
+"Set it down. I'll get it for myself."
+
+The maid set it down.
+
+Next instant Mrs. Ransom's door opened.
+
+"Don't be too generous with me," he heard her call softly out. "I can't
+eat. I'm too upset for much food. Tea," she whispered, "and some nice
+toast. Tell Mrs. Deo that I want nothing else. She will understand."
+
+The maid nodded and disappeared down the hall just as a bare arm was
+thrust out from Anitra's door and the tray drawn in. A few minutes later
+the other tray came up and was carried into Mrs. Ransom's room. The
+contrast in the way the two trays had been received struck him as showing
+the difference between the two women, especially after he had been given
+an opportunity, as he was later, of seeing the ferocious way in which the
+food brought to Anitra had been disposed of.
+
+But I anticipate. The latter tray had not yet been pushed again into the
+hall, and Mr. Ransom was still smoking his first cigar when he heard the
+lawyer's voice in the office below asking to have pen and ink placed in
+the small reception-room. This recalled him to the real purpose of his
+wife's presence in the house, and also assured him that the opportunity
+would soon be given him for another glimpse of her before the evening was
+over. It was also likely to be a full-face one, as she would have to
+advance several steps directly towards him before taking the turn leading
+to the front staircase.
+
+He awaited the moment eagerly. The hour for signing the will had been set
+at nine o'clock, but it was surely long past that time now. No, the clock
+in the office is striking; it is just nine. Would she recognize the
+summons? Assuredly; for with the last stroke she lifts the latch of her
+door and comes out.
+
+She has exchanged her dark dress for a light one and has arranged her
+hair in the manner he likes best. But he scarcely notes these changes in
+the interest he feels in her intentions and the manner in which she
+proceeds to carry out her purpose.
+
+She does not advance at once to the staircase, but creeps first to her
+sister's door, where she stands listening for a minute or so in an
+attitude of marked anxiety. Then, with a gesture expressive of repugnance
+and alarm, she steps quickly forward and disappears down the staircase
+without vouchsafing one glance in his direction.
+
+His vision of her as she looked in that short passage from room to
+staircase was momentary only, but it left him shuddering. Never before
+had he seen resolve burning to a white heat in the human countenance.
+There was something abnormal in it, taken with his knowledge of her face
+in its happier and more wholesome aspects. The innocent, affectionate
+young girl, whose soul he had looked upon as a weeded garden, had become
+in a moment to his eyes a suffering, determined, deeply concentrated
+woman of unsuspected power and purpose. A suggestion of wildness in her
+air added to the mysterious impression she made; an impression which
+rendered this instant memorable to him and set his pulses beating to
+a tune quite new to them. What was she going to do? Sign away all her
+property? Beggar her heirs for--He could not say what. No; even such
+a resolution could not account for her remarkable expression of
+concentrated will. There was in her distracted mind something of more
+tragic import than this; and he dared not question what; dared not even
+approach this woman who, less than a week before, had linked herself to
+him for life. The uneasy light in those fixed and gleaming eyes betrayed
+a reason too lightly poised. He feared any additional shock for her.
+Better that she should go down undisturbed to her adviser, who bore a
+reputation which insured a judicious use of his power. What if she were
+about to will away her fortune to the man she called brother? He himself
+had no use for her wealth. Her health and happiness were all that
+concerned him, and these possibly depended on her being allowed to go her
+own way without interference. But oh, for eyes to see into the room into
+which she had withdrawn with the lawyer! For eyes to see into her heart!
+For eyes to see into the future!
+
+His suspense presently became so great that he could no longer control
+himself. Throwing up the window, he thrust his head out into the rain and
+felt refreshed by the icy drops falling on his face and neck. But the
+roar of the waterfall rang too persistently in his ears and he hastily
+closed the window again. There was something in the incessant boom of
+that tumbling water which strangely disturbed him. He could better stand
+suspense than that. If only the wind would bluster again. That, at least,
+was intermittent in its fury and gave momentary relief to thoughts
+strained to an unbearable tension.
+
+Afterwards, only a short time afterwards, he wondered that he had given
+himself over to such extreme feeling at this especial moment. Her
+appearance when she came quietly back, with Mrs. Deo chatting and smiling
+behind her, was natural enough, and though she did not speak herself, the
+tenor of the landlady's remarks was such as to show that they had been
+conversing about old days when the two little girls used to ransack her
+cupboards for their favorite cookies, and when their united pranks were
+the talk of the town.
+
+As they passed down the hall, Mrs. Deo garrulously remarked:
+
+"You were never separated except on that dreadful day of the schoolhouse
+burning. That day you were sick and--"
+
+"Please!" The word leaped from Georgian in terror, and she almost threw
+her hand against the other's mouth. "I--I can't bear it."
+
+The good lady paused, gurgled an apology, and stooped for the tray which
+disfigured the sightliness of the neatly kept hall. Then, nodding towards
+a maid whom she had placed on watch at the extreme end of the hall, she
+muttered some assurances as to this woman's faithfulness, and turned away
+with a cordial good night. Georgian watched her go with a strange and
+lingering intentness, or so it seemed to Ransom; then slowly entered her
+room and locked the door.
+
+The incidents of the day, so far as she was concerned, appeared to be at
+an end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+HALF-PAST ONE IN THE MORNING
+
+
+Nothing now held Mr. Ransom to his room. The two women in whose fate he
+was so nearly concerned, his sister-in-law and his wife, had both retired
+and there was no other eye he feared. Indeed, he courted an interview
+with the lawyer, if only it could be naturally obtained; and he had
+little reason to think it could not. So he went down-stairs.
+
+In a moment he seemed to have passed from the realm of dreams to that of
+reality. Here was no mystery. Here was life as he knew it. Walking boldly
+into the office, he ran his eye over the half-dozen men who sat there
+and, picking out the lawyer from the rest, sauntered easily up to him and
+sat down.
+
+"My name is Johnston," said he. "I'm from New York; like yourself, I
+believe."
+
+The lawyer, with a twinkle in his light-blue eye, answered with a cordial
+nod; and in two minutes a lively conversation had begun between them on
+purely impersonal subjects suited to the intelligence of the crowd they
+were in. This did not last, however. An opportunity soon came for them to
+stroll off together, and presently Mr. Ransom found himself closeted with
+this man who he had reason to believe was the sole holder of the key to
+the secret which was devouring him.
+
+A bottle of wine was on the table between them, and some cigars. As Mr.
+Ransom filled the two glasses, he spoke:
+
+"I have to thank you--" he began, but saw immediately that he had made a
+wrong start.
+
+"For what, _Mr. Johnston_?" asked the other coldly.
+
+"For giving me this opportunity to speak alone with you," Ransom
+explained with a nervous gesture. "An hour of unrestrained gossip is so
+necessary to me after a day of hard work. Perhaps you don't know that I
+am an author--have been one for seven whole hours. I find it exhausting.
+You could give me great relief by talking a little on some foreign
+subject, say on the one now engrossing every one in the house, the twin
+ladies from New York. You were in the same coach with them. Did they
+quarrel and did the most wilful of the two insist on getting out at the
+foot of the hill and walking up through the lane?"
+
+"I doubt if I have anything to say to Mr. Johnston on this subject," was
+the wary reply.
+
+"What if he added another name to the Johnston?"
+
+"It would make no appreciable difference. The driver is a loquacious
+fellow, talk to him."
+
+Mr. Ransom felt his heart fail him. He surveyed closely the mouth which
+had uttered this off-hand sentence and saw that it was set in a line
+there was no mistaking. Little enlightenment was to be got from this man.
+Yet he made one more effort.
+
+"Did my wife sign the will?" he asked. "All pretense aside, this is a
+very important matter to me, Mr. Harper; not on account of the money
+involved, but because the doing of this simple act seemed to require such
+an effort on her part."
+
+"You are mistaken," was the quick reply, harshly accentuated. "She did
+just what she wanted to do. She was not in the least coerced, unless it
+was by circumstances."
+
+"Circumstances! But that is what I mean. They seem to have been too much
+for her. I want to understand these circumstances."
+
+The lawyer honored him with his first direct look.
+
+"I don't understand them myself," said he.
+
+"You don't?"
+
+"No."
+
+Mr. Ransom set down the wineglass he had raised half-way to his lips.
+
+"You have simply followed her orders?"
+
+"You have said it. Your wife is a woman of much more character than you
+think. She has amazed me."
+
+"She is amazing me. I am here; she is here; only a few boards separate
+us. But iron bars could not be more effectual. I dare not approach her
+door; dare not ask her to accept from me the natural protection of a
+lover and husband. Instinct holds me back, or her will, which may not
+be stronger than mine but is certainly more dominant."
+
+"Lawyers do not believe much in instinct as a usual thing, but I should
+advise confidence in this one. A woman with a tremendous will like that
+of Mrs. Ransom should be allowed a slack tether. The day will arrive when
+she will come to you herself. This I have said before; I can say nothing
+more to you to-night."
+
+"Then there is nothing in the will you have drawn up to show that she has
+lost her affection for me?"
+
+The lawyer drained his glass.
+
+"I have not been given permission to declare its terms," said he, when
+his glass was again upon the table.
+
+"In other words, I am to know nothing," exclaimed his exasperated
+companion.
+
+"Not from me."
+
+And this ended the conversation. Ransom withdrew immediately up-stairs.
+
+At ten o'clock he retired. The last look he cast down the hall had shown
+him the drowsy figure of the maid still sitting at her watch. It seemed
+to insure a peaceful night. But he had little expectation of sleep.
+Though the wind had quieted down and the rain fell with increasing
+gentleness, the roar of the waterfall surged through all his thoughts,
+which in themselves were turbulent. He did sleep, however, slept
+peacefully till half-past one, when he and all in the house were startled
+by a wild and piercing cry rising from one of the rooms. Terror was in
+the sound and in an instant every door was open save the two which were
+shut upon Georgian and her twin sister.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+"GEORGIAN!"
+
+
+Mr. Ransom was the first one in the hall. He had not undressed himself,
+expecting a totally sleepless night. It was his figure, then, that the
+maid encountered as she came running from her post at the end of the
+corridor.
+
+"Which room? which?" he gasped out, ignoring every precaution in his
+blind terror.
+
+"This one. I am sure it came from this one," she declared, knocking
+loudly on Anitra's door.
+
+There was a rustle within, a cry which was half a sob, then the sound of
+a hand fumbling with the lock. Meanwhile, Mr. Ransom had bent his ear to
+his wife's door.
+
+"All still in here," he cried. "Not a sound. Something dreadful has
+happened--"
+
+Just then Anitra's door fell back and a wild image confronted him and
+such others as had by this time collected in the passageway. With only a
+shawl covering her nightdress, the gipsy-like creature stood clawing the
+air and answering the looks that appealed to her, with wild gurgles, till
+suddenly her hot glances fell on Roger Ransom, when she instantly became
+rigid and stammered out:
+
+"She's gone! I saw her black figure go by my window. She called out that
+the waterfall drew her. She went by the little balcony and the roof. The
+roof was slippery with the rain and she fell. That's why I screamed. But
+she got up again. What is she going to do at the waterfall? Stop her!
+stop her! She hasn't steady feet like me, and I wasn't really angry. I
+liked her; I liked her."
+
+Sobs choked the rest. Her terror was infectious. Mr. Ransom reeled, then
+flung himself at Georgian's door. It resisted but the silence within told
+him that she was not there. Neither was she in Anitra's room. They could
+all look in and see it bare to the window.
+
+"You saw her climbing past there?" he cried, forgetting she was deaf.
+
+"Yes, yes," she chattered, catching his meaning from his pointing finger.
+"There's a balcony. She must have jumped on it from her own window. She
+didn't come in here. See! the door is locked on her side."
+
+This was true.
+
+"I woke and saw her. My eyes are like lynx's. I got out of bed to watch.
+She fell--"
+
+The noise of a breaking lock snapped her words in two. One of the men
+present had flung himself against this communicating door. Immediately
+they all crowded into the adjoining room. It was empty and bitterly cold
+and wet. An open window explained why, and possibly the letter lying on
+the bureau inscribed with her husband's name would explain the rest. But
+he stopped to read no letters now.
+
+"Show me the way to those falls," he cried, pocketing the letter as he
+rushed by the disheveled Anitra into the open hall. "I'm her husband,
+Roger Ransom. Who goes with me? He who does is my friend for life."
+
+The clerk and one or two others rushed for their coats and lanterns. He
+waited for nothing. The roar of the waterfall had told him too many tales
+that day. And the will! Her will just signed!
+
+"Georgian!"
+
+They could hear his cry.
+
+"Georgian! Georgian! Wait! wait! hear what I have to say!" thrilled back
+through the mist as he stumbled on, followed by the men waving their
+lanterns and shouting words of warning he probably never heard. Then his
+cry further off and fainter. "Georgian! Georgian!" Then silence and the
+slow drizzle of rain on the soggy walk and soaked roofs, with the far-off
+boom of the waterfall which Mrs. Deo and the trembling maids gazing at
+the wide-eyed Anitra shivering in the center of her deserted room, tried
+to shut out by closing window and blind, forgetting that she was deaf and
+only heard such echoes as were thundering in her own mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+WHERE THE MILL STREAM RUNS FIERCEST
+
+
+Two o'clock.
+
+Three o'clock.
+
+Two men were talking below their breaths in the otherwise empty office.
+"That 'ere mill stream never gives up anything it has once caught,"
+muttered one into the ear of the other. "It's swift as fate and in
+certain places deep as hell. Dutch Jan's body was five months at the
+bottom of it, before it came up at Clark's pool."
+
+The man beside him shivered and his hand roamed nervously towards his
+breast.
+
+"Did Jan, the Dutchman you speak of, fall in by accident, or did
+he--throw himself over--from homesickness, or some such cause?"
+
+"Wa'al we don't say; on account of his old mother, you know, we don't
+say. It was called accident."
+
+The other man rose and walked restlessly to the window.
+
+"Half the town is up," he muttered. "The lanterns go by like fire-flies.
+Poor Ransom! It's a hopeless job, I fear." And again his hand wandered to
+that breast pocket where the edge of a document could be seen. "I have
+half a mind to go out myself; anything is better than sitting here."
+
+But he sat down just the same. Mr. Harper was no longer a young man.
+
+"The storm's bating," observed the one.
+
+"But not the cold. Throw on a stick; I'm freezing."
+
+The other man obeyed; then looking up, stared. A girl stood before them
+in the doorway. Anitra, with cheeks ablaze and eyes burning, her
+traveling dress flapping damp about her heels, and on her head the red
+shawl she preferred to any hat. Behind her shoulder peered the anxious
+face of Mrs. Deo.
+
+"I'm going out," cried the former in the loud and unmodulated voice of
+the deaf. "He don't come back! he don't come back! I'm going to see why."
+
+The lawyer rose and bowed; then resolutely shook his head. He did not
+know whether she had appealed to him or not. She had not looked at him,
+had not looked at any one, but he felt that he must protest.
+
+"I beg you not to do so," he began. "I really beg you to remain here and
+wait with me. You can do no good and the result may be dangerous." But he
+knew he was talking to deaf ears even before the landlady murmured:
+
+"She doesn't hear a word. I've talked and talked to her. I've used every
+sign and motion I could think of, but it's done no good. She would dress
+and she will go out; you'll see."
+
+The next minute her prophecy came true; the wild thing, with a quick
+whirl of her lithe body, was at the front door, and in another instant
+had flashed through it and was gone.
+
+"It is my duty to follow her," said the lawyer. "Help me on with my coat;
+I'll find some one to guide me."
+
+"Here is a lantern. Excuse me for not going with you," pleaded Mrs. Deo,
+"but some one must watch the house."
+
+The New Yorker nodded, took the lantern offered him, and went stoically
+out.
+
+He met a man on the walk in front. He was faced his way and was panting
+heavily.
+
+"Hello," said he, "what news?"
+
+"They haven't found her; but there's no doubt she went over the fall. The
+fellow who calls himself her husband has just been reading a letter they
+say she left on her bureau for him. It was a good-by, I reckon, for you
+can't tear him from the spot. He says he'll stay there till daylight. I
+couldn't stand the sight of his misery myself. Besides, it's mortal cold;
+I've just been running to get warm. Who was the girl who just went
+scurrying by out of here? It's no place for wimmen down there. One lost
+gal is enough."
+
+"That's what I think," muttered the lawyer, hurrying on.
+
+He was not a very imaginative man; some of his best friends thought him a
+cold and prosaic one, but he never forgot that walk or the sensations
+accompanying it. Dark as it still was, the way would have been impassable
+for a stranger, had it not been for the guidance given by the noisy
+passing to and fro of the awakened townspeople. Those coming from the
+river approached in a direct line from one spot; those going to it
+advanced in the same line and to the same spot. A ring of lanterns marked
+it. It was near, very near where the heavy waters fell into a deep pool.
+No one now spoke of Anitra; she had evidently been warned by her first
+encounter to move with less precipitancy.
+
+As he approached the place of central interest, he moved more warily too.
+The ground was very bad; he had never walked in such slush. Once and
+again he tripped; once he came down upon his face. The boom of the waters
+was now very near; he could see nothing but the flicker of the lanterns,
+but he felt the near rush of the stream, and presently was at its very
+edge. Startled by the nearness of his escape, for he had almost lost
+his footing by his sudden halt, he started back, looked again at the
+lanterns, took a turn and came upon the dozen or more men bending over
+the edge of the stream where the waters ran most swiftly. But he did not
+join them. Another sight attracted his eyes and presently himself. This
+was the sight of Ransom crouched on the wet earth, staring down at a slip
+of paper he held in his hands. A lantern set in the sand at his feet sent
+its feeble rays over his face and possibly over the paper; but he was no
+longer reading it, he was simply so lost in its sorrowful contents that
+all power of movement had deserted him.
+
+Harper approached to his side, but he did not address him. Something
+stirred in his own breast and kept him silent. But there was another
+person near who was not so deterred. As Harper stood watching Ransom's
+crouched, almost insensible figure, he perceived a slight dark form steal
+from the shadows and lay a hand on the stooping man's shoulder, then as
+he failed to move or give any token of feeling this touch, he heard
+Anitra's voice say in accents almost musical:
+
+"You will get ill here; you are not used to the cold and the night air.
+Come back to the house; Georgian would wish it."
+
+The name roused him and he looked up. Their eyes met and a strange
+gleam--a shock, perhaps, of sympathetic feeling, flashed upon either
+face. The lawyer saw and instinctively retreated from out the circle of
+light cast by the lantern; but the men at the stream's edge heard
+nothing. The flash of something white had caught their eyes and one man
+was reaching for it.
+
+"Georgian," came in astonished repetition from the bereaved man's lips.
+
+"She would wish it," persisted the other with still deeper and more
+urgent meaning.
+
+[Illustration: A slight, dark form stole from the shadows and laid a
+hand on the stooping man's shoulder.]
+
+Then in a whisper so penetrating that even Mr. Harper caught its least
+inflection through all the thunder of the waterfall, "She loved you."
+
+Ah! the enchantment, the feminine persuasiveness, the heart-moving
+sincerity which breathed through that simple phrase! From lips so
+untutored, it seemed marvelous. Ransom was not insensible to its power,
+for he quivered under her hand and his eyes took on a look of wonder. But
+he made no attempt to answer, even by a sign. He seemed content for that
+one instant just to listen and to look.
+
+The man hanging over the stream drew back his arm. He had been deceived
+by a bit of froth; some of it clung yet to his fingers.
+
+"Come," entreated the girl, her face emerging softly into the light, as
+she stooped lower over the lantern. "Come!" she had taken him by the hand
+and was drawing him gently upward.
+
+With a leap he was on his feet and had thrown her off. Some memory had
+come to make her entreaty hateful.
+
+"No," he cried, "no! Here is my place and here will I stay. You are a
+stranger to me! You drove her to this act, and you shall not cajole me
+into forgetting it."
+
+He had spoken loudly; not so much because he remembered her affliction,
+but because of the roar of the fall and his own overwhelming passion. The
+result was that the lawyer caught every word; possibly the workers at the
+water-edge did also; for some of them quickly turned their heads. But
+she, though she stopped short in the spot where he had pushed her, gave
+no evidence of hearing his words or even of resenting his manner.
+
+"Won't you come?" she falteringly pleaded, pointing towards the house
+with its twinkling lights. "You are cold; you are shuddering; they will
+do the searching who don't mind night or wet. Follow Anitra, Anitra who
+is so sorry."
+
+"No!" he shouted. His tone, his look, were almost those of a madman. He
+even put out his hands towards her in repulsion. He seemed to cast her
+away. This gesture, if not his words, reached her understanding. The
+lawyer saw her sway, fling back her young head with its disheveled locks
+to the night, and fall moaning pitifully to the ground. Here she lay
+still, with the wet grass all about her and the last lingering drops of
+rain beating on her huddled form.
+
+Mr. Harper started to raise her, for Ransom stood petrified. But no
+sooner had the lawyer made his presence known by this impetuous movement,
+than Ransom woke from his trance and, darting down, lifted the girl in
+his arms and began moving with her towards the house. As he passed the
+lawyer he muttered between set teeth:
+
+"She's caused me all my misery. But she looks too much like Georgian for
+me to see another man touch her. God will care for my poor darling's
+body."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A DETECTIVE'S WORK
+
+
+Morning.
+
+The living household was about its tasks for all the horror of the night
+before, and the still unrelieved suspense as to the fate of one of its
+members.
+
+The maid, who had sat on watch in the upper hall for so many hours the
+evening before, was again at her post, but this time with her eye fixed
+only on one door, the door behind which slept the exhausted Anitra.
+Ransom's room was empty; he was in the sitting-room below, closeted with
+the lawyer.
+
+Some one had been there before them. The tray of bottles and glasses had
+been removed from the table, and in their place were to be seen a woman's
+damaged hat and a small tortoise-shell comb. Mr. Harper's hand was on the
+former, which was wound about with a wet veil.
+
+"I think I recognize this," said he. "At least I have a distinct
+impression of having seen it before."
+
+"It was picked up with the veil still on it near the entrance of the
+lane," explained Ransom.
+
+"Then there can be no doubt that it is the hat Miss Hazen wore during
+her journey. She tossed it off the moment her foot touched the ground,
+and taking the shawl from her neck pulled it over her head instead. You
+remember that she had no hat on when they brought her in."
+
+"I remember. This is Miss Hazen's hat without any doubt."
+
+The lawyer eyed the speaker with curious interest. There was something in
+his tone that he did not understand.
+
+"And this?" he ventured, laying a respectful finger on the comb.
+
+"Found in the open field between the house and the mill-stream."
+
+"Do you recognize it?"
+
+"No. Georgian wore such combs, but I cannot absolutely say that this is
+hers."
+
+"I can. You see this little gold work at the top? Well, I have an eye for
+such things and I noticed this comb in her hair last night. There were
+two of them just alike."
+
+Instinctively the two men sat with their eyes fixed for a minute on this
+comb, then, equally instinctively, they both looked up and gazed at each
+other long and hard. It was the lawyer who first spoke.
+
+"I think that we should have no further secrets between us," said he.
+"Here is Mrs. Ransom's will. There is a name mentioned in it which I do
+not know. Perhaps you do." Here he laid the document on the table.
+
+Mr. Ransom eyed it but did not take it up. Instead, he drew a crumpled
+paper from his own pocket and, handing it to the lawyer, said: "First,
+I should like you to read the letter which she left behind for me. My
+feelings as a husband would lead me to hold it as a sacred legacy from
+all eyes but my own; but there is a mystery hidden in it, a mystery which
+I must penetrate, and you are the only man who can assist me in doing
+so."
+
+The lawyer, lowering his eyes to hide their own suspicious glint, opened
+the paper, and carefully read these lines:
+
+  "Forgive. My troubles are too much for me. I'm going to a place of
+   rest, the only place and the only rest possible to one in my position.
+   I don't blame anybody. Least of all do I blame Anitra. It was not her
+   fault that she was brought up rudely, or that she knows no restraint
+   in love or in hate. Be kind to her for my sake, and if any one else
+   claims her or offers to take her from you, resist them. I give her
+   entirely to you. It's a more priceless gift than you think; much more
+   priceless than the one which I take from you by my death. I could
+   never have been happy with you; you could never have been happy with
+   me. Fate stood between us; a darker and more inexorable fate than you,
+   in your kindly experience of life, could imagine. Else, why do I
+   plunge to my death with your ring on my finger and your love in my
+   heart?
+
+  "Georgian."
+
+"Ravings?" questioned Ransom hoarsely, as Mr. Harper's eyes rose again to
+his face.
+
+"It would seem so," assented the lawyer. "Yet there is intelligence in
+all the lines. And the will--read the will. There is no lack of
+intelligent purpose there; little as it accords with the feeling she
+exhibits here for her sister. She leaves her nothing; and does not even
+mention her name. Her personal belongings she bequeaths to you; but her
+realty, which comprises the bulk of her property I believe, she divides,
+somewhat unequally I own, between you and a man named Auchincloss. It
+is he I want to ask you about. Have you ever heard her speak of him?"
+
+"Josiah Auchincloss of St. Louis, Missouri," read Mr. Ransom. "No, the
+name is new to me. Didn't she tell you anything about him when she gave
+you her instructions?"
+
+"Not a word. She said, 'You will hear from him if ever this will is
+published. He has a right to the money and I entreat you to show your
+respect for me by seeing that he gets it without any unnecessary
+trouble.' That was all she said or would say. Your wife was a woman of
+powerful character, Mr. Ransom. My little arts counted for nothing in any
+difference of opinion between us."
+
+"Auchincloss!" repeated Ransom. "Another unknown quantity in the problem
+of my poor girl's life. What a tangle! Do you wonder that I am overcome
+by it? Anitra--the so-called brother--and now this Auchincloss!"
+
+"Right, Ransom, I share your confusion."
+
+"Do you?" The words came very slowly, penetratingly. "Haven't you some
+idea--some strange, possibly half-formed notion or secret intuition which
+might afford some clew to this labyrinth? I have been told that lawyers
+have a knack of getting at the bottom of human conduct and affairs. You
+have had a wide experience; does it not suggest some answer to this
+problem which will harmonize all its discordant elements and make clear
+its various complications?"
+
+Mr. Harper shook his head, but there was a restrained excitement in his
+manner which was not altogether the reflection of that which dominated
+Ransom, and the latter, observing it, leaned across the table till their
+faces almost touched.
+
+"Do you guess my thought?" he whispered. "Look at me and tell me if you
+guess my thought."
+
+The lawyer hesitated, eying well the trembling lip, the changing color,
+the wide-open, deeply flushed eyes so near his own; then with a slow
+smile of extraordinary subtlety, if not of comprehension, answered in
+a barely audible murmur:
+
+"I think I do. I may be mad, but I think I do."
+
+The other sank back with a sigh charged with what the lawyer interpreted
+as relief. Mr. Harper reseated himself, and for a moment neither looked
+at the other, and neither spoke; it would almost seem as if neither
+breathed. Then, as a bird, deceived by the silence, hopped to the window
+sill and began its cheep, "cheep," Mr. Ransom broke the spell by saying
+in low but studiously business-like tones:
+
+"Have you thought it worth while to study the ground under her window or
+anywhere else for footprints? It might not be amiss; what do you think
+about it?"
+
+"Let us go," readily acquiesced the lawyer, rising to his feet with an
+honest show of alacrity; "after which I must telegraph to New York. I was
+expected back to-day."
+
+"I know it; but your duties there will keep; these here cannot. Your hand
+on the promise that you will respect my secret till--well, till I can
+assure you that my intuitions are devoid of any real basis."
+
+The lawyer's palm met his; then they started to go out; but before they
+had passed the door, Mr. Ransom came back, and lifting the comb from the
+table he put it in his pocket. As he did this, his eye flashed sidewise
+on the other. There were strange hints and presentiments in it which
+brought the color to the usually imperturbable lawyer's cheek.
+
+In going out they passed the office-door. A dozen men were hanging about,
+smoking and talking. Among them was a countryman who had just swallowed,
+open-mouthed, the story of the past night's tragedy. He was now speaking
+out his own mind concerning it, and this is what these two heard him say
+as they went by:
+
+"Do you know what strikes me as mighty strange? That they should clear
+that stone of the name of Anitra just in time to put Georgian's in its
+place. I call that peculiar, I do."
+
+The lawyer and the husband exchanged a glance.
+
+"Mrs. Ransom had a deep mind," the lawyer remarked, as the door slammed
+behind them. "She apparently thought of everything."
+
+Ransom, directing a look down the street towards the factories and the
+roaring mill-stream, uttered a shuddering sigh.
+
+"They are still searching," said he. "But they will never find her. They
+will never find her."
+
+The lawyer pulled him away.
+
+"That's because they search the water. We will search the land."
+
+"That's half water, too; but it cannot hide every clew. You have eyes for
+the imperceptible; use them, Mr. Harper, use them."
+
+"I will; but this is a detective's work. Do not expect too much from me."
+
+"I expect nothing. I do not dare to. Let us tread very softly, that is
+all, and be careful to talk low, if we have anything to say."
+
+By this time they had rounded the corner of the house and entered a
+narrow walk, flagged with brick, which connected the space in front
+with the rear offices and garden. This walk ran close to the walls which
+were broken on this side by an ell projecting in the direction of the
+mill-stream. It was from the roof of this ell that Anitra declared
+Georgian to have slipped and fallen.
+
+Their first care was to glance up at the roof. It was a sloping one and
+Anitra's story seemed credible enough when they noted how much easier it
+would be to drop upon it from the little balcony overhead than to
+traverse the roof itself and reach the ground beneath without slipping.
+But as they looked longer, each face betrayed doubt. The descent from the
+balcony was easy enough, but how about the passage from Georgian's window
+to the balcony? This latter was confined to the one window, and was
+surrounded by an ornamental balustrade, high enough to offer a decided
+obstacle to the adventurous person endeavoring to leap upon it from the
+adjoining window-ledge. However, this leap, made in the dark and under
+circumstances inducing the utmost recklessness, might look practical
+enough from the window-ledge itself, and Mr. Harper, making a remark to
+this effect, proposed that they should examine the ground rather than the
+house for evidences of Mrs. Ransom's slip and fall as related by Anitra.
+
+The only spot where they could hope to find such was in the one short
+stretch--the width of the ell--underlying the edge of the sloping roof.
+But this spot was all flagged, as I have already said, and when their
+eyes strayed beyond it to the untilled fields, stretching between them
+and the great rock at the verge of the waterfall from which she was
+supposed to have taken her fatal leap, it was to find them as
+unproductive of evidence as the brick walk itself. Not one pair of feet
+but many had passed that way since early morning. The ground showed a
+mass of impressions of all sizes and shapes, amid which it would have
+been impossible for them, without the necessary experience, to have
+followed up the flight of any one person. They had come to their task
+too late.
+
+"Futile," decided the lawyer. "There is no use in our going that way."
+And he turned to look again at the ground in their immediate vicinity. As
+he did so, his eye lighted on the triangular spot where the ell met the
+side of the house under the kitchen windows. Here there was no flagging,
+the walk taking a diagonal course from the corner of the ell to the
+kitchen door.
+
+"What are those?" he asked, pointing to two oblong impressions brimming
+with water which disfigured the center of this small plot.
+
+"They look like footprints," ventured Ransom.
+
+"They are footprints," decided Mr. Harper as they stooped to examine the
+marks, "and the footprints of a person dropping from a height. Nothing
+else explains their depth or general appearance."
+
+"Couldn't they be those of a person approaching the ell to converse with
+some one above? I see others similar to these in the open place over
+there beyond the kitchen door."
+
+"It is a trail. Let us follow it. It seems to lead anywhere but towards
+the waterfall. This is an important discovery, Mr. Ransom, and may lead
+to conclusions such as we might not otherwise have presumed to entertain,
+especially if we come upon an impression clear enough to point in which
+direction the person making it was going."
+
+"Here is what you want," Ransom assured him in a low and curiously
+smothered voice. He was evidently greatly excited by this result of their
+inquiries, for all his apparent quiet and precise movements. "It's a
+woman's step, and that woman was going from the ell when she left these
+tokens of her passage behind her. Going! and as you say not in the
+direction of the waterfall."
+
+"Hush! I see some one at the kitchen window. Let us move warily and be
+sure not to confound these prints with those of any other person. It
+looks as if a great many people had passed here."
+
+"Yes, this is the way to the chicken-coops and out-houses. But in the
+ground beyond I think I see a single line of steps again,--small steps
+like these. Where can they be leading? They are deep like those of a
+person running."
+
+"And straggling, like those of a person running in the dark. See how they
+waver from the direct line down there, turn, and almost come up against
+that wood-pile! Whose steps are these? Whose, Mr. Harper? Quick! I must
+see where they go. Our time will not be lost. The key to the labyrinth is
+in our hands."
+
+The lawyer was in the rear and the eyes of the other were fixed far
+ahead. For this reason, perhaps, the former allowed himself a quiet shake
+of the head, which might not have encouraged the other so very much, had
+he caught sight of it. They were now on the verge of the garden, or what
+would soon be a garden if these rains betokened spring. A path ran along
+its edge and in this path the footsteps they were following lost
+themselves; but they came upon them again among the hillocks of some old
+potato-hills beyond, and finally traced them quite across the garden
+waste to a fence, along which they ran, blundering from ploughed earth to
+spots of smoother ground, and so back again till they came upon an old
+turn-stile!
+
+Passing through this, the two men stopped and looked about them. They
+were in a road ridged with grass and flanked by bushes. One end ran east
+into a wooded valley, the other debouched on the highway a few feet to
+the right of the tavern.
+
+"The lane!" exclaimed Mr. Harper. "The lead towards the waterfall was a
+feint. It was in this direction she fled, and it is from this point that
+search must be made for her."
+
+Ransom, greatly perturbed, for this possibility of secret flight opened
+vistas of as much mystery, if not of as much suffering, as her death in
+the river, glanced at the sodden ground under their feet, and thus along
+the lane to where it lost itself from view among the trees.
+
+"No possible following of steps here," he declared. "A hundred people
+must have come this way since early morning."
+
+"It's a short cut from the Ferry. They told me last night that it
+lessened the distance by fully a quarter of a mile."
+
+"The Ferry! Can she be there? Or in the woods, or on her way to some
+unknown place far out of our reach? The thought is maddening, Mr. Harper,
+and I feel as helpless as a child under it. Shall we get detectives from
+the county-seat, or start on the hunt ourselves? We might hear something
+further on to help us."
+
+"We might; but I should rather stay on the immediate scene at present.
+Ah, there comes a fellow in a cart who should be able to tell us
+something! Stand by and I'll accost him. You needn't show your face."
+
+Mr. Ransom turned aside. Mr. Harper waited till the slow-moving horse,
+dragging a heavily jogging wagon, came alongside, and he had caught the
+eye of the low-browed, broad-faced farmer boy who sat on a bag of
+potatoes and held the reins.
+
+"Good morning," said he. "Bad news this way. Any better at the Ferry, or
+down east, as you call it?"
+
+"Eh?" was the lumbering, half-suspicious answer from the startled boy.
+"I've heard naught down yonder, but that a gal threw herself over the
+waterfall up here last night. Is that a fact, sir? I'm mighty curus to
+know. My mother knew them Hazens; used to wash for 'em years ago. She
+told me to bring up these taters and larn all I could about it."
+
+"We don't know much more than that ourselves," was the smooth and
+cautious reply. "The lady certainly is missing, and she is supposed to
+have drowned herself." Then, as he noted the fellow's eyes resting with
+some curiosity on Mr. Ransom's well-clad, gentlemanly figure, added
+gravely, and with a slight gesture towards the latter:
+
+"The lady's husband."
+
+The lad's jaw fell and he looked very sheepish.
+
+"Excuse me, misters, I didn't know," he managed to mutter, with a slash
+at his horse which was vainly endeavoring to pull the cart from the rut
+in which it had stuck. "I guess I'll go along to the hotel. I've a bag of
+taters for Mrs. Deo."
+
+But the cart didn't budge and the lawyer had time to say:
+
+"Guess you didn't hear anything said about another lady I am interested
+in. No talk down your way of a strange young woman seen anywhere on the
+highway or about any of the houses between here and the Landing?"
+
+"Jerusha! I did hear a neighbor of mine say somethin' about a stranger
+gal he saw this very mornin'. Met her down by Beardsley's. She was goin'
+through the mud on foot as lively as you please. Asked him the way to the
+Ferry. He noticed her because she was pretty and spoke in such a nice
+way--just like a city gal," he said. "Is it any one from this hotel?"
+added the fellow with a wondering look. "If so, she walked a mile before
+daylight in mud up to her ankles. A girl of powerful grit that! with a
+mighty good reason for catching the train."
+
+"Oh! there's an early train then?" asked the lawyer, ignoring the other's
+question with unmoved good-humor. "One, I mean, before the 10:50
+express?"
+
+"Yes, sir, or so I've heard. I never took it. Folks don't from here,
+except they're in an awful hurry. Will y'er say who the young woman is?
+Not--not--"
+
+"We don't know who she is," quietly objected the lawyer. "And you don't
+know who she is either," he severely added, holding the yawping
+countryman with his eye. "If you're the man I think you, you'll not talk
+about her unless you're asked by the constable or some one you are bound
+to answer. And what's more, you'll earn a five-dollar bill by going back
+the road you've come and bringing here, without any talk or fuss, the man
+you were just telling us about. I want to have a talk with him, but I
+don't want any one but you and him to know this. You can tell him it's
+worth money, if he don't want to come. Do you understand?"
+
+"You bet," chuckled the grinning lad. "A five-dollar bill is mighty
+clearing to the mind, sir. But must I turn right back before going on to
+the hotel and hearing the news?"
+
+"We'll help you turn the cart," grimly suggested Mr. Harper. "Get up
+there, Dobbin, or whatever your name is. Here, Ransom, lend a hand!"
+
+There was nothing for the fellow to do but to accept the help proffered,
+and turn his cart. With one longing look towards the hotel he jerked at
+the rein and shouted at the horse, which, after a few feeble efforts,
+pulled the cart about and started off again in the desired direction.
+
+"Sooner done, sooner paid," shouted the lawyer, as lad and cart went
+jolting off. "Remember to ask for Lawyer Harper when you come back. I
+won't be far from the office."
+
+The fellow nodded; gave one grinning look back and whipped up his nag.
+The lawyer and Ransom eyed one another. "It's only a possibility,"
+emphasized the former. "Don't lay too much stress upon it."
+
+"Let us speak plainly," urged Ransom. "Mr. Harper, are you sure that you
+know just what my thought is?"
+
+"The time has not come for discussing that question. Let us defer it.
+There is a fact to be settled first."
+
+"Whether the girl--"
+
+"No; this! Whether your wife could have jumped from her window to the
+balcony, as Anitra said. It did not look feasible from below, but as I
+then remarked to you, our opinion may change when we consider it from
+above. Will you go up-stairs with me to your wife's room?"
+
+"I will go anywhere and do anything you please, so that we learn the
+exact truth. But spare me the curiosity of these people. The crowd on
+this side is increasing."
+
+"We will go in by the kitchen door. Some one there will show us the way
+up-stairs."
+
+And in this manner they entered; not escaping entirely all curious looks,
+for human nature is human nature, whether in the kitchen or parlor.
+
+In the hall above Mr. Ransom took the precedence. As they neared the
+fatal room he motioned the lawyer to wait till he could ascertain if Miss
+Hazen would be disturbed by their intrusion. The door, which had been
+broken in between the two rooms, could not have been put back very
+securely, and he dreaded incommoding her. He was gone but a minute.
+Almost as soon as the lawyer started to follow him, he could be seen
+beckoning from poor Georgian's door.
+
+"Miss Hazen is asleep," whispered Ransom, as the other drew near. "We can
+look about this room with impunity."
+
+They both entered and the lawyer crossed at once to the window.
+
+"Your wife could never have taken the leap ascribed to her by the woman
+you call Anitra," he declared, after a minute's careful scrutiny of the
+conditions. "The balustrade of the adjoining balcony is not only in the
+way, but the distance is at least five feet from the extreme end of this
+window-ledge. A woman accustomed to a life of adventure or to the feats
+of a gymnasium might do it, but not a lady of Mrs. Ransom's habits. If
+your wife made her way from this room to the balcony outside her sister's
+window, she did it by means of the communicating door."
+
+"But the door was found locked on this side. There is the key in the lock
+now."
+
+"You are sure of this?"
+
+"I was the first one to call attention to it."
+
+"Then," began the lawyer judicially, but stopped as he noted the peculiar
+eagerness of Ransom's expression, and turned his attention instead to the
+interior of the room and the various articles belonging to Mrs. Ransom
+which were to be seen in it. "The dress your wife wore when she signed
+her will," he remarked, pointing to the light green gown hanging on the
+inside of the door by which they had entered.
+
+Ransom stepped up to it, but did not touch it. He could see her as she
+looked in this gown in her memorable passage through the hall the evening
+before, and, recalling her expression, wondered if they yet understood
+the nature of her purpose and the determination which gave it such
+extraordinary vigor.
+
+Mr. Harper called his attention to two other articles of dress hanging in
+another part of the room. These were her long gray rain-coat and the hat
+and veil she had worn on the train.
+
+"She went out bare-headed and in the plain serge dress in which she
+arrived," remarked Mr. Harper with a side glance at Ransom. "I wonder if
+the girl met on the highway was without hat and dressed in black serge."
+
+Ransom was silent.
+
+"Anitra's hat is below and here is Mrs. Ransom's. She who escaped from
+this house last night went out bare-headed," repeated the lawyer.
+
+Mr. Ransom, moving aside to avoid the probing of the other's eye, merely
+remarked:
+
+"You noticed my wife's dress very particularly it seems. It was of serge,
+you say."
+
+"Yes. I am learned in stuffs. I remarked it when she got into the coach,
+possibly because I was struck by its simplicity and conventional make.
+There was no trimming on the bottom, only stitching. Her sister's was
+just like it. They had the look of being ready-made."
+
+"But Anitra had no rain-coat. I remember that her shoulders were wet when
+she came in from the lane."
+
+"No, she had no protection but her blouse, black like her dress. I
+presume that her hot blood resented every kind of wrap."
+
+Again that sidelong glance from his keen eye. "She wore a checked silk
+handkerchief about her neck--the one she afterwards put over her head."
+
+"You were on the same train with my wife and sister-in-law," Ransom now
+said. "Did you sit near them? Converse with them, that is, with Mrs.
+Ransom?"
+
+"I have no reason for deceiving you in that regard," replied Mr. Harper.
+"I did not come up from New York on the same train they did. They must
+have come up in the morning, for when I arrived at the place they call
+the Ferry, I saw them standing on the hotel steps ready to step into the
+coach. I spoke to Mrs. Ransom then, but only a word. My grip-sack had
+been put under the driver's seat, and I saw that I was expected to ride
+with him, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather. Mrs. Ransom saw
+it too and possibly my natural hesitation, for she turned to me after she
+had seen her sister safely ensconced inside, and said something about her
+regret at having subjected me to such inconvenience, but did not offer to
+make room for me in the body of the coach, though there was room enough
+if the other had been the quiet lady she was herself. But she was not,
+and possibly this was Mrs. Ransom's excuse for her apparent lack of
+consideration for me. Before we reached the point where the lane cuts in,
+I became aware of some disturbance behind me, and when we really got
+there, I heard first the coach door opening, then your wife's voice,
+raised in entreaty to the driver, calling on him to stop before her
+sister jumped out and hurt herself. 'She is deaf and very wild' was all
+the explanation she gave after Miss Hazen had leaped into the wet road
+and darted from sight into what looked to me, in the darkness, like a
+tangled mass of bushes. Then she said something about her having had
+hard work to keep her still till we got this far; but that she was sure
+she would find her way to the hotel, and that we mustn't bother ourselves
+about it for she wasn't going to; Anitra and she had run this road too
+many times when they were children. That is all I have to tell of my
+intercourse with these ladies prior to our appearance at the hotel. I
+think it right for me to clear the slate, Ransom. Who knows what we may
+wish to write upon it next?"
+
+A slight shiver on Ransom's part was the sole answer he gave to this
+innuendo; then both settled themselves to work, the eyes of either
+flashing hither and thither from one small object to another, in this
+seemingly deserted room. In the momentary silence which followed, the
+even breathing of the woman in the adjoining room could be distinctly
+heard. It seemed to affect Mr. Ransom deeply, though he strove hard to
+maintain the business-like attitude he had assumed from the beginning
+of this unofficial examination.
+
+"She has confided nothing more to you since your return from the river
+bank?" suggested the lawyer.
+
+"No."
+
+The word came sharply, considering Mr. Ransom's usual manner. The lawyer
+showed surprise but no resentment, and turned his attention to the bag
+both had noted lying open on two chairs.
+
+"Nothing equivocal here," he declared, after a moment's careful scrutiny
+of its remaining contents. "The only comment I should make in regard to
+what I find here is that all the articles are less carefully chosen than
+you would expect from one of your wife's fondness for fine appointments."
+
+"They were collected in a hurry and possibly by telephone," returned the
+unhappy husband, after a shrinking glance into the bag. "The ones she
+provided in anticipation of her wedding are at the hotel in New York. In
+the trunks and bags there you will find articles as elegant as you could
+wish." Here he turned to the dresser, and pointed to the various objects
+grouped upon it.
+
+"These show that she arranged herself with care for her meeting with you
+last night. How did she appear at that interview? Natural?"
+
+"Hardly; she was much too excited. But I had no suspicion of what she
+was cherishing in her mind. I thought her intentions whimsical, and
+endeavored to edge in a little advice, but she was in no mood to receive
+it. Her mind was too full of what she intended to do.
+
+"Here's where she ate her supper," he added, picking up a morsel of crust
+from a table set against the wall. "And so this door was found fastened
+on this side?" he proceeded, laying his hand on the broken lock.
+
+"It had to be burst open, you see."
+
+"And the window?"
+
+"Was up. The carpet, as you can tell by look and feeling, is still wet
+with the soaking it got."
+
+Mr. Harper's air changed to one of reluctant conviction.
+
+"The evidence seems conclusive of your wife having left this room and the
+house in the remarkable manner stated by Miss Hazen. Yet--"
+
+This _yet_ showed that he was not as thoroughly convinced as the first
+phrase would show. But he added nothing to it; only stood listening,
+apparently to the even breathing of the sleeper on the other side of this
+loosely hanging door.
+
+As he did so, his eye encountered the hot, dry gaze of Mr. Ransom, fixed
+upon him in a suspense too cruel to prolong, and with a sudden change of
+manner he moved from the door, saying significantly as he led the way
+out:
+
+"Let us have a word or two in your own room. It is a principle of mine
+not to trust even the ears of the deaf with what it is desirable to keep
+secret."
+
+Had the glance with which he said this lingered a moment longer on his
+companion's face, he would undoubtedly have been startled at the effect
+of his own words. But being at heart a compassionate man, or possibly
+understanding his new client much better than that client supposed, he
+had turned quite away in crossing the threshold, and so missed the
+conscious flash which for a moment replaced the somber and feverish
+expression that had already aged by ten years the formerly open features
+of this deeply grieved man.
+
+Once in the hall, it was too dark to note further niceties of expression,
+and by the time Mr. Ransom's room was reached, purpose and purpose only
+remained visible in either face.
+
+As they were crossing the threshold, the lawyer wheeled about and cast a
+quick look behind him.
+
+"I observe," said he, "that you have a full and unobstructed view from
+here of the whole hall and of the two doors where our interest is
+centered. I presume you kept a strict watch on both last night. You let
+nothing escape you?"
+
+"Nothing that one could see from this room."
+
+With a thoughtful air, the lawyer swung to the door behind them. As it
+latched, the face of Mr. Ransom sharpened. He even put out a hand and
+rested it on a table standing near, as if to support himself in
+anticipation of what the lawyer would say now that they were again
+closeted together.
+
+Mr. Harper was not without his reasons for a corresponding agitation, but
+he naturally controlled himself better, and it was with almost a judicial
+air that he made this long-expected but long-deferred suggestion:
+
+"You had better tell me now, and as explicitly as possible, just what is
+in your mind. It will prevent all misunderstanding between us, as well as
+any injudicious move on my part."
+
+Mr. Ransom hesitated, leaning hard on the table; then, with a sudden
+burst, he exclaimed:
+
+"It sounds like folly, and you may think that my troubles have driven me
+mad. But I have a feeling here--a feeling without any reason or proof to
+back it--that the woman now sleeping off her exhaustion in Anitra's room
+is the woman I courted and married--Georgian Hazen, now Georgian Ransom,
+my wife."
+
+"Good! I have made no mistake. That is my thought, too," responded the
+lawyer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ANITRA
+
+
+A few minutes later they were discussing this amazing possibility.
+
+"I have no reason for this conclusion,--this hope," admitted Mr. Ransom.
+"It is instinct with me, an intuition, and not the result of my judgment.
+It came to me when she first addressed me down by the mill-stream. If you
+consider me either wrong or misled, I confess that I shall not be able to
+combat your decision with any argument plausible enough to hold your
+attention for a moment."
+
+"But I don't consider you either wrong or misled," protested the other.
+"That is," he warily added, "I am ready to accept the correctness of the
+possibility you mention and afterwards to note where the supposition will
+lead us. Of course, your first sensation is that of relief."
+
+"It will be when I am no longer the prey of doubts."
+
+"Notwithstanding the mystery?"
+
+"Notwithstanding the mystery. The one thing I have found it impossible to
+contemplate is her death;--the extinction of all hope which death alone
+can bring. She has become so blended with my every thought since the hour
+she vanished from my eyes and consequently from my protection, that I
+should lose the better part of my self in losing her. Anything but that,
+Mr. Harper."
+
+"Even possible shame?"
+
+"How, shame?"
+
+"Some reason very strong and very vital must underlie her conduct if what
+we suspect is true, and she has not only been willing to subject you and
+herself to a seeming separation by death, but to burden herself with the
+additional misery of being obliged to assume a personality cumbered by
+such a drawback to happiness and even common social intercourse as this
+of the supposed Anitra."
+
+"You mean her deafness?"
+
+"I mean that, yes. What could Mrs. Ransom's motive be (if the woman
+sleeping yonder is Mrs. Ransom) for so tremendous a sacrifice as this you
+ascribe to her? The rescue of her sister from some impending calamity?
+That would argue a love of long standing and of superhuman force; one far
+transcending even her natural affection for the husband to whom she has
+just given her hand. Such a love under such circumstances is not
+possible. She has known this long lost sister for a few days only. Her
+sense of duty towards her, even her compassion for one so unfortunate,
+might lead her to risk much, but not so much as that. You must look for
+some other explanation; one more reasonable and much more personal."
+
+"Where? where? I'm all at sea; blinded, dazed, almost at my wits' end. I
+can see no reason for anything she has done. I neither understand her nor
+understand myself. I ought to shrink from the poor creature there,
+sleeping off--I don't know what. But I don't. I feel drawn to her,
+instead, irresistibly drawn, as if my place were at her bedside to
+comfort and protect."
+
+At this impulsive assertion springing from a depth of feeling for which
+the staid lawyer had no measure, a perplexed frown chased all the
+urbanity from his face. Some thought, not altogether welcome, had come to
+disturb him. He eyed Mr. Ransom closely from under his clouded brows. He
+could do this now with impunity, for Mr. Ransom's glances were turned
+whither his thoughts and inclinations had wandered.
+
+"I would advise you," came in slow comment from the watchful lawyer, "not
+to be too certain of your conclusions till doubt becomes an absolute
+impossibility. Instinct is a good thing but it must never be regarded as
+infallible. It may be proved that it is your wife who has fled, after
+all. In which case it would be a great mistake to put any faith in this
+gipsy girl, Anitra."
+
+Mr. Ransom's face hardened; his eyes did not leave the direction in which
+they were set.
+
+"I will remember," said he.
+
+His companion did not appear satisfied, and continued emphatically:
+
+"Whether the woman now here is Mrs. Ransom or her wild and irresponsible
+sister, she is a person of dangerous will and one not to be lightly
+regarded nor carelessly dealt with. Pray consider this, Mr. Ransom, and
+do not allow impulse to supersede judgment. If you will take my advice--"
+
+"Speak."
+
+"I should treat her as if she were the woman she calls herself, or, at
+least, as if you thought her so. Nothing--" this word he repeated as he
+noted the incredulity with which the other listened--"would be so likely
+to make her betray herself as that."
+
+"Let us go back and listen again at her door," was Mr. Ransom's emphatic
+but inconsequent reply.
+
+The lawyer desisted from further advice, but sighed as he followed his
+new client into the hall. At the turn of the staircase they were stopped
+by the sound of wrangling voices in the office below. Mr. Harper heard
+his name mentioned and hastened to interfere. Assuring Mr. Ransom of his
+speedy return, he stepped down-stairs, and in a few minutes reappeared
+with a middle-aged man of characteristic appearance, whom he introduced
+to Mr. Ransom as Mr. Goodenough. The sight of the uncouth head of their
+youthful acquaintance of the morning peering up after him from the foot
+of the stairs was warranty sufficient that this was the man who had met
+the strange young lady on the highway early that morning.
+
+At sight of him Mr. Ransom felt that inner recoil which we all experience
+at the prospect of an immediate and definite termination of a long
+brooding doubt. In another instant and with one word this uncultured and
+hitherto unknown man would settle for him the greatest question of his
+life. And he did not feel prepared for it. He had an impulse almost of
+flight, as if in this way he could escape a certainty he feared. What
+certainty? Perhaps he could not have answered had he been asked. His mind
+was in a turmoil. He had feelings--instincts; that was all.
+
+The lawyer, noting his condition, undertook the leadership of affairs.
+Beckoning Mr. Goodenough into Mr. Ransom's room, he softly closed the
+door upon the many inquiring ears about, and, assuming the manner most
+likely to encourage the unsophisticated but straightforward looking man
+with whom he had to deal, quietly observed:
+
+"We hear that you met this morning a young girl going towards the Ferry.
+There is great reason why we should know just how this young girl looks.
+A lady disappeared from here last night, and though, from a letter she
+left behind her, we have every reason to believe that her body is
+somewhere in the river, yet we don't want to overlook the possibility
+of her having escaped alive in another direction. Can you describe the
+person you saw?"
+
+"Wa'al, I'm not much good at talk," was the embarrassed, almost halting
+reply. "I saw the gal and I remember just how she looked, but I couldn't
+put it into words to save my soul. She was pretty and chipper and walked
+along as if she was part of the mornin'; but that don't tell you much,
+does it? Yet I don't know what else to say. P'raps you could help me
+by asking questions."
+
+"We'll see. Was she light-complexioned? Yellow hair, you know, and blue
+eyes?"
+
+"No; I don't think she was. Not what I call light. My Sal's light; this
+gal wasn't like my Sal."
+
+"Dark, then, very dark, with a gipsy color and snapping black eyes?"
+
+"No, not that either. What I should call betweens. But more dark than
+light."
+
+Harper flashed a glance at Ransom before putting his next question.
+
+"What did she have on her head?"
+
+"Bless me if I can tell! It wasn't a sun-bonnet, nor was it slapped all
+over with ribbons and flowers like my darter's."
+
+"But she had some sort of hat on?"
+
+"Sartain. Did you think she was just running to the neighbors?"
+
+"But she wore no coat?"
+
+"I don't remember any coat."
+
+"Do you remember her frock?"
+
+"No, not exactly."
+
+"Don't you remember its color?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Wasn't it black? the skirt of it, at least?"
+
+"Black? Wa'al, I guess not. A gal of her age in black! No, she was as
+bright as the flowers in my wife's garden. Not a black thing on her. I
+should sooner think her clothes were red than black."
+
+Harper showed his surprise.
+
+"Not a black skirt?" he persisted.
+
+"No, sir'ee. I haven't much eye for fixin's but I've eye enough to know
+when a gal's dressed like a gal and not like some old woman."
+
+Harper's eye stole again towards Ransom.
+
+"Checkmate in four moves," he muttered. "The person we are interested in
+could have worn no such clothing as Mr. Goodenough describes. Yet
+clothing can be changed. How, I cannot see in this instance; but I will
+risk no mistake. The trail we followed led too surely in the direction of
+the highway for us to drop all inquiries because of a colored skirt and a
+hat we cannot quite account for. If the face is one we know (and I
+really believe it was), we can leave the other discrepancies to future
+explanation." And turning back to the patient countryman, he composedly
+remarked: "You are positive in your recollections of the young lady's
+features. You would have no difficulty in recognizing her if you saw her
+again?"
+
+"Not a bit. Once I get a picter in my mind of a man or a woman I see it
+always. And I can see her as plain as plain the moment I stop to think.
+She was pretty, you see, and just a little scared to speak to a stranger.
+But that went as she saw my face, and she asked me very perlite if she
+was on the right road to the Ferry."
+
+"And you told her she was?"
+
+"Sartain; and how much time she had to get there to catch the boat."
+
+"I see. So you would know her again if you saw her."
+
+"I jest would."
+
+The lawyer made a move towards the door which Mr. Ransom hastened to
+open. As the long vista of the hall disclosed itself, Mr. Harper turned
+upon the countryman with the quiet remark:
+
+"There were two ladies here, you know. Twins. Their likeness was
+remarkable. If we show you the remaining one who now lies asleep, you
+surely will be able to tell if she is like the lady you saw."
+
+"If she looks just like her you can bet beans against potatoes on that."
+
+"Come, then. You needn't feel any embarrassment, for she's not only sound
+asleep but so deaf she couldn't hear you if she were awake. You need only
+take one glance and nod your head if she looks like the other. It is very
+desirable that none of us should speak. The case is a mysterious one and
+there's enough talk about it already without the women hiding and
+listening behind every shut door you see, adding their gossip to the
+rest."
+
+A knowing look, a twitch at the corners of a good-natured mouth, and the
+man followed them down the hall, past one or two of the doors alluded to,
+till they reached the one against the panel of which Mr. Ransom had
+already laid his ear.
+
+"Still asleep," his gesture seemed to signify; and with a word of caution
+he led the way in.
+
+The room was very dark. Mrs. Deo had been careful to draw down the shade
+when she put her strange charge to bed, and at this first moment of
+entrance it was impossible for them to see more than the outline of a
+dark head upon a snowy pillow. But gradually, feature by feature of the
+sleeping woman's countenance became visible, and the lawyer, turning his
+acute gaze on the man from whose recognition he expected so much,
+impatiently awaited the nod which was to settle their doubt.
+
+But that nod did not come, not even after Mr. Ransom, astonished at the
+long pause, turned on the stranger his own haggard and inquiring eyes.
+Instead, Mr. Goodenough lifted a blank stare to either face beside him,
+and, shaking his head, stumbled awkwardly back in an endeavor to leave
+the room. Mr. Ransom, taken wholly by surprise, uttered some peremptory
+ejaculation, but a glance from the lawyer quieted him, and not till they
+were all shut up again in that convenient room at the head of the stairs
+did any of the three speak.
+
+And not even then without an embarrassed pause. Both the lawyer and his
+unhappy client had a deep and, in the case of the latter, a heartrending
+disappointment to overcome, and the clock on the stairs ticked out
+several seconds before the lawyer ventured to remark:
+
+"Miss Hazen's face is quite new to you, I perceive. Evidently it was not
+her twin sister you met on the high road this morning."
+
+"Nor anything like her," protested the man. "A different face entirely;
+prettier and more saucy. Such a gal as a man like me would be glad to
+call darter."
+
+"Oh, I see!" assented the lawyer. Then with the instinctive caution of
+his class, "You have made no mistake?"
+
+"Not a bit of a one," emphasized the other. "Sorry I can't give the
+gentleman any hope, but if the sisters look alike, it was not this
+woman's twin I met. I'm ready to take my oath on that."
+
+"Very well. One catches at straws in a stress like this. Here's a fiver
+to pay for your trouble, and another for the lad who brought you here.
+Good day. We had no sound reason for expecting any different result from
+our experiment."
+
+The man bowed awkwardly and went out. Mr. Harper brought down his fist
+heavily on the table, and after a short interval of silence, during which
+he studiously avoided meeting his companion's eye, he remarked:
+
+"I am as much taken aback as yourself. For all he had to say about her
+gay clothing, I expected a different result. The girl on the highway was
+neither Mrs. Ransom nor her sister. We have made a confounded mistake and
+Mrs. Ransom--"
+
+"Don't say it. I'm going back to the room where that woman lies sleeping.
+I cannot yet believe that my heart is not shut up within its walls. I'm
+going to watch for her eyes to open. Their expression will tell me what I
+want to know;--the look one gives before full realization comes and the
+soul is bare without any thought of subterfuge."
+
+"Very well. I should probably do the same if I were you. Only your
+insight may be affected by prejudice. You will excuse me if I join you
+in this watch. The experiment is of too important a character for its
+results to depend upon the correct seeing of one pair of eyes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+"LOVE!"
+
+
+She lay in the abandonment of profound slumber, one hand under her cheek,
+the other hidden by the white spread Mrs. Deo had been careful to draw
+closely about her. Both Mr. Harper and Mr. Ransom regretted this fact,
+for each instinctively felt that in her hands, if not in her sleeping
+face, they should be able to read the story of her life. If that life had
+been a hard one, such as must have befallen the waif, Anitra, her hands
+should show it.
+
+But her hands were covered. And so, or nearly so, was her face; the
+latter by her long and curling locks of whose beauty I have hitherto
+spoken. One cheek only was visible, and this cheek looked dark to Ransom,
+decidedly darker than Georgian's; but realizing that the room itself was
+dark, he forbore to draw the attention of the lawyer to it, or even to
+allow it to affect his own judgment to the extent it reasonably called
+for.
+
+His first scrutiny over, Mr. Harper crossed over to his old seat against
+the wall. Mr. Ransom remained by the bed. And thus began their watch.
+
+It was a long and solemn one; a tedious waiting. The gloom and quiet of
+the small room was so profound that both men, for all their suspense and
+absorption in the event they awaited, welcomed the sound of a passing
+whisper or the careful stepping of feet in the corridor without.
+
+If they turned to look they could just catch the outline of each other's
+countenance, but this they did not often attempt. Their attention was
+held by the silent figure on the bed, and so motionless was this figure
+in the profound slumber in which it lay enchained, and so motionless were
+they in their increasing suspense and expectation, that time seemed to
+have come to a standstill in this little room. There was one break. The
+lips which had hitherto remained mute opened in a quiet murmur, and Mr.
+Harper, watching his client, saw him clutch the headboard in sudden
+emotion before he finally rose and, with looks still fixed on the bed,
+approached him with the startling announcement:
+
+"The word she whispered was '_Love_'! It must be Georgian."
+
+Alas! the same thought struck them both. Was this a proof? Mr. Ransom
+flushed hotly and crept softly back to his post.
+
+Again time seemed to stop. Then there came a cautious rap on the door,
+followed by the hasty retreat of the person knocking. It caused Mr.
+Ransom to stir slightly, but did not affect the lawyer. Suddenly the
+former rose with every evidence of renewed agitation. This drew Mr.
+Harper from his seat.
+
+"What is it?" he cried, softly approaching the other and whispering,
+though after events proved that he might have spoken aloud with impunity.
+
+Mr. Ransom pointed to her temple from which her hair had just fallen
+away.
+
+"The veining here. I have often studied it. I recognize its every
+convolution. It is Georgian, Georgian who lies there--ah, she's stirring,
+waking! Let me go--"
+
+He dragged himself from Mr. Harper's detaining hand, bent over the bed
+and murmured softly but with the thrilling intensity of a suffering,
+hoping heart, the name which at that moment meant the whole wide world
+to him:
+
+"Georgian!"
+
+Would she greet this expression with recognition and a smile? The lawyer
+half expected her to and stepped near enough to see, but the eyes which
+had opened upon the white wall in front of her stared on, and when they
+did turn, as they did after one halting, agonizing minute, it was in
+response to some movement made by Mr. Ransom and not in reply to his
+voice.
+
+This sudden and unexpected overthrow of his secretly cherished hopes
+was terrible. As he saw her rise on one elbow and meet his gaze with
+one which revealed the astonishment and resentment of a wild creature
+suddenly entrapped, he felt, or so he afterwards declared, as if the
+viper which had hitherto clung cold and deathlike about his heart had
+suddenly sprung to life and stung him. It was the most uncanny moment
+of his life.
+
+Aghast at the effect of this upon his own mind, he reeled from the room,
+followed by the lawyer. As they passed down the hall they heard her voice
+raised to a scream in uncontrollable shame and indignation. This was
+followed by the snap of her key in the lock.
+
+They had made a great mistake, or so the lawyer decided when they again
+stood face to face in Mr. Ransom's room. That the latter made no
+immediate answer was no proof that he did not coincide in the other's
+opinion. Indeed it was only too evident that he did, for his first words,
+when he had controlled himself sufficiently to speak, were these:
+
+"I should have taken your advice. In future I will. To me she is
+henceforth Anitra, and I shall treat her as my wife's sister. Watch if
+I fail. Anitra! Anitra!" He reiterated the word as if he would fix it in
+his mind as well as accustom his lips to it. Then he wheeled about and
+faced Harper, whose eyes he doubtless felt on him. "Yet I am not so
+thoroughly convinced as to feel absolute peace here," he admitted,
+striking his breast with irrepressible passion. "My good sense tells me
+I am a fool, but my heart whispers that the sweetness in her sleeping
+face was the sweetness which won me to love Georgian Hazen. That gentle
+sweetness! Did you note it?"
+
+"Yes, I noted what you mention. But don't let that influence you too
+much. The wildest heart has its tender moments, and her dreams may have
+been pleasant ones."
+
+Mr. Ransom remembered her unconscious whisper and felt stunned, silenced.
+The lawyer gave no evidence of observing this, but remarked quite easily
+and with evident sincerity:
+
+"I am more readily affected by proof than you are. I am quite convinced
+myself, that our wits have been wool-gathering. There was no mistaking
+her look of outraged womanhood. It was not your wife who encountered your
+look, but the deaf Anitra. Of course, you won't believe me. Yet I advise
+you to do so. It would be too dreadful to find that this woman really is
+your wife."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"I know what I am saying. Nothing much worse could happen to you. Don't
+you see where the hypothesis to which you persist in clinging would land
+you? Should the woman in there prove to be your wife Georgian--" The
+lawyer stopped and, in a tone the seriousness of which could not fail to
+impress his agitated hearer, added quietly, "you remember what I said to
+you a short time ago about _guilt_."
+
+"Guilt!"
+
+"No, the word was shame. But guilt better expresses my meaning. I repeat,
+should the woman prove to be, not the lovely but ignorant girl she
+appears, but Georgian Ransom, your wife, then upon her must fall the
+onus of Anitra's disappearance if not of her possible death. No! you must
+hear me out; the time has come for plain speaking. Your wife had her
+reasons--we do not know what they were, but they were no common ones--for
+wishing this intrusive sister out of the way. Anitra, on the contrary,
+could have desired nothing so much as the preservation of her protector.
+The conclusion is not an agreeable one. Let us hope that the question it
+involves will never be presented for any man's consideration."
+
+Mr. Ransom sank speechless into a chair. This last blow was an
+overwhelming one and he sank before it.
+
+Mr. Harper altered his tone. He had real commiseration for his client and
+had provided himself with an antidote to the poison he had just so
+ruthlessly administered.
+
+"Courage!" he cried. "I only wished you to see that there were worse
+losses to consider than that of your wife's desertion, even if that
+desertion took the form of suicide. There is a reason which you have
+forgotten for acquitting Mrs. Ransom of such criminal intentions and
+of accepting as your sister-in-law the woman who calls herself Anitra.
+Recall Mrs. Ransom's will; the general terms of which I felt myself
+justified in confiding to you. In it there are no provisions made for
+this Anitra. Had Mrs. Ransom, for any inexplicable reason, planned an
+exchange of identities with her sorely afflicted sister, she would have
+been careful to have left that sister some portion of her great fortune.
+But she did not remember her with a cent. This fact is very significant
+and should give you great comfort."
+
+"It should, it should, in face of the other alternative you have
+suggested as possible. But I fear that I am past comfort. In whatever
+light we regard this tragedy, it all means woe and disaster to me. I have
+made a mess of my life and I have got to face the fact like a man." Then
+rising and confronting Mr. Harper with passionate intensity, he called
+out till the room rang again:
+
+"Georgian is dead! You hear me, Georgian is dead!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"I DON'T HEAR"
+
+
+The afternoon passed without further developments. Mr. Harper, who had
+his own imperative engagements, left on the evening train for New York,
+promising to return the next day in case his presence seemed
+indispensable to his client.
+
+That client's final word to him had been an injunction to keep an eye on
+Georgian's so-called brother and to report how he had been affected by
+the news from Sitford; and when, in the lull following the lawyer's
+departure, Mr. Ransom sat down in his room to look his own position
+resolutely in the face, this brother and his possible connection with the
+confusing and unhappy incidents of this last fatal week regained that
+prominent place in his thoughts which the doubts engendered by the
+unusual character of these incidents had for a while dispelled.
+
+What had been the hold of this strange and uncongenial man on Georgian?
+And was his reappearance at the same time with that of a supposedly long
+deceased sister simply a coincidence so startling as to appear unreal?
+
+He had not seen Anitra again and did not propose to, unless the meeting
+came about in a natural way and without any show of desire on his part.
+If any suspicion had been awakened in the house by his peculiar conduct
+in the morning, he meant it to be speedily dissipated by the careful way
+in which he now held to his role of despairing husband whose only
+interest in the girl left on his hands was the dutiful one of a reluctant
+brother-in-law, who doubts the kindly feelings of his strange and
+unwelcome charge.
+
+The landlady, with a delicacy he highly appreciated, cared for the young
+girl without making her conspicuous by any undue attention. No tidings
+had come in of any discovery in the mill-stream or in the river into
+which it ran, and there being nothing with which to feed gossip, the
+townsfolk who had gathered about the hotel porches gradually began to
+disperse, till only a few of the most persistent remained to keep up
+conversation till midnight.
+
+Finally these too left and the house sank into quiet, a quiet which
+remained unbroken all night; for everybody, even poor Mr. Ransom, slept.
+
+He was up, however, with the first beam entering his room. How could he
+tell but that news of a definite and encouraging nature awaited him? Some
+one might have come in early from town or river. All search had not been
+abandoned. There were certain persistent ones who had gone as far as
+Beardsley's. Some of these might have returned. He would hasten down and
+see. But it was only to find the office empty, and though the household
+presently awoke and the great front door was thrown open to all comers,
+no eager straggler came rushing in with the tidings he equally longed and
+dreaded to receive.
+
+At half-past ten the representative of the county police called on Mr.
+Ransom, but with small result. Shortly after his departure, the mail
+came in and with it the New York papers. These he read with avidity. But
+they added nothing to his knowledge. Georgian's death was accepted as
+a fact, and the peculiarities of their history since their unfortunate
+wedding-day were laid bare with but little consideration for his feelings
+or the good name of his bride. With a sorer heart than ever, he flung the
+papers from him and went out to gather strength in the open air.
+
+There was a corner of the veranda into which he had never ventured. It
+was likely to be a solitary one at this hour, and thither he now went.
+But a shock awaited him there. A lady was pacing its still damp boards.
+A lady who did not turn her head at his step, but whom he instantly
+recognized from her dress, and wilful but not ungraceful bearing, as her
+whom he was determined to call, nay recognize, as Anitra Hazen.
+
+His judgment counseled retreat, but the fascination of her presence held
+him, and in that moment of hesitation she turned towards him and flight
+became impossible.
+
+It was the first opportunity he had had of observing her features in
+broad daylight. The effect was a confused one. She was Georgian and she
+was not Georgian. Her skin was decidedly darker, her eyes more lustrous,
+her bearing less polished and at the same time more impassioned. She was
+not so tall or quite so elegantly proportioned;--or was it her rude
+method of dressing her hair and the awkward cut of her clothes which made
+the difference. He could not be sure. Resolved as he was to consider her
+Anitra, and excellent as his reasons were for doing so, the swelling of
+his heart as he met her eye roused again the old doubt and gave an
+unnatural tone to his voice as he advanced towards her with an impetuous
+utterance of her name:
+
+"Anitra!"
+
+She shrunk, not at the word but at his movement, which undoubtedly was
+abrupt; but immediately recovered herself and, meeting him half-way,
+cried out in the unnaturally loud tones of the very deaf:
+
+"They don't bring my sister back. She is drowned, drowned. But you still
+have Anitra," she exclaimed in child-like triumph. "Anitra will be good
+to you. Don't forsake the poor girl. She will go where you go and be very
+obedient and not get angry ever again."
+
+He felt his hair rise. Something in her look, something in her manner of
+making evident the indefinable barrier between them even while expressing
+her desire to accompany him, made such a disturbance in his brain that
+for the moment he no longer knew himself, nor her, nor the condition of
+things about him. If she saw the effect she produced, she gave no
+evidence of it. She had begun to smile and her smile transformed her. The
+wild look which was never long out of her eyes softened into a milder
+gleam, and dimples he had been accustomed to see around lips he had
+kissed and called the sweetest in the world flashed for a moment in the
+face before him with a story of love he dared not read, yet found it
+impossible to forget or see unmoved.
+
+"What trial is this into which my unhappy fate has plunged me!" thought
+he. "Can reason stand it? Can I see this woman daily, hourly, and not go
+mad between my doubts and my love?"
+
+His face had turned so stern that even she noticed it, and in a trice the
+offending dimples disappeared.
+
+"You are angry," she pouted. "You don't want Anitra. Nod if it is so, nod
+and I will go away."
+
+He did not nod; he could not. She seemed to gather courage at this, and
+though she did not smile again, she gave him a happy look as she said:
+
+"I have no home now, nor any friend since sister has gone. I don't want
+any if I can stay with you and learn things. I want to be like sister.
+She was nice and wore pretty clothes. She gave me some, but I don't know
+where they are. I don't like this dress. It's black and all bad round the
+bottom where I fell into the mud."
+
+She looked down at her dress. It showed, in spite of Mrs. Deo's effort at
+cleaning it, signs of her tramp through the wet lane. He looked at it
+too, but it was mechanically. He was debating in his mind a formidable
+question. Should he grasp her hand, insist that she was Georgian and
+demand her confidence and the truth? or should he follow the lawyer's
+advice and continue to accept appearances, meet her on her own ground and
+give her the answer called for by her lonely and forsaken position? He
+found after a moment's thought that he had no choice; that he could not
+do the first and must do the last.
+
+"You shall come with me," said he quietly. "I will see that you have
+every suitable protection and care."
+
+She surveyed him with the same unmoved inquiry burning in her eyes.
+
+"I don't hear," said she.
+
+He looked at her, his lips set, his eyes as inquiring as her own.
+
+"I don't believe it," he muttered just above his breath.
+
+The steady stare of her eyes never faltered.
+
+"You loved sister, love me," she whispered.
+
+He fell back from her. This was not Georgian. This was the untutored girl
+about whom Georgian had written to him. Everything proved it, even her
+hands upon which his eyes now fell. Why had he not noticed them before?
+He had meant to look at them the first thing. Now that he did, he saw
+that he might have spared himself some of the miserable uncertainties of
+the last few minutes. They were small and slight like Georgian's, but
+very brown and only half cared for. That they were cared for at all
+astonished him. But she soon explained that. Seeing where his eyes were
+fixed, she cried out:
+
+"Don't look at my hands. I know they are not real nice like sister's. But
+I'm learning. She showed me how to rub them white and cut the nails. A
+woman did it for me the first time and I've been doing it ever since, but
+they don't look like hers, for all the pretty rings she bought me. Was I
+foolish to want the rings? I always had rings when I was with the
+gipsies. They were not gold ones, but I liked them. And Mother Duda liked
+rings too and made me one once out of beads. It was on my finger when my
+sister took me home with her. That is why she brought me these. She
+didn't think the bead one was good enough. It wasn't much like hers."
+
+Ransom recalled the diamonds and the rich sapphires he had been
+accustomed to see on his bride's hand.
+
+But this did not engage him long. Some method of communication must be
+found with this girl, which could be both definite and unmistakable.
+Feeling in his pocket, he brought out pencil and a small pad. He would
+write what he had to say, and was hesitating over the words with which to
+open this communication, when he saw her hand thrust itself between his
+eyes and the pad, and heard these words uttered in a resolute tone, but
+not without a hint of sadness:
+
+"I cannot read. I have never been taught."
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+Money
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+GOD'S FOREST, THEN MAN'S
+
+
+The pencil and pad fell from Mr. Ransom's hands. He stared at the girl
+who had made this astonishing statement, and his brain whirled.
+
+As for her, she simply stooped and picked up the pad.
+
+"You feel badly about that," said she. "You want me to read. I'll learn.
+That will make me more like sister. But I know some things now. I know
+what you are thinking about. You are curious about my life, what it has
+been and what kind of a girl I am. I'll tell you. I can talk if I cannot
+hear. I heard up to two years ago. Shall I talk now? Shall I tell you
+what I told Georgian when she found me crying in the street and took me
+home to her house?"
+
+He nodded blindly.
+
+With a smile as beautiful as Georgian's--for a moment he thought more
+beautiful--she drew him to a seat. She was all fire and purpose now. The
+spark of intelligence which was not always visible in her eye burned
+brightly. She would have looked lovely even to a stranger, but he was not
+thinking of her looks, only of the hopelessness of the situation, its
+difficulties and possibly its perils.
+
+"I don't remember all that has happened to me," she began, speaking very
+fast. "I never tried to remember, when I was little; I just lived, and
+ran wild in the roads and woods like the weasels and the chipmunks. The
+gipsies were good to me. I had not a cross word in years. The wife of the
+king was my friend, and all I knew I learned from her. It was not much,
+but it helped me to live in the forest and be happy, as long as I was a
+little girl. When I grew up it was different. It was the king who was
+kind then, and the woman who was fierce. I didn't like his kindness, but
+she didn't know this, for after one day when she caught him staring at me
+across the fire, she sent me off after something she wanted in a small
+town we were camping near, and when I came back with it, the band was
+gone. I tried to follow, but it was dark and I didn't know the way;
+besides I was afraid--afraid of him. So I crept back to the town and
+slept in the straw of a barn I found open. Next day I sold my earrings
+and got bread. It didn't last long and I tried to work, but that meant
+sleeping under a roof, and houses smothered me, so I did my work badly
+and was turned out. Then I sold my ring. It was my last trinket, and when
+the few cents I got for it were gone, I wandered about hungry. This I was
+used to and didn't mind at first, but at last I went to work again, and
+I did better now for a little while, till one evening I saw, through the
+stable window of the inn where I was working, two black eyes staring in
+just as they stared across the dying embers of the gipsy camp. I did not
+scream, but I hid myself, and when they were gone away stole out and
+got on the cars, and gave the man my last dollar--all the money I had
+earned--for a ride to New York. I did not know any better. I knew he
+never went to New York, and I thought I would be safe from him there. But
+of the difference between the woods and a forest of brick and stone I
+never thought; of night with no shelter but the wall of some blind alley;
+of hunger in the sight of food, and wild beasts in the shape of men. I
+didn't know where to go or who to speak to. If any one stared at me long,
+I turned and ran away. I ran away once from a policeman. He thought me a
+thief, and started to run after me. But people slipped in between us and
+I got away. What happened next I don't know. Perhaps I was thrown down,
+perhaps I fell. I had come a long way and I was tired. When I did know
+anything, I was lying on my back in a narrow street, looking up at a tall
+building that seemed to go right up into the sky like the great rocks I
+had sometimes slept under when I was with the gipsies. Only there were
+windows in the rock, out of which looked faces, and I got looking back
+at one of these faces and the face looked at me, and I liked it and got
+up on my knees and held up my arms, and the face drew back out of sight,
+and I felt very sorry and cried and almost laid down again. I seemed so
+alone and hurt and hungry. But the children--there were crowds of
+children--wouldn't let me. They got in a ring and pulled at me, and some
+one cried: 'Big cheeks is coming! Big cheeks will eat her up,' and I was
+angry and got up on my feet. But I couldn't walk; I screamed when I tried
+to, which frightened the children, and they all ran away. But I didn't
+fall; an arm was round me, a good, kind arm, and though I didn't see the
+face of the woman who helped, for she had her head wrapped up in an old
+shawl, I felt that it was the same which had looked out of the window
+at me, and went willingly enough when she began to draw me toward the
+house and up the first flight of stairs, though I could hardly help
+screaming every time my foot touched the ground. At the top of the first
+flight I stopped; I could go no further. The woman heard me pant, and
+pushing the covering from her eyes, she turned my face towards the light
+and looked at it. I thought she wanted to see if I was strong enough to
+go on, but that wasn't it at all, for in a minute I heard her say, in a
+voice so sweet I thought I had never heard the like, 'Yes, you're pretty;
+I want a pretty girl to stay with me and go about selling my things. I
+love pretty girls; I never was pretty myself. Will you stay with me if I
+take you up to my room and take care of you? I'll be good to you, little
+duckling, everybody about here will tell you that; everybody but the
+children, they don't like me.' I moaned, but it was from happiness. It
+seemed too good to hear that cooing voice in my ear. I thought of my
+mother--a dream--and my arms went up as they had in the street below. 'I
+will stay,' I said. She caught my hands and that is all I remember till I
+found myself in bed, with my ankle bound up and a gentle hand smoothing
+my hair. It was a month before I walked again. All the time this woman
+tended me, but always from behind. I did not see her face--not well--only
+by glimpses and then only partly, for the shawl was always over her head,
+covering everything but her eyes and mouth. These were small, the
+smallest I ever saw, little pig eyes, and little screwed up mouth; but
+the look of them was kindly and that was all I cared about then; that and
+her talk, which made me cry one minute and laugh the next. I have never
+cried so much or laughed so much in my life as I did that one month. She
+told such sad things and she told such funny ones. She made me glad to
+see her come in and sorry to see her go out. She let no one else come
+near me. I did not care; I liked her too well. I was never tired of
+listening to her praises and she praised me a great deal. I even did not
+mind sleeping under a roof as much as I had before, perhaps because we
+were so near it; perhaps because the room was so full of all sorts of
+things, I never got tired of looking at them. Pretty things she called
+them, but when I saw more things, things outside in shop windows and the
+houses I afterwards went into, I knew they were very cheap things and not
+always pretty. But she thought they were, and used to talk about them by
+the hour and tell me stories she had made up about the pictures she had
+cut out of newspapers. And I learned something; I could not help it, and
+even began to think a bit--something I had never done before. But when I
+got on my feet again, and was given the choice of staying there all the
+time, I did not know at first whether I wanted to or not. For Mother Duda
+had been very honest with me, and the minute she found that I could walk
+again had told me that I would have to have great patience if I lived
+with her, and endure a very disagreeable sight. Then she pulled off her
+shawl and I saw her as she was and almost screamed, she looked so horrid
+to me, but I didn't quite, for her eyes wouldn't let me. They seemed to
+ask me not to care, but to love her a little though she was a fright to
+look at, and I tried but I couldn't, I could only keep from screaming.
+
+"She had a goitre; that is what she called it, and the great pocket of
+flesh hanging down on either side of her neck frightened me. It
+frightened everybody; she was used to that, but she said she loved me and
+felt my fear more than she did others. Could I bear to live with her,
+knowing what her shawl hid? If I could she would be good to me, but if I
+couldn't she would do what she could to get me honest work in some other
+place. I didn't answer at first, but I did before she had put her shawl
+on again. I told her that I would forget everything but her good smile,
+and stay with her a little while. I stayed three years, helping her by
+going about and selling the tatting work she made.
+
+"She could make beautiful patterns and so neat, but she couldn't sell
+them, on account of her awful appearance. So I was very useful to her,
+and felt I was earning my meat and drink and the kind looks and words
+which made them taste good. It taught me a lot, going around. I saw
+people and how they lived and what was nice and what wasn't. I was only
+sorry that Mother Duda couldn't go too. She loved pretty things so. But
+she never went out except at a very early hour in the morning, so early
+that it was still dark. It seemed a terrible hour to me, but she always
+came in with a smile, and when one day I asked her why, she said, because
+she saw so many other poor creatures out at this same hour, who were
+worse to look at than she was. This didn't seem possible to me, and once
+I went out with her to see. But I never went again. Such faces as we met;
+such deformity--men who never showed themselves by day--women who loved
+beauty and were hideous. We saw them on street corners--coming up cellar
+steps, slinking in and out of blind alleys--never where it was light--and
+they shrank from each other, but not from the policeman. They were not
+afraid of his eye; they were used to him and he to them. After I had
+passed a dozen such miserable creatures, I felt myself one of them and
+never wanted to go out at this hour again.
+
+"Don't you believe this part of my story," she suddenly asked, looking up
+into Mr. Ransom's troubled face? "Ask the policeman who tramps about
+those streets every night; he'll tell you."
+
+The question on Ransom's lips died. What use of asking what she could not
+hear.
+
+"I wish I knew what you were thinking," she now murmured softly, so
+softly that he hardly caught the words. "But I never shall, I never
+shall. I will tell you now how I became deaf," she promised after a
+moment of wistful gazing. "Is there any one near? Can anybody hear me?"
+she continued, with a suspicious look about her.
+
+He shook his head. It was the first movement he had made since she began
+her story.
+
+This apparently reassured her, for she proceeded at once to say:
+
+"Mother Duda had never told me anything about herself. It scared me then
+when one morning I found sitting at the breakfast table a man who she
+said was her son. He was big and pale looking, and had a slight swelling
+on one side of his neck which made me sick; but I tried to be polite,
+though I did not like him at all and had a sudden feeling of having no
+home any more. That was the first day. The next two were worse. For he
+didn't hate me as I did him, and wouldn't leave the house while I was
+there, saying he could not bear to be away from his mother. But he
+skipped out quick enough after I was gone, so the neighbors said, and
+sometimes I think he followed me. Mother Duda wasn't like her old self at
+all. She loved him, he was her son, but she didn't like all he did. She
+wanted him to work; he wouldn't work. He sat and stared at me as the
+gipsy king used to stare, and if I grew red and hot it was from shame and
+fear and horror of the great throat I saw growing from day to day, and
+which would some time be like his mother's. He knew I didn't like him,
+but he wasn't good like Mother Duda, and told me one day that he was
+going to make me his wife, whether I wanted him to or not, and talked
+about a great secret, and the big man he would be some day. This made me
+angry, and I said that all the bigness he would ever have would be in his
+neck. At which he struck me, right across the ear, hard, so hard that I
+fell on the floor with a scream, and Mother Duda came running. He was
+sorry then and threw down the thing he had in his hand; but the harm had
+been done and I was sick a month and had doctors and awful pain, and when
+I was well again I couldn't hear a sound with that ear. Hans wasn't there
+while I was ill; I shouldn't have got well if he had been; but he came
+back when I was up again and was very meek though he didn't stop looking
+at me. I thought I would run away one day, and went out without my
+basket, but after I had tried two whole days to get work and couldn't, I
+went back. Mother Duda almost squeezed the heart out of me for joy, and
+Hans went down on his knees and promised not to do or say anything more
+that I didn't like. He even promised to go to work, but his work was of a
+queer kind. It kept him in his little room and meant spending money, and
+not getting it. Men came to see him and were locked up with him in his
+little room. And if he went out, he locked the door and took the key
+away, and said great times were coming and that I would be glad to marry
+him some day, whether his neck was big or small. But I knew I shouldn't
+and kept very close to Mother Duda and begged her to get me a new home,
+and she promised and I was feeling happier, when one day Hans was called
+out by a man and went away so fast that he forgot to lock his door, and
+Mother Duda and I went into the room, and it was then that the thing
+happened which spoiled all my life. I don't understand it. I never did,
+for no one could tell me anything after that day. Mother Duda had gone
+up to a table and was moving things about, trying to see what they were,
+when everything turned black, the room shook, and I was whirling all
+about, trying to take hold of things which seemed to be falling about me,
+till I too fell. When I knew anything, there was lots of people looking
+at me; people of the house, men, women, and children, but what was
+strangest of all was the awful stillness. No one made any sound--nothing
+made any sound, though I saw an old book-shelf tumble down from the wall
+while I was looking, and people moved about and opened their lips and
+seemed to be talking. Had Hans struck me again? I began to think so, and
+got up from the floor where I was lying and tried to call out, but my
+voice made no noise though people looked around as if it had, and I felt
+an awful fright, not only for myself but for Mother Duda, who was being
+carried out of the door by two men, and who did not move at all and who
+never moved again. Poor Mother Duda, she was killed and I was deaf. I
+knew it after a little while, but I don't know what did it; something
+that Hans had; something that Mother Duda touched--a square something--I
+had just caught a glimpse of it in Mother Duda's hand when the room flew
+into a wreck and I became what I am now."
+
+"Dynamite," murmured Ransom; then paused and had a small struggle with
+his heart, for she was looking up into his face, demanding sympathy with
+Georgian's eyes; and being close together on the short seat, he could not
+help but feel her shudders and share the intense excitement which choked
+her.
+
+"Oh," she cried, as he laid his hand a moment on her arm and then took it
+away again, "one minute to hear! the next to find the world all still,
+always still,--a poor girl--not knowing how to read or write! But you
+cannot care about that; you cannot care about me. It's sister you want
+to hear about, how she came to find me; how we came here for new and
+terrible things to happen; always for new and terrible things to happen
+which I don't understand.
+
+"Hans never came back. All sorts of policemen came into the house,
+doctors came, priests came, but no Hans. Mother Duda was buried, I rode
+in a coach at the funeral, but still no Hans. The old life was over, and
+when the food was all gone from the shelves, I took my little basket and
+went out, not meaning to come back again. And I did not. I sold my basket
+out; got a handful of pennies and went to the market to get something to
+eat. Then I went into a park, where there were benches, and sat down to
+rest. I did not know of any place to go to and began to cry, when a lady
+stopped before me, and I looked up and saw myself.
+
+"I thought I was dreaming or had the fever again, as when I was sick with
+my ear, and I thought it was myself as I would look in heaven, for she
+had such beautiful clothes on and looked so happy. But when she talked, I
+could see her lips move and I couldn't hear; and I knew that I was just
+in the park with my empty basket and my onion and bread, and that the
+lady was a lady and no one I knew, only so like what I had seen of myself
+in the glass that I was shaking all over, and she was shaking all over,
+and neither of us could look away. And still her lips moved, and seeing
+her at last look frightened and angry that I didn't answer, I spoke and
+said that I was deaf; that I was very sorry that I couldn't hear because
+we looked so much alike, though she was a great lady and I was a very,
+very poor girl who hadn't any home or any friends, or anything to wear or
+eat but what she saw. At this her eyes grew bigger even than before, and
+she tried to talk some more, and when I shook my head she took hold of my
+arm and began drawing me away, and I went and we got on the cars, and she
+took me to a house and into a room where she took away my basket and put
+me in a chair, and took off first her hat, then my own, and showed me the
+two heads in a glass, and then looked at me so hard that I cried out,
+'Sister,' which made her jump up and put her hand on her heart, then look
+at me again harder and harder, till I remembered way back in my life, and
+I said:
+
+"'When I was a little girl I had a sister they called my twin. That was
+before I lived in the woods with the gipsies. Are you that sister grown
+up? The place where we played together had a tall fence with points at
+the top. There were flowers and there were bushes with currants on them
+all round the fence.'
+
+"She made a sudden move, and I felt her arms about my neck. I think she
+cried a little. I didn't, I was too glad. I knew she was that sister the
+moment our faces touched, and I knew she would care for me, and that I
+needn't go back into the streets any more. So I kissed her and talked a
+good deal and told her what I've been telling, and she tried to answer,
+tried as you did to write, but all I could understand was that she meant
+to keep me, but not in the place where we were, and that I was to go out
+again. But she fixed me up a little before we went out, and she bought
+me some things, so that I looked different. Then we went into another
+house, where she talked with a woman for a long time, and then sat down
+with me and moved her lips very patiently, motioning me to watch and try
+to understand. But I was frightened and couldn't. So she gave up and,
+kissing me, made motions with her hands which I understood better; she
+wanted me to stay there while she went away, and I promised to if she
+would come back soon. At this she took out her watch. I was pleased with
+the watch, and she let me look at it, and inside against the cover I saw
+a picture. You know whose it was."
+
+The depths to which her voice sank, the trembling of her tones, startled
+Ransom. Had she been less unfortunate, he would have moved to a different
+seat, but he could not show her a discourtesy after so pitiful a tale.
+But the nod he gave her was a grave one, and her cheek flushed and her
+head fell, as she softly added: "It was the first time I ever saw a face
+I liked--you won't mind my saying so,--and I wanted to keep the watch,
+but sister carried it away. She didn't tell me what it meant, her having
+your picture where she could see it all the time, but when she came again
+she made me know that you and she were married, by pointing at the
+picture and then throwing something white over her head; I didn't ask for
+the watch after that, but--"
+
+A far-away look, a trembling of her whole body, finished this ingenuous
+confession. Ransom edged himself away and then was sorry for it, for her
+lip quivered and her hands, from being quiet, began that nervous
+interlacing of the fingers which bespeaks mental perturbation.
+
+"I am very ignorant," she faltered; "perhaps I have said something wrong.
+I don't mean to, I want to be a good girl and please you, so that you
+won't send me away now sister is gone. Ah, I know what you want," she
+suddenly broke out, as he seized her by the arm and looked inquiringly at
+her. "You want me to tell why I jumped out of the carriage that night and
+vexed Georgian and was naughty and wouldn't speak to her. I can't, I
+can't. You wouldn't like it if I did. But I'm sorry now, and will never
+vex you, but do just what you want me to. Shall I go up-stairs now?"
+
+He shook his head. How could he let her go with so much unsaid? She had
+talked frankly till she had reached the very place where his greatest
+interest lay. Then she had suddenly shown shyness of her subject and
+leaped the gap, as it were, to the present moment. How recall her to the
+hour when she had seen Georgian for the second time? How urge her into a
+description of those days succeeding his wife's flight from the hotel, of
+which he had no account, save the feverish lines of the letter she had
+sent him. He was racking his brain for some method of communicating his
+wishes to Anitra, when he heard steps behind him, and, turning, saw the
+clerk approaching him with a telegram.
+
+He glanced at her slyly as he took it. Somehow he couldn't get used to
+her deafness, and expected her to give some evidence of surprise or
+curiosity. But she was still studying her hands, and as his eyes lingered
+on her downcast face he saw a tear well from her lids and wet the cheek
+she held partly turned from him. He wanted to kiss that tear, but
+refrained and opened his telegram instead. It was from Mr. Harper, and
+ran thus:
+
+   Expect a visitor. The man we know has left the St. Denis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IN MRS. DEO'S ROOM
+
+
+A prey to fresh agitation, he stepped back to Anitra's side. Surely she
+must understand that it was Georgian and not herself about whom he was
+most anxious to hear. But she did not seem to. The smile with which she
+greeted him suggested nothing of the past. It spoke only of the future.
+
+"I will learn to be like sister," she impulsively cried out, rising and
+beaming brightly upon him. "I will forget the old gipsy ways and Mother
+Duda's ways, and try to be nice and pretty like my sister. And you shall
+learn me to read and write. I've known deaf people who learned. Then I
+shall know what you think; now I only know how you feel."
+
+He shook his head, a little sadly, perhaps. There were people who could
+teach her these arts, but not he. He had neither the ability, the
+courage, nor the patience.
+
+"Then some one shall learn me," she loudly insisted, her cheek flushing
+and her eye showing an angry spark. "I will not be ignorant always; I
+will not, I will not." And turning, she fled from his side, and he was
+left to think over her story and ask himself for the hundredth time what
+it all meant, what his own sensations meant, and what would be the
+outcome of conditions so complicated.
+
+The possibly speedy appearance on the scene of Georgian's so-called
+brother did not detract from his difficulty. He felt helpless without
+the support of Mr. Harper's presence, and spent a very troubled forenoon
+listening to the mingled condolences and advice of people who had no
+interest in his concerns save such as sprang from curiosity and a morbid
+craving for excitement.
+
+At two o'clock occurred the event of which he had been forewarned. A
+carriage drove up to the hotel and from it stepped two travelers; one
+of them a stranger, the other the man with the twisted jaw. Mr. Ransom
+advanced to meet the latter. He was anxious to listen to his first
+inquiries and, if possible, be the person to answer them.
+
+He was successful in this. Mr. Hazen no sooner saw him than he accosted
+him without ceremony.
+
+"What is this I hear and read about Georgian and her so-called twin?" he
+cried. "Nothing that I can believe, I want you to know. Georgian may have
+drowned herself. That is credible enough. But that the girl we read about
+in the papers and whom she evidently induced to come to this place with
+her should be the dead girl we called Anitra--why, that is all bosh--a
+tale to deceive the public, and possibly you, but not one to deceive me.
+The coincidence is much too improbable."
+
+"'There are stranger things in heaven and earth'"--quoted Ransom; but
+Hazen was already in conversation with the group of hotel idlers who had
+crowded up at sound of his loud voice.
+
+After a careful look which had taken in all of their faces, he had
+approached one young fellow, covering the lower part of his face as he
+did so.
+
+"Halloo! Yates," he called out. "Don't you remember the day we tied two
+chickens together, leg to leg, and sent them tumbling down the hill back
+of old Wylie's barn?"
+
+"Alf Hazen!" shouted the fellow, thus accosted. "Why, I thought you--"
+
+"Dead, eh? Of course you did. So did everybody else. But I've come to
+life, you see. With sad marks of battle on me," he continued, dropping
+his hand. "You all recognize me?"
+
+"Yes, yes," rose in one acclaim from a dozen or more throats after a
+moment of awkward uncertainty.
+
+"I know the eyes," vigorously asserted one.
+
+"And the voice," chimed in another. After which rose a confused babel of
+ejaculations and exclamatory questions, among which one could detect:
+
+"How did it happen, Alf?" "What took off your jaw?" and other equally
+felicitous expressions.
+
+"I'll tell you all about that later," he replied, after silence had in a
+measure been restored. "What I want to say now is this. Is it believable
+that simultaneously with my own return from the grave another member of
+my family should reappear before you from an older and much more certain
+burying? I tell you no. The riddle is one which calls for quite another
+solution and I have come to assist you in finding it."
+
+Here he cast a sinister glance at Ransom.
+
+The latter met the implied accusation with singular calmness.
+
+"Any assistance will be welcome," said he, "which will enable us to solve
+this very serious problem." Then, as Hazen's lip curled, he added with
+dignified candor, "I scorn to retort by throwing any doubt on your
+assertion of relationship to my lost wife, or the possibility of these
+good people being misled by your confident bearing and a possible
+likeness about the eyes to the boy they knew. But one question I will
+hazard, and that before we have gone a step further. Why does it seem so
+credible to you that Georgian, a much loved and loving woman, should have
+leaped to a watery death within a week of her marriage? You have just
+stated that you found no difficulty in that. Does not that statement call
+for some explanation? All your old friends here must see that this is my
+due as well as hers."
+
+For an instant the man hesitated, but in that instant his hand slipped
+from his mouth over which he had again laid it, and his whole face, with
+its changed lines and the threatening, almost cruel expression which
+these gave it, appeared in all its combined eagerness and force. A murmur
+escaped the watchful group about him, but this affected him little. His
+eyes, which he had fixed on Ransom, sharpened a trifle, perhaps, and his
+tone grew a thought more sarcastic as he finally retorted:
+
+"I will explain myself to you but not to this crowd. And not to you till
+I am sure of the facts which as yet have reached me only through the
+newspapers. Let me hear a full account of what has transpired here since
+you all came to town. I have an enormous interest in the matter;--a
+family interest, as you are well aware for all your badly hidden
+insinuations."
+
+"Follow me," was the quiet reply. "There is a room on this very floor
+where we can talk undisturbed."
+
+Mr. Hazen cast a quick glance behind him at the man who had driven up
+with him and whom nobody had noticed till now. Then without a word he
+separated himself from the chattering group encircling him and stepped
+after Mr. Ransom into the small room where the latter had held his first
+memorable conversation with the lawyer.
+
+"Now," said he as the door swung to behind them, "plain language and not
+too much of it. I have no time to waste, but the truth about Georgian I
+must know."
+
+Ransom settled himself. He felt bound to comply with the other's request,
+but he wished to make sure of not saying too much, or too little. Hazen's
+attack had startled him. It revealed one of two things. Either this man
+of mystery had assumed the offensive to hide his own connection with this
+tragedy, or his antagonism was an honest one, springing from an utter
+disbelief in the circumstances reported to him by the press and such
+gossips as he had encountered on his way to Sitford.
+
+With the first possibility he felt himself unable to cope without the aid
+of Mr. Harper; the second might be met with candor. Should he then be
+candid with this doubter, relate to him the facts as they had unrolled
+themselves before his own eyes;--secret facts--convincing ones--facts
+which must prove to him that whether Georgian did or did not lie at the
+bottom of the mill-stream, the woman now in the house was his sister
+Anitra, lost to him and the rest of the family for many years, but now
+found again and restored to her position as a Hazen and Georgian's twin.
+The discovery might not prove welcome. It would have a tendency to throw
+Mr. Hazen's own claim into the disrepute he would cast on hers. But this
+consideration could have no weight with Mr. Ransom. He decided upon
+candor at all costs. It suited his nature best, and it also suited the
+strange and doubtful situation. Mr. Harper might have concluded
+differently, but Mr. Harper was not there to give advice; and the matter
+would not wait. Little as he understood this Hazen, he recognized that he
+was not a man to trifle with. Something would have to be said or done.
+
+Meeting the latter's eye frankly, he remarked:
+
+"I have no wish to keep anything back from you. I am as much struck
+as you are by the mystery of this whole occurrence. I was as hard to
+convince. This is my story. It involves all that is known here with the
+exception of such facts as have been kept from us by the three parties
+directly concerned--of which three I consider you one."
+
+As the last four words fell from his lips he looked for some change,
+slight and hardly perceptible perhaps, in the other's expression. But he
+was doomed to disappointment. The steady regard held, nothing moved about
+the man, not even the hand into which the poor disfigured chin had
+fallen. Ransom suppressed a sigh. His task was likely to prove a blind
+one. He had a sense of stumbling in the dark, but the gaze he had hoped
+to see falter compelled him to proceed, and he told his story without
+subterfuge or suppression.
+
+One thing, and only one thing, caused a movement in the set figure before
+him. When he mentioned the will which Georgian had made a few hours prior
+to her disappearance, Hazen's hand slipped aside from the wound it had
+sought to cover, and Ransom caught sight of the sudden throb which
+deepened its hue. It was the one infallible sign that the man was not
+wholly without feeling, and it had sprung to life at an intimation
+involving _money_.
+
+When his tale was quite finished, he rose. So did Hazen.
+
+"Let us see this girl," suggested the latter.
+
+It was the first word he had spoken since Ransom began his story.
+
+"She is up-stairs. I will go see--"
+
+"No, _we_ will go see. I particularly desire to take her unawares."
+
+Ransom offered no objection. Perhaps he felt interested in the experiment
+himself. Together they left the room, together they went up-stairs. A
+turmoil of questions followed them from the throng of men and boys
+gathered in the halls, but they returned no answer and curiosity remained
+unsatisfied.
+
+Once in the hall above, Ransom stopped a moment to deliberate. He could
+not enter Anitra's room unannounced, and he could not make her hear by
+knocking. He must find the landlady.
+
+He knew Mrs. Deo's room. He had had more than one occasion to visit it
+during the last two days. With a word of explanation to Hazen, he passed
+down the hall and tapped on the last door at the extreme left. No one
+answered, but the door standing ajar, he pushed it quietly open, being
+anxious to make sure that Mrs. Deo was not there.
+
+The next moment he was beckoning to Hazen.
+
+"Look!" said he, holding the door open with one hand and pointing with
+the other to a young girl sitting on a low stool by the window, mending,
+or trying to mend, a rent in her skirt.
+
+"Why, that's Georgian!" exclaimed Hazen, and hastily entering he
+approached the anxious figure laboriously pushing her needle in and out
+of the torn goods, and pricking herself more than once in the attempt.
+
+"Georgian!" he cried again and yet more emphatically, as he stepped up in
+front of her.
+
+The young girl failed to notice. Awkwardly drawing her thread out to its
+extreme length, she prepared to insert her needle again, when her eye
+caught sight of his figure bending over her, and she looked up quietly
+and with an air of displeasure, which pleased Ransom,--he could hardly
+tell why. This was before her eyes reached his face; when they had, it
+was touching to see how she tried to hide the shock caused by its
+deformity, as she said with a slight gesture of dismissal:
+
+"I'm quite deaf. I cannot hear what you say. If it is the landlady you
+want, she has gone down-stairs for a minute; perhaps, to the kitchen."
+
+He did not retreat, if anything he approached nearer, and Ransom was
+surprised to observe the force and persuasive power of his expression
+as he repeated:
+
+"No nonsense, Georgian," opening and shutting his hands as he spoke, in
+curious gesticulations which her eye mechanically followed but which
+seemed to convey no meaning to her, though he evidently expected them to
+and looked surprised (Ransom almost thought baffled) when she shook her
+head and in a sweet, impassive way reiterated:
+
+"I cannot hear and I do not understand the deaf and dumb alphabet. I'm
+sorry, but you'll have to go to some one else. I'm very unfortunate. I
+have to mend this dress and I don't know how."
+
+Hazen, who could hardly tear his eyes from her face, fell slowly back as
+she painfully and conscientiously returned to her task. "Good God!" he
+murmured, as his eye sought Ransom's. "What a likeness!" Then he looked
+again at the girl, at the wave of her raven black hair breaking into
+little curls just above her ear; at the smooth forehead rendered so
+distinguished by the fine penciling of her arching brows; at the delicate
+nose with nostrils all alive to the beating of an over-anxious heart; at
+the mouth, touching in its melancholy so far beyond her years; and lastly
+at the strong young figure huddled on the little stool; and bending
+forward again, he uttered two or three quick sentences which Ransom could
+not catch.
+
+His persistence, or the near approach of his face to hers, angered her.
+Rising quickly to her feet, she vehemently cried out:
+
+"Go away from here. It is not right to keep on talking to a deaf girl
+after she has told you she cannot hear you." Then catching sight of
+Ransom, who had advanced a step in his sympathy for her, she gave a
+little sigh of relief and added querulously:
+
+"Make this man go away. This is the landlady's room. I don't like to have
+strangers talk to me. Besides--" here her voice fell, but not so low as
+to be inaudible to the subject of her remark, "he's not pretty. I've seen
+enough of men and women who are--"
+
+At this point Ransom drew Hazen out into the hall.
+
+"What do you think now?" he demanded.
+
+Hazen did not reply. The room they had just left seemed to possess a
+strange fascination for him. He continued to look back at it as he
+preceded Ransom down the hall. Ransom did not press his questions, but
+when they were on the point of separating at the head of the stairs, he
+held Hazen back with the words:
+
+"Let us come to some understanding. Neither of us can desire to waste
+strength in wrong conclusions. Can that woman be other than your own
+sister?"
+
+"No." The denial was absolute. "She is my sister."
+
+"Anitra?" emphasized Ransom.
+
+The smile which he received in reply was strangely mirthless.
+
+"I never rush to conclusions," was Hazen's remark after a moment of
+possibly mutual heart-beat and unsettling suspense. "Ask me that same
+question to-morrow. Perhaps by then I shall be able to answer you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+BETWEEN THE ELDERBERRY BUSHES
+
+
+"No."
+
+The word came from Ransom. He had reached the end of his patience and was
+determined to have it out with this man on the spot.
+
+"Come into my room," said he. "If you doubt her, you doubt me; and in the
+present stress of my affairs this demands an immediate explanation."
+
+"I have no time to enter your room, and I cannot linger here any longer
+talking on a subject which at the present moment is not clear to either
+of us," was the resolute if not quite affable reply. "Later, when my
+conclusions are made, I will see you again. Now I am going to eat and
+refresh myself. Don't follow me; it will do you no good."
+
+He turned to descend. Ransom had an impulse to seize him by his twisted
+throat and drag from him the secret which his impassive features refused
+to give up. But Ransom was no fool and, stepping back out of the way of
+temptation, he allowed him to escape without further parley.
+
+Then he went to his room. But, after an hour or two spent with his own
+thoughts, his restlessness became so great that he sought the gossips
+below for relief. He found them all clustered about Hazen, who was
+reeling off stories by the mile. This was unendurable to him and he was
+striding off, when Hazen burst away from his listeners and, joining
+Ransom, whispered in his ear:
+
+"I saw her go by the window just now on her way up-street. What can she
+find there to interest her? Where is she going?"
+
+"I don't know. She doesn't consult me as to her movements. Probably she
+has gone for a walk. She looks as if she needs it."
+
+"So do you," was the unexpected retort given by Hazen, as he stepped back
+to rejoin his associates.
+
+Ransom paused, watching him askance in doubt of the suggestion, in doubt
+of the man, in doubt of himself. Then he yielded to an impulse stronger
+than any doubt and slipped out into the highway, where he turned, as she
+had turned, up-street.
+
+But not without a struggle. He hated himself for his puppet-like
+acceptance of the hint given him by a man he both distrusted and
+disliked. He felt his dignity impaired and his self-confidence shaken,
+yet he went on, following the high road eagerly and watching with wary
+eye for the first glimpse of the slight figure which was beginning to
+make every scene alive to him.
+
+It had rained heavily and persistently the last time he came this way,
+but to-day the sun was shining with a full radiance, and the trees
+stretching away on either side of the road were green with the tender
+tracery of early leafage; a joy-compelling sight which may have accounted
+for the elasticity of his step as he ascended one small hill after
+another in the wake of a fluttering skirt.
+
+It was the cemetery road, and odd as the fancy was, he felt that he
+should overtake her at the old gate, behind which lay so many of her
+name. Here he had seen her name before its erasement from the family
+monument, and here he should see--could he say Anitra if he found her
+bending over those graves; the woman who could not hear, who could not
+read,--whose childish memory, if she had any in connection with this
+spot, could not be distinct enough or sufficiently intelligent to guide
+her to this one plot? No. Human credulity can go far, but not so far as
+that. He knew that all his old doubts would return if, on entering the
+cemetery, he found her under the brown shaft carved with the name of
+Hazen.
+
+The test was one he had not sought and did not welcome. Yet he felt
+bound, now that he recognized it as such, to see it through and accept
+its teaching for what it surely would be worth. Only he began to move
+with more precaution and studied more to hide his approach than to give
+any warning of it.
+
+The close ranks of the elderberry bushes lining the fences on the final
+hill-top lent themselves to the concealment he now sought. As soon as he
+was sure of her having left the road he drew up close to these bushes and
+walked under them till he was almost at the gate. Then he allowed himself
+to peer through their close branches and received an unexpected shock at
+seeing her figure standing very near him, posed in an uncertainty which,
+for some reason, he had not expected, but which restored him to himself,
+though why he had not the courage, the time, nor the inclination to ask.
+
+She was babbling in a low tone to herself, an open sesame to her mind,
+which Ransom hailed with a sense of awe. If only he might distinguish the
+words! But this was difficult; not only was her head turned partly away,
+but she spoke in a murmur which was far from distinct. Yet--yes, that one
+sentence was plain enough. She had muttered musingly, anxiously, and with
+a searching look among the graves:
+
+"It was on this side. I know it was on this side."
+
+Watching her closely lest some chance glance of hers should stray his
+way, he listened still more intently and was presently rewarded by
+catching another sentence.
+
+"A single grave all by itself. I fell over it and my mother scolded me,
+saying it was my father's. There was a bush near it. A bush with white
+flowers on it. I tried to pick some."
+
+Ransom's heart was growing lighter and lighter. She did not even know
+that there had been placed over that grave a monument with her name on it
+and that of the mother who had scolded her for tripping over her father's
+sod. Only Anitra could be so ignorant or expect to find a grave by means
+of a bush blooming with flowers fifteen years ago. As she went wandering
+on, peering to right and left, he thought of Hazen and his doubts, and
+wished that he were here beside him to mark her perplexity.
+
+When quite satisfied that she would never find what she sought without
+help, Ransom stepped from his hiding-place and joined her among the
+grassy hillocks. The start of pleasure she gave and her almost childish
+look of relief warmed his heart, and it was with a smile he waited for
+her to speak.
+
+"My father's grave!" she explained. "I was looking for my father's grave.
+I remember my mother taking me to it when I was little. There was a bush
+close by it--oh! I see what you think. The bush would be big now--I
+forgot that. And something else! You are thinking of something else. Oh,
+I know, I know. He wouldn't be lying alone any more. My mother must have
+died, or sister would have taken me to her. There ought to be two
+graves."
+
+He nodded, and taking her by the hand led her to the family monument. She
+gazed at it for a moment, amazed, then laid her finger on one of the
+inscriptions.
+
+"My father's name?" she asked.
+
+He nodded.
+
+She hung her head thoughtfully for a moment, then slipping to the other
+side of the stone laid her hand on another.
+
+"My mother's?"
+
+Again he signified yes.
+
+"And this? Is this sister's name? No, she's not buried yet. I had a
+brother. Is it his?"
+
+Ransom bowed. How tell her that it was a false inscription and that the
+man whose death it commemorated was not only alive but had only a little
+while before spoken to her.
+
+"I didn't like my brother. He was cruel and liked to hurt people. I'm
+glad he's dead."
+
+Ransom drew her away. Her frankness was that of a child, but it produced
+an uncomfortable feeling. He didn't like this brother either, and in this
+thoughtless estimate of hers he seemed to read a warning to which his own
+nature intuitively responded.
+
+"Come!" he motioned, leading the way out.
+
+She followed with a smile, and together they entered the highway. As they
+did so, Ransom caught sight of a man speeding down the hill before them
+on a bicycle. He had not come front the upper road, or they would have
+seen him as he flew past the gateway. Where had he come from, then? From
+the peep-hole where Ransom himself had stood a few minutes before. No
+other conclusion was possible, and Ransom felt both angry and anxious
+till he could find out who the man was. This he did not succeed in doing
+till he reached the hotel. There a bicycle leaning against a tree gave
+point to his questions, and he learned that it belonged to a clerk in one
+of the small stores near by, but that the man who had just ridden it up
+and down the road on a trial of speed was the stranger who had just come
+to town with Mr. Hazen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+ON THE CARS
+
+
+This episode, which to Ransom's mind would bear but one interpretation,
+gave him ample food for thought. He decided to be more circumspect in the
+future and to keep an eye out for inquisitive strangers. Not that he had
+any thing to conceal, but no man enjoys having his proceedings watched,
+especially where a woman is concerned.
+
+That Hazen was antagonistic to him he had always known; but that he was
+regarded by him with suspicion he had not realized till now. Hazen
+suspicious of _him_! that meant what? He wished that he had Mr. Harper
+at his side to enlighten him.
+
+It was now five o'clock and he was sitting in his room awaiting the usual
+report from the river, when a quick tap at his door was followed by the
+entrance of the very man he was thinking about. He rose eagerly to
+receive him, determined, however, to allow no inconsiderate impulse to
+drive him into unnecessary speech.
+
+"I have already said too much," he reminded himself in self-directed
+monition. "It's time he did some of the talking."
+
+Hazen seemed willing enough to do this. Taking the seat proffered him, he
+opened the conversation as follows:
+
+"Mr. Ransom, I have been doing you an injustice. I do not consider it
+necessary to tell you just how I have found this out, but I am now
+convinced that you are as much in the dark as myself in regard to this
+unfortunate affair, and are as willing as I am to take all justifiable
+means to enlighten yourself. I own that at first I thought it more than
+probable you were in collusion with the girl here to deceive me. That I
+wouldn't stand. I'm glad to find you as truly a victim of this mystery as
+myself."
+
+Ransom straightened himself.
+
+"If this is an apology," he returned, "I am willing to accept it in the
+spirit in which it is proffered. But I should like something more than
+apology from you. Candor for candor;--your whole story in return for
+mine."
+
+"I'm afraid it would be a trifle tedious,--my whole story," smiled Hazen.
+"If you mean such part of it as concerns Georgian's peculiar actions and
+the complications with which we are at this moment struggling, I can only
+repeat what I have already told you, both at the St. Denis in New York
+and here. I am Georgian's returned brother, saved from the jaws of hell
+to see my own country again. I arrived in New York on the tenth.
+Naturally, after securing a room at the hotel, I took up the papers. They
+were full of the approaching marriage of Miss Hazen. I recognized my
+sister's name, though not her splendor, for we were the sole survivors of
+a poor country family and I knew nothing of the legacy I am now told she
+received. Anxious to see her, I attended the ceremony. She recognized me.
+I had not expected this, and feeling old affections revive, I followed
+her friends to the house and was presented to them and to you. What
+I whispered to her on this occasion were my assumed name and the place
+where I was to be found. My changed countenance called for explanations,
+for which a bridal reception offered no opportunity. Besides, as I have
+already said, I stood in sore need of a definite amount of money. I meant
+her to come and see me, but I did not expect her to play a trick on you
+in order to do so. This had its birth in the to me unaccountable mystery
+embodied in the girl you call Anitra, but whom I'm not ready yet to name.
+For when I do, action must follow conviction and that without mercy or
+delay."
+
+"Action?" repeated Ransom, with quick suspicion and a confused rush of
+contradictory visions in his mind. "What do you mean by that?"
+
+Hazen covered his chin with his hand.
+
+"I will try and explain," he replied. "If I am abrupt in my language, it
+is owing to the exigencies of the case. I have no time to waste and no
+disposition to whitewash a rough piece of work. To speak to the point, I
+have an intense interest in my sister Georgian. I have little or none in
+my sister Anitra. Georgian's intelligence, good-will, and command of
+money would be of inestimable benefit to me. Anitra, on the contrary,
+could be nothing but a burden, unless--" here he cast a very sharp glance
+at Ransom--"unless Georgian should have been sufficiently considerate to
+leave her a good share of her fortune in the will you say she made just
+before her disappearance and supposed death."
+
+"That I can say nothing about," rejoined Ransom in answer to this feeler.
+"The will is in the hands of her lawyer, but if it will help your
+argument any we will suppose that she left her sister to the care of her
+friends without any especial provision for her in the way of money."
+
+The steady fingers clutching the scarred neck loosed their grip to wave
+this supposition aside.
+
+"A hardly supposable case," was the cold comment with which he
+supplemented this disclaimer; "but one which would make the girl a burden
+indeed; a burden which for many reasons I could not assume." Here he
+struck himself sharply on the neck, with the first display of passion he
+had shown. "My advantages are not such as to make it easy for me to
+support myself. It would be simply impossible for me to undertake the
+care of any girl, least of all of one with a manifest infirmity."
+
+"Anitra will prosper without your care," replied Ransom, overlooking the
+heartlessness of the man in the mad, unaccountable sense of relief with
+which he listened to his withdrawal from concerns for which he showed so
+little sympathy. "There are others who will be glad to do all that can be
+done for Georgian's forsaken sister."
+
+"Yes. That is all right, but--" Here Hazen squared himself across the top
+of the table before which he had been sitting; "I must be made sure that
+the facts have been rightly represented to me and that the girl now in
+this house _is_ Georgian's deserted sister. I'm not yet satisfied that
+she is, and I must be convinced not only on this point but on many
+others, before this day is over. Business of great importance calls me
+back to the city and, it may be, out of the country. I may never be able
+to spend another day on purely personal affairs, so this one must tell. I
+have a scheme (it is a very simple one) which, if carried out as I have
+planned, will satisfy me as nothing else will as to the identity of the
+girl we will call, from lack of positive knowledge, Anitra. Will you help
+me in its furtherance? It lies with you to do so."
+
+"First, your reasons for doubting the girl," retorted Ransom. "They must
+be excellent ones for you to resist the evidence of such conclusive
+proofs as you have yourself been witness to since entering this house. I
+am Georgian's husband. I have the strongest wish in the world to see her
+again at my side; yet with the exception of her wonderful likeness to my
+wife, I find nothing in this raw if beautiful girl, of the polished,
+highly trained woman I married. I have not even succeeded in startling
+her ear--something which I should have been able to do if she were not
+the totally deaf woman she appears. Confide to me then your reasons for
+demanding additional proofs of her identity. If they carry conviction
+with them, I will aid you in any scheme you can propose which will
+neither frighten nor afflict her."
+
+Hazen rose to his feet. Narrow as the room was, he yielded to his
+restless desire to move about and began pacing up and down the restricted
+quarters bounded by the edge of the table and the door. Not until he had
+made the second turning did he speak; then it was with seeming openness.
+
+"It's like putting the torch to my last ship," said he; "but this is no
+time to hesitate. Mr. Ransom, I do not trust my eyes, I do not trust my
+ears, nor your eyes, nor your ears, nor those of any one here, because I
+have talked with a man who was on the same train with my sisters. He
+noticed them because of their similar appearance and close intimacy.
+They were not dressed alike, but they were veiled alike and one did not
+move without the other. More than that, they not only walked about the
+various stations where they waited, arm in arm, but they sat thus closely
+joined in the cars all the way from New York. This interested him
+especially as he noted great anxiety and incessant movement in the one,
+and complete passiveness in the other. She who sat in the outer seat was
+watchful, busy, and ready to press the other's arm at the least
+provocation, but if either spoke it was always the other. It was not till
+the quick rush and shrill whistle of a passing train made one start and
+not the other, that he got the idea that one of them was deaf. As this
+was the one by the window, he felt that their peculiar actions were now
+accounted for, and indeed thus far it all tallied with what we might
+expect from Georgian traveling with the hapless Anitra. But there
+remained a fact to be told, which rouses doubt. When they reached
+G---- and he saw from their quick rising that they were about to leave
+the train, he naturally glanced their way again, and this time he caught
+a glimpse of the inner one's neck. Her veil had become slightly
+disarranged, exposing the whole nape. It was unexpectedly dark, almost
+brunette in color, and quite devoid of delicacy; such a skin as one might
+look for in the gipsy Anitra after years of outdoor living and a long
+lack of nice personal attention, but not such as I saw and admired a few
+hours ago on the neck of the woman bending over her work in the
+landlady's room. Oh, I recognized the difference; I have an eye for
+necks."
+
+He paused, coming to a standstill in the middle of the room, to see what
+effect his words had had on Ransom.
+
+"I have that man's name," he continued, "and can produce him if I have
+time and it seems to be necessary. But I had rather come to my own
+decision without any outside interference. This is not an affair for
+public gossip or newspaper notoriety. It is a question of justice to
+myself. If this girl is Georgian--" His whole face changed. For a moment
+Ransom hardly knew him. The quiet, self-contained man seemed to have
+given way to one of such unexpected power and threat that Ransom rose
+instinctively to his feet in recognition of a superiority he could no
+longer deny.
+
+The action seemed to recall Hazen to himself. He wheeled about and
+recommenced his quiet pacing to and fro.
+
+"I beg pardon," he quietly finished. "If it is Georgian, she must stand
+my friend. That is all I was going to say. If it is, against all reason
+and probability, her strangely restored twin, I shall leave this house by
+midnight, never probably to see any of you again. So you perceive that it
+is incumbent upon us to work promptly. Are you ready to hear what I have
+to propose?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Hazen paused again, this time in front of the door. Laying his hand
+lightly on one of the panels, he glanced back at Ransom.
+
+"You are nicely placed here for observation. Your door directly faces the
+hall she must traverse in returning to her room."
+
+"That's quite true."
+
+"She's in her room now. Ah, you know that?"
+
+"Yes." Ransom seemed to have no other word at his command.
+
+"Will she come out again before night to eat or to visit?"
+
+"There's no telling. She's very fitful. No one can prophesy what she
+will do. Sometimes she eats in the landlady's room, sometimes in her
+own, sometimes not at all. If you have frightened her, or she has been
+disturbed in any way by your companion who shows such interest in her
+and in me, she probably will not come out at all."
+
+"But she must. I expect you to see that she does. Use any messenger, any
+artifice, but get her away from this hall for ten minutes, even if it is
+only into Mrs. Deo's room. When she returns I shall be on my knees before
+this keyhole to watch her and observe. To see what, I do not mean to tell
+you, but it will be something which will definitely settle for me this
+matter of identity. Does this plan look sufficiently harmless to meet
+with your approval?"
+
+"Yes, but looks cannot always be trusted. I must know just what you mean
+to do. I will leave nothing to a mind and hand I do not trust any more
+fully than I do yours. You are too eager for Georgian's money; too little
+interested in herself; _and you are too sly in your ways_. I overlooked
+this when you had the excuse of a possible distrust of myself. But now
+that your confidence is restored in me, now that you recognize the fact
+that I stand outside of this whole puzzling affair and have no other wish
+than to know the truth about it and do my duty to all parties concerned,
+secrecy on your part means more than I care to state. If you persist in
+it I shall lend myself to nothing that you propose, but wait for time to
+substantiate her claim or prove its entire falsity."
+
+"You will!"
+
+The words rang out involuntarily. It almost seemed as if the man would
+spring with them straight at the other's throat. But he controlled
+himself, and smiling bitterly, added:
+
+"I know the marks of human struggle. I have read countenances from my
+birth. I've had to, and only one has baffled me--_hers_. But we are going
+to read that too and very soon. We are going to learn, you and I, what
+lies behind that innocent manner and her rude, uncultivated ways. We are
+going to sound that deafness. I say _we_," he impressively concluded,
+"because I have reconsidered my first impulse and now propose to allow
+you to participate openly, and without the secrecy you object to, in all
+that remains to be done to make our contemplated test a success. Will
+that please you? May I count on you now?"
+
+"Yes," replied Ransom, returning to his old monosyllable.
+
+"Very well, then, see if you can make a scrawl like this."
+
+Pulling a piece of red chalk from his pocket, he drew a figure of a
+somewhat unusual character on the bare top of the table between them;
+then he handed the chalk over to Ransom, who received it with a stare of
+wonder not unmixed with suspicion.
+
+"I'm not an adept at drawing," said he, but made his attempt,
+notwithstanding, and evidently to Hazen's satisfaction.
+
+"You'll do," said he. "That's a mystic symbol once used by Georgian
+and myself in place of our names in all mutual correspondence, and
+on the leaves of our school-books and at the end of our exercises. It
+meant nothing, but the boys and girls we associated with thought it did
+and envied us the free-masonry it was supposed to cover. A ridiculous
+make-believe which I rate at its full folly now, but one which cannot
+fail to arouse a hundred memories in Georgian. We will scrawl it on
+her door, or rather you shall, and according to the way she conducts
+herself on seeing it, we shall know in one instant what you with your
+patience and trust in time may not be able to arrive at in weeks."
+
+Ransom recalled some of the tests he had himself employed, many of which
+have been omitted from this history, and shrugged his shoulders mentally,
+if not physically. If Hazen noted this evidence of his lack of faith, he
+remained entirely unaffected by it, and in a few minutes everything had
+been planned between them for the satisfactory exercise of what Hazen
+evidently regarded as a crucial experiment. Ransom was about to proceed
+to take the first required step, when they heard a disturbance in front,
+and the coach came driving up with a great clatter and bang and from it
+stepped the lean, well-groomed figure of Mr. Harper.
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Hazen with a violent gesture of disappointment. "There
+comes your familiar. Now I suppose you will cry off."
+
+"Not necessarily," returned Ransom. "But this much is certain. I shall
+certainly consult him before hazarding this experiment. I am not so sure
+of myself or--pardon me--of yourself as to take any steps in the dark
+while I have at hand so responsible a guide as the man whom you choose to
+call my familiar."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+A SUSPICIOUS TEST
+
+
+"Let him make his experiment. It will do no harm, and if it rids us of
+him, well and good."
+
+Such was Mr. Harper's decision after hearing all that Mr. Ransom had to
+tell him of the present situation.
+
+"His disappointment when he learns that he has nothing to hope for from
+his sister's generosity calls for some consideration from us," proceeded
+the lawyer. "Go and have your little talk with the landlady or take
+whatever other means suggest themselves for luring this girl from her
+room. I will summon Hazen and hold him very closely under my eye till the
+whole affair is over. He shall get no chance for any hocus-pocus
+business, not while I have charge of your interests. He shall do just
+what he has laid out for himself and nothing more; you may rely on that."
+
+Ransom expressed his satisfaction, and left the room with a lighter heart
+than he had felt since Hazen came upon the scene. He did not know that
+all he had been through was as nothing to what lay before him.
+
+It was an hour before he returned. When he did, it was to find Hazen and
+the lawyer awaiting him in ill-concealed impatience. These two were much
+too incongruous in tastes and interests to be very happy in a forced and
+prolonged tete-a-tete.
+
+"Have you done it?" exclaimed Hazen, leaping eagerly to his feet as the
+door closed softly behind Ransom. "Is she out of her room? I have
+listened and listened for her step, but could not be sure of it. There
+seem to be a lot of people in the house to-night."
+
+"Too many," quoth Ransom. "That is why I couldn't get hold of Mrs. Deo
+any sooner. Anitra is having her hair brushed or something else of equal
+importance done for her in one of the rear rooms. So we can proceed
+fearlessly. Have you looked to see if you can get a good glimpse of her
+door through the keyhole of this one?"
+
+"Haven't you already made a trial of that? Then do so now," suggested
+Hazen, drawing out the key and laying it on the table.
+
+But this was too uncongenial a task for Ransom.
+
+"I shall be satisfied," said he, "if Mr. Harper tells me that it can."
+
+"It can," asserted that gentleman, falling on his knees and adjusting his
+eye to the keyhole. "Or rather, you can see plainly the face of any one
+approaching it. I don't suppose any of us expected to see the door
+itself."
+
+"No, it is not the door, but the woman entering the door, we want to see.
+Did you ask for an extra lamp?"
+
+"Yes, and saw it placed. It is on a small table almost opposite her
+room."
+
+"Then everything is ready."
+
+"All but the mark which I am to put on the panel."
+
+"Very good. Here is the chalk. Let us see what you mean to do with it
+before you risk an attempt on the door itself."
+
+Ransom thought a minute, then with one quick twist produced the
+following:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Correct," muttered Hazen, with what Harper thought to be a slight but
+unmistakable shudder. "One would think you had been making use of this
+very cabalistic sign all your life."
+
+"Then _one_ would be mistaken. I have simply a true eye and a ready
+hand."
+
+"And a very remarkable memory. You have recalled every little line and
+quirk."
+
+"That's possible. What I have made once I can make the second time. It's
+a peculiarity of mine."
+
+There was no mistaking the continued intensity of Hazen's gaze. Ransom
+felt his color rise, but succeeded in preserving his quiet tone, as he
+added:
+
+"Besides, this character is not a wholly new one to me. My attention was
+called to it months ago. It was when I was courting Georgian. She was
+writing a note one day when she suddenly stopped to think and I saw her
+pen making some marks which I considered curious. But I should not have
+remembered them five minutes, if she had not impulsively laid her hand
+over them when she saw me looking. That fixed the memory of them in my
+mind, and when I saw this combination of lines again, I remembered it.
+That is why I lent myself so readily to this experiment. I lent that what
+you said about her acquaintance with this odd arrangement of lines was
+true."
+
+Hazen's hand stole up to his neck, a token of agitation which Ransom
+should have recognized by this time.
+
+"And her account of the use we made of it tallied with mine?"
+
+"She gave me no account of any use she had ever made of it."
+
+"That was because you didn't ask her."
+
+"Just so. Why should I ask her? It was a small matter to trouble her
+about."
+
+"You are right," acquiesced Hazen, wheeling himself away towards the
+window. Then after a momentary silence, "It was so then, but it is likely
+to prove of some importance now. Let me see if the hall is empty."
+
+As he bent to open the door, the lawyer, who had not moved nor spoken
+till now, turned a quick glance on Ransom and impulsively stretched out
+his hand. But he dropped it very quickly and subsided into his old
+attitude of simple watchfulness, as Hazen glanced back with the remark:
+
+"There's nobody stirring; now's your time, Ransom."
+
+The moment for action had arrived.
+
+Ransom stepped into the hall. As he passed Hazen, the latter whispered:
+
+"Don't forget that last downward quirk. That was the line she always
+emphasized."
+
+Ransom gave him an annoyed look. His nerves as well as his feelings were
+on a keen stretch, and this persistence of Hazen's was more than he could
+bear.
+
+"I'll not forget the least detail," he answered shortly, and passed
+quickly down the hall, while Hazen watched him through the crack of the
+door, and the lawyer watched Hazen.
+
+Suddenly Mr. Harper's brow wrinkled. Hazen had uttered such a sigh of
+relief that the lawyer was startled. In another moment Ransom re-entered
+the room.
+
+"She's coming," said he, striving to hide his extreme emotion. "I heard
+her voice in the hall beyond."
+
+Hazen sprang to the door which Ransom had carefully closed, and was about
+to fall on his knees before the keyhole when he suddenly stiffened
+himself and, turning towards the lawyer, cried with a new strain of
+loftiness in his tone:
+
+"You. You shall do the looking, only promise to be very minute in your
+description of her behavior. It's a great trust I repose in you. See that
+you honor it."
+
+The revulsion of feeling caused in the lawyer by this show of confidence
+was not perceptible. But it softened his step as well as his manner as he
+crossed to do the other's bidding.
+
+The remaining two stood at his side breathless, waiting for his first
+word.
+
+It came in a whisper:
+
+"She's approaching her room. She looks tired. Her eyes are stealing this
+way;--no, they are resting on her own door. She sees the sign. She stands
+staring at it, but not like a person who has ever seen it before. It's
+the stare of an uneducated woman who runs upon something she does not
+understand. Now she touches it with one finger and glances up and down
+the hall with a doubtful shake of the head. Now she is running to another
+door, now to another. She is looking to see if this scrawl is to be found
+anywhere else; she even casts her eye this way--I feel like leaving my
+post. If I do, you may know that she's coming--No, she's back at her own
+door and--gentlemen, her bringing up or rather coming up asserts itself.
+She has put her palm to her mouth and is vigorously rubbing off the
+marks."
+
+The next instant Mr. Harper rose. "She's gone into her room," said he.
+"Listen and you will hear her key click in the lock."
+
+Ransom sank into a seat; Hazen had walked to the window. Presently he
+turned.
+
+"I am convinced," said he. "I will not trouble you gentlemen further.
+Mr. Ransom, I condole with you upon your loss. My sister was a woman of
+uncommon gifts."
+
+Mr. Ransom bowed. He had no words for this man at a moment of such
+extreme excitement. He did not even note the latent sting hidden in the
+other's seeming tribute to Georgian. But the lawyer did and Hazen
+perceived that he did, for pausing in his act of crossing the room, he
+leaned for a moment on the table with his eyes down, then quickly
+raising them remarked to that gentleman:
+
+"I am going to leave by the midnight train for New York. To-morrow I
+shall be on the ocean. Will it be transgressing all rules of propriety
+for me to ask the purport of my sister's will? It is a serious matter to
+me, sir. If she has left me anything--"
+
+"She has _not_," emphasized the lawyer.
+
+A shadow darkened the disappointed man's brow. His wound swelled and his
+eyes gleamed ironically as he turned them upon Ransom.
+
+Instantly that gentleman spoke.
+
+"I have received but a moiety," said he. "You need not envy me the
+amount."
+
+"Who has it then?" briskly demanded the startled man. "Who? who? _She?_"
+
+Mr. Harper never knew why he did it. He was reserved as a man and,
+usually, more than reserved as a lawyer, but as Hazen lifted his hands
+from the table and turned to leave, he quietly remarked:
+
+"The chief legatee--the one she chose to leave the bulk of her very large
+fortune to--is a man we none of us know. His name is Josiah Auchincloss."
+
+The change which the utterance of this name caused in Hazen's expression
+threw them both into confusion.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me that in the beginning?" he cried. "I needn't have
+wasted all this time and effort."
+
+His eyes shone, his poor lips smiled, his whole air was jubilant. Both
+Mr. Harper and his client surveyed him in amazement. The lines so fast
+disappearing from his brow were beginning to reappear on theirs.
+
+"Mr. Harper," this hard-to-be-understood man now declared, "you may
+safely administer the estate of my sister. She is surely dead."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+A STARTLING DECISION
+
+
+Before Mr. Ransom and the lawyer had recovered from their astonishment,
+Hazen had slipped from the room. As Mr. Harper started to follow, he saw
+the other's head disappearing down the staircase leading to the office.
+He called to him, but Hazen declined to turn.
+
+"No time," he shouted back. "I shall have to make use of somebody's
+automobile now, to get to the Ferry in time."
+
+The lawyer did not persist, not at that moment; he went back to his
+client and they had a few hurried words; then Mr. Harper went below and
+took up his stand on the portico. He was determined that Hazen should not
+leave the place without some further explanation.
+
+It was light where he stood and he very soon felt that this would not
+do, so he slipped back into the shade of a pillar, and seeing, from the
+bustle, that Hazen was likely to obtain the use of the one automobile
+stored in the stable, he waited with reasonable patience for his
+reappearance in the road before him.
+
+Meanwhile he had confidence in Ransom, who he felt sure was watching
+them both from the window overhead. If he should fail in getting in
+the word he wanted, Ransom was pledged to shout it out without regard
+to appearances. But this was not likely to occur. He knew his own
+persistency to equal Hazen's. Nothing should stop the momentary interview
+he had promised himself.
+
+Ah! A well-known whirr and clatter is heard. The automobile was leaving
+the stable. Hazen was already in it and the man who had come up from New
+York was with him. This was bad; they would flash by--No; he would not be
+balked thus. Stepping out into the road, he stopped full in the glare of
+the office lights and held up his hand. They could not but see him and
+they did. The chauffeur reversed the lever and the machine stopped to
+the accompaniment of low muttered oaths from Hazen, which were rather
+disagreeable than otherwise to Harper's ear.
+
+"One word," said he, approaching to the side where Hazen sat. "I thought
+you ought to know before leaving that we can take no proceedings in the
+matter we were speaking of till we have undisputed proof that your sister
+is dead. That we may not get for a long time, possibly never. If you are
+interested in having this Auchincloss receive his inheritance, you had
+better prepare both yourself and him for a long wait. The river seems
+slow to give up its dead."
+
+The quiver of impatience which had shaken Hazen at the first word had
+settled into a strange rigidity.
+
+"One moment," he said in a command to the chauffeur at his side. Then in
+a low, strangely sounding whisper to Harper: "They think the body's in
+the Devil's Cauldron. Nothing can get it out if it is. Would some proof
+of its presence there be sufficient to settle the fact of her death?"
+
+"That would depend. If the proof was unmistakable, it might pass in the
+Surrogate's Court. What is the matter, Hazen?"
+
+"Nothing." The tone was hollow; the whole man sat like an image of death.
+"I--I'm thinking--weighing--" he uttered in scattered murmurs. Then
+suddenly, "You're not deceiving me, Harper. Some proof will be necessary,
+and that very soon, for this man Auchincloss to realize the money?"
+
+"Yes," the monosyllable was as dry as it was short. Harper's patience
+with this unnatural brother was about at an end.
+
+"And who will venture to obtain this proof for us? No one. Not even
+Ransom would venture down into that watery hole. They say it is almost
+certain death," babbled Hazen.
+
+Harper kept silence. Strange forces were at work. The head of another
+gruesome tragedy loomed vaguely through the shadows of this already
+sufficiently tragic mystery.
+
+"Go on!" suddenly shouted Hazen, leaning forward to the chauffeur. But
+the next instant his hand was on the man's sleeve. "No, I have changed my
+mind. Here, Staples," he called out as a man came running down the steps,
+"take my bag and ask the landlady to prepare me a room. I'll not try for
+the train to-night." Then as the man at his side leaped to the ground, he
+turned to Harper and remarked quietly, but in no common tone:
+
+"The steamer must sail without me. I'll stay in this place a while and
+prove the death of Georgian Ransom myself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE DEVIL'S CAULDRON
+
+
+The solemnity of Hazen's whole manner impressed Mr. Harper strongly. As
+soon as the opportunity offered he cornered the young man in the office
+where he had taken refuge, and giving him to understand that further
+explanations must pass between them before either slept, he drew him
+apart and put the straight question to him:
+
+"Who is Josiah Auchincloss?"
+
+The answer was abrupt, almost menacing in its emphasis and tone.
+
+"A trunk-maker in St. Louis. A man she was indebted to."
+
+"How indebted to--a trunk-maker?"
+
+"That I cannot, do not desire to state. It is enough that she felt she
+owed him the bulk of her fortune. Though this eliminates me from benefits
+of a wealth I had some rights to share, I make no complaint. She knew her
+business best, and I am disposed to accept her judgment in the matter
+without criticism."
+
+"You are?" The tone was sharp, the sarcasm biting. "I can understand
+that. For Auchincloss, in this will, read Hazen; but how about her
+husband? How about her friends and the general community? Do you not
+think they will ask why a beautiful and socially well-placed young woman
+like your sister should leave so large a portion of her wealth to an
+obscure man in another town, of whom her friends and even her business
+agent have never heard? It would have been better if she had left you her
+thousands directly."
+
+The smile which was Hazen's only retort was very bitter.
+
+"You drew up her will," said he. "You must have reasoned with her on this
+very point as you are now trying to reason with me?"
+
+The lawyer waved this aside.
+
+"I didn't know at that time the social status of the legatee; nor did I
+know her brother then as well as I do now."
+
+"You do not know me now."
+
+"I know that you are very pale; that the determination you have just made
+has cost you more than you perhaps are willing to state. That there is
+mystery in your past, mystery in your present, and, possibly, mystery
+threatening your future, and all in connection with your great desire for
+this money."
+
+Hazen made a forcible gesture, but whether of denial or depreciation, it
+was not easy to decide.
+
+"Would it not then be better for all parties," pursued the lawyer, "for
+you to give me some idea of the great obligation under which your sister
+lay to this man, that I may have an answer ready when people ask me why
+she passed you so conspicuously by, in order to enrich this stranger?"
+
+"The story is not mine. Had she wished you to know it, she would have
+confided it to you herself. I must decline--"
+
+Mr. Harper interrupted the other impressively. "Do you realize what a
+shadow may be thrown upon your sister's memory by this reticence on your
+part? Her death was suggestive enough without the complications you
+mention. In justice to your relationship you should speak. If, as I
+think, the money is really meant for you, say so. The subterfuge may be
+difficult of explanation, but it will not hurt her memory as much as this
+extraordinary silence on your part."
+
+"I am sorry," began Hazen. But Harper cut him short.
+
+"You expect the money--you yourself," said he. "Nothing else would force
+you into an attempt so perilous. You would risk death. Risk something
+less final; risk your place in my esteem, your standing among men, and
+confess the full truth about this matter. If it involves crime--why, I'm
+a lawyer and can see you through better than you can win through by your
+own misdirected efforts. The truth, my lad, the truth, nothing else will
+serve you."
+
+The look he received he will never forget.
+
+"You are a man of limited experience, Mr. Harper," were the words which
+accompanied it. "You would not understand the truth, Georgian or me.
+Ransom might, but I shall not even risk Ransom's discretion. Now this
+is all I am going to say about this matter. Georgian's last will and
+testament, followed though it was by suicide, was a perfectly regular
+one. The only impediment to its being so recognized and acted upon is the
+doubt as to her actual decease. If the body of my poor young sister has
+become lodged in the Devil's Cauldron, I am going there to seek it. As
+the project calls for courage and, above all, a good condition of body
+and mind, I shall be obliged to you if you will allow me the benefit of
+the sleep I most certainly need. To-morrow I may have something more to
+say to you, and I may not. Perhaps I shall want to make _my will_, who
+knows?" And with a smile full of sarcastic meaning, he pushed Mr.
+Harper's arm aside and made for the staircase, up which he presently
+vanished without another attempt on the lawyer's part to hold him back.
+
+A few minutes later the lawyer was getting what information he could
+about the so-called Devil's Cauldron.
+
+It seems that this was a very deep hole in which, on account of the rocky
+formation surrounding it, the water swept in an eddy which had the force
+of a whirlpool. No one had ever sounded its depths and nothing had ever
+been seen again which had once been sucked into its deathly hollow. That
+Georgian's body had found its everlasting grave there, many had believed
+from the first, and if the conviction had not yet been publicly expressed
+it was out of consideration for Mr. Ransom, to whose hopes it could but
+ring a final knell.
+
+"Where is the hole? How far from the waterfall?" queried Mr. Harper.
+
+"A good mile," muttered one man. "Quite around the bend of the stream.
+It's a horrid place, sir. We've always been mortal careful about rowing
+down that side of the river. Children are never allowed to. Only a man's
+strength could get him free again if he once struck the eddy."
+
+"Would anything floating down from the falls be apt to strike this eddy?"
+
+"Very apt. It would be a miracle if it didn't. That is why we all turned
+out so willingly the first day. We knew that if Mrs. Ransom's body was to
+be found at all, it would be found then; another day it would be beyond
+our reach."
+
+"You say that no one has ever sounded the depths of that hole. Has any
+one ever tried to?"
+
+"More than once. Scientific men and others."
+
+"Did they ever emerge--any of them?"
+
+"Yes, one, a powerful sort of chap with Indian blood in him. But he
+didn't advise any one to try it; said the knowledge wasn't worth the
+strain to heart and muscle."
+
+"What was the knowledge? We can imagine the strain."
+
+"Oh, he said as how the walls of the vortex--didn't he call it a
+vortex--was all stone, and he spoke of a ledge--I didn't hear what
+else."
+
+"To go down there a man would have to take his life in his hand, I see.
+Well, I don't think I will try," dryly observed the lawyer as he left the
+room.
+
+He could no longer hide his excitement at the thought that Hazen
+meditated this undertaking.
+
+"How he must want money!" thought he. That a man should face such a
+horror for another man's profit did not seem likely enough to engage his
+consideration for a moment.
+
+Lawyer Harper knew the world--or thought he did.
+
+Next day the whole town was thrown into a hubbub. Word had gone out
+through every medium possible to so small a place, that Alfred Hazen,
+Georgian's long-lost brother, was going to dare Death Eddy in a final
+attempt to recover his sister's body.
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+The Man of Mystery
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+DEATH EDDY
+
+
+It was a gray day, chill and ominous. As the three most interested in the
+event came together on the road facing the point from which Hazen had
+decided to make his desperate plunge, the dreariness of the scene was
+reflected in the troubled eye of the lawyer and that of the still more
+profoundly affected Ransom. Only Hazen gazed unmoved. Perhaps because
+the spot was no new one to him, perhaps because an unsympathetic sky,
+a stretch of rock, the swirl of churning waters without any of the
+lightness and color which glancing sunlight gives, meant for him but one
+thing--the thing upon which he had fixed his mind, his soul.
+
+The rocky formation into which the stream ran at this point as into a
+pocket, revealed itself in the bald outlines of the point which, curving
+half-way upon itself, held in its cold embrace the unseen vortex. One
+tree, and one only, disturbed the sky line. Stark and twisted into an
+unusual shape from the steady blowing of the prevalent east winds, it
+imprinted itself at once upon the eye and unconsciously upon the
+imagination. To some it was the keeper of that hell-gate; the contorted
+sentinel of bygone woes and long-buried horrors, if not the gnomish
+genius of others yet to come. To-day it was the sign-post to a strange
+deed--the courting of an uncanny death that one of the many secrets
+hidden in that hole of miseries might be unlocked.
+
+Under this tree a small group of strong and determined men was already
+collected; not as spectators but helpers in the adventurous attempt about
+to be undertaken by their old friend and playmate. The spectators had
+been barred from the point and stood lined up in the road overlooking the
+eddy. They were numerous and very eager. Hazen's brows drew together in
+his first exhibition of feeling, as he saw women and even children in the
+crowd, and caught the expression of morbid anticipation with which they
+all turned as he stepped with his two associates over the rope which had
+been stretched across the base of the out-curving head line.
+
+[Illustration: "Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast
+of death, but they will be disappointed."]
+
+"Cormorants!" escaped his lips. "They look for a feast of death, but
+they will be disappointed." He was almost bitter. "I shall survive this
+plunge. I have no wish for my death to be the holiday for a hundred
+gloating eyes, I am not handsome enough. When I die, it will be quietly,
+with some hand near, kind enough to cover my poor face with a napkin."
+
+Harper and Ransom both remembered this remark a little while later.
+
+"Mr. Hazen?" It was Harper who spoke. They had passed a little thicket
+of brush and were drawing near the group under the tree. "Have you duly
+considered what you are about to do? I have talked with several men of
+judgment and experience about this attempt, and they all say it can have
+but one termination."
+
+"I know. That is because they know little or nothing of the life I have
+led since I left this town. There is not a man amongst them so slight and
+seemingly frail of figure as myself, but none of them, not one, has been
+so often up to the very gates of death and escaped, as I have. My
+schooling has been long and severe, perhaps in preparation for this day.
+I have been through fire; I have been through water. The swirling of my
+own native stream does not appall me. I rather welcome it; it is but
+another experience."
+
+"But for money?" broke in Ransom. "You acknowledge it is for no other
+purpose. Will it pay? I own that in my eyes no amount of money could pay
+a man for so superhuman a risk as this. Take a few thousands from me--I
+had rather give them to you than see you leap into that water opening
+beneath us like a hungry maw."
+
+Hazen stood silent, his eye glistening, his hand almost outstretched.
+Harper thought he would yield; the offer must have struck him as generous
+and very tempting--a good excuse for a hot-headed man to withdraw from a
+very doubtful adventure. But he did not know Hazen. This latter advanced
+his hand and squeezed Ransom's warmly, but his answer, when he was ready
+to give one, conveyed no intention of a change of mind.
+
+"Will your thousands amount to a clean million?" he smiled. "That is the
+amount, I believe, bequeathed by your wife to Mr. Auchincloss. Nothing
+less will suffice. Yet I thank you, Ransom."
+
+The latter bowed and fell a little behind the others. The struggle in his
+mind had been severe; it was severe yet; he did not know but that it was
+his duty to stop this Hazen from his intended action by force. He was not
+sure but that the onus of this whole desperate undertaking would yet fall
+upon him. Certainly it would fall upon his conscience if the end was
+fatal. He had had proof of that in the long night of wakeful misery he
+had just passed; a night in which he had faced the furies; in which this
+inexorable question had forced itself upon him despite every effort on
+his part to evade it.
+
+Why had he, a humane man, consented to this attempt on the part of the
+devoted Hazen? That his mind might be free to mourn his beautiful young
+bride whose fatal and mysterious secret he was still as far from knowing
+as in the hour he turned to welcome her to their first home and found her
+fled from his arms and heart? Or had this suspense, this feeling of
+standing now, as never before, at the opening door of fate, a deeper
+significance, a more active meaning? Was this meditated test a crucial
+one, because it opened to him the only possible releasement of soul and
+conscience to the undivided care of one who had no other refuge in life
+save that offered by his devotion? The horror of this self-probing was
+still upon him as he followed Hazen's slight and virile figure across the
+rocks, but it fled as he felt the spray of the tossing waters dash its
+chilling reminder in his face.
+
+The event was upon him and he must add to his former actions that of
+a complete and determined opposition to the risk proposed or possibly
+forfeit his peace of mind forever. Quickening his pace, he reached Hazen
+and the lawyer just as the men awaiting them had advanced on their side.
+Instantly he knew it was too late. There was neither time nor opportunity
+for any weak protests on his part now. Older men were speaking; men who
+knew the river, the danger, and the man, but even they said nothing to
+him in way of dissuasion. They only pointed out what especial points of
+suction were to be avoided, and showed him the chain they had brought for
+his waist and how he was to pull upon it the very instant he felt his
+senses or his strength leaving him.
+
+He answered as a courageous man might, and making ready by taking off his
+coat and shoes he gave himself into their hands for the proper fastening
+on of the chain. Then, while the murmur of expectation rose from the
+crowd on the river bank, he stepped back to Mr. Ransom and whispered
+hurriedly in his ear:
+
+"You have a good heart, a better heart than I ever gave you credit for.
+Promise that in case I never come out of those waters alive, that you
+will put no obstacle in the way of Mr. Auchincloss inheriting his fortune
+in good time. He's a man worthy of all the assistance which money can
+bring. _You_ do not need her wealth; Anitra--well, she will be cared for,
+but Auchincloss--promise--brother."
+
+Ransom half drew back in his amazement. Then started forward again. This
+man whom he had always distrusted, whom he had looked upon as Georgian's
+possible enemy, certainly his own, was looking into his eyes with a gaze
+of trust, almost of affection. The money was not for himself; he showed
+it by the noble, almost grand look with which he waited for his answer;
+a look that carried conviction despite Ransom's prejudice and great
+dislike.
+
+"You will give me that much additional nerve for the task lying before
+me?" he added. And Ransom could only bow his head. The man's mastery was
+limitless; it had reached and moved even him.
+
+Another moment and a gasp went up from fifty or more throats. Hazen had
+taken the chain in his hand, walked to the edge of the rock and slipped
+into the quietest water he saw there.
+
+"Strike left!" called out a voice. And he struck left. The eddy seized
+him and they could see his head moving slowly about in the great circle
+which gradually grew smaller and smaller till he suddenly disappeared. A
+groan muffled with horror went up from the shore. But the man who held
+the chain lifted up his hand, and silence--more pregnant of anticipation
+than any sound--held that whole crowd rigid. The man played out the
+chain; Harper stared at the seething, tumbling water, but Ransom looked
+another way. The torture in his soul was taking shape, the shape of a
+ghost rising from those tossing waters. Suddenly the pent-in breath of
+fifty breasts found its way again to the lips.
+
+The men who held the chain were pulling it in with violent reaches. It
+dragged more slowly, stuck, loosened itself, and finally brought into
+sight a face white as the foam it rose amongst.
+
+"Dead! Drowned!" the whisper went around.
+
+But when Hazen was dragged ashore and Ransom had thrown himself at his
+feet, he saw that he yet lived, and lived triumphantly. Ransom could not
+have told more; it was for others to see and point out the smile that
+sweetened the wan lips, and the passion with which he held against his
+breast some sodden and shapeless object which he had rescued from those
+awful depths, and which, when spread out and clean of sand, betrayed
+itself as that peculiar article of woman's clothing, a small side bag.
+
+"I remember that bag," said Harper. "I saw it, or one exactly like it, in
+Mrs. Ransom's hand when she got into the coach the day we all rode up
+from the ferry. What will he have to say about it? and could he have seen
+the body from which it has evidently been torn?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+HAZEN
+
+
+"An unfathomable man," grumbled Mr. Harper, entering Mr. Ransom's room in
+marked disorder. "They say that he has not spoken yet; but the coroner is
+with him and we shall hear something from him soon. I expect--" here the
+lawyer's voice changed and his manner took on meaning--"that his report
+will be final."
+
+"Final? You mean--"
+
+"What his fainting face showed. For all its pallor and the exhaustion it
+expressed, there was triumph in its every feature. The little bag was not
+all he saw in that pit of hell. You must prepare yourself for no common
+ordeal, Ransom; it will take all your courage to listen to his story."
+
+"I know." The words came with difficulty but not without a certain manly
+courage. "I shall try not to make you too much trouble." Then after a
+moment of oppressive silence, "Did you notice, when we all came in, the
+figure of a woman disappearing up the stair way? It was Anitra's and it
+paused before it reached the top, and I saw her eyes staring down at
+Hazen's helpless figure with a wildness in its inquiry that has sapped
+all my courage. How are we to answer that girl when she asks us what has
+happened? How make her know that Hazen is her brother and that he has
+just risked his life to satisfy himself and us that Georgian was really
+lost in that dreadful pool."
+
+The lawyer, darting a keen glance at the speaker, softly shook his head.
+
+"I am not thinking of Miss Hazen," said he. "I'm wondering how far the
+proof he has obtained will go." He paused, listening, then made a gesture
+towards the hall. "There's some one there," he whispered.
+
+Ransom rose, and with a quick turn of the wrist pulled open the door.
+
+A man was standing on the threshold, a ghastly figure before which Ransom
+involuntarily stepped back.
+
+"Hazen!" he cried; then, as the other tottered, he sprang forward again
+and, reaching out his hand to steady him, drew him in with the remark,
+"We were expecting a summons from you. We are happy that you find
+yourself able to come to us."
+
+"The coroner has just gone. The doctors I dismissed. I have something to
+say to you--to both of you," he added as he caught sight of Mr. Harper.
+
+Entering slowly, he sat down in the chair proffered him by the lawyer.
+There was something strange in his air, a quiet automaton-like quality
+which attracted the latter's notice and led him to watch him very
+closely. Ransom was busy with the door, which the strong west wind
+blowing through the hall made difficult to close.
+
+"I--" The one word uttered, Hazen seemed to forget himself. Sitting quite
+still, he gazed straight before him at the open window. There was little
+to be seen there but the swaying boughs of the huge tree, but his gaze
+never left those tossing limbs, and his sentence hung suspended till the
+movement made by Ransom recrossing the room roused him, and he went on.
+
+"I have made the plunge, gentlemen, and fortune favored me. I--" here his
+voice failed him again, but realizing the fact more quickly than before,
+he shook off his apathy, and facing the two men, who awaited his slow
+words with inconceivable excitement, continued with sudden concentration
+upon his subject, "I saw what I went to see--poor Georgian's body. I have
+satisfied the coroner of this fact. The little bag I tore from her side
+proves her identity beyond a doubt. You saw it, Mr. Harper. They tell me
+that you recognized it at once as the same you saw in her hand in the
+stage-coach. But if you had not, the initials on it are unmistakable, G.
+Q. H., Georgian Quinlan Hazen. Auchincloss will get his money, and soon,
+will he not? Answer me plainly, Harper. Such an experience merits some
+reward. You will not make difficulties?"
+
+"I?" The lawyer's query had a strange ring to it. He glanced from Hazen
+to Ransom, and from Ransom back to Hazen, whose features had now become
+more composed, though they still retained their remarkable pallor.
+
+"If the proof is positive," he then went on, "you assuredly can trust
+both my client and myself to remember our promise to you."
+
+"The coroner, you say, is satisfied?"
+
+"Yes, with the proof and my sworn statement. He is obliged to be. No one
+else, least of all himself, feels any desire to go down to that whirling
+eddy for confirmation of my story. And they are wise. I do not think
+that any man with less experience than myself could sound the depths of
+that vortex and come up alive. The noise--the swirl--the sense of being
+sucked down--down in ever-increasing fury--but my purpose kept the life
+in me. I was determined not to yield, not to faint, till I had seen--and
+proved--"
+
+"What's that?"
+
+The cry was from Mr. Ransom. A sudden gust of wind had torn its way
+through the room, flinging the door wide, and strewing the floor with
+flying papers from the large stand in the window.
+
+"Nothing but wind," answered Harper, half rising to close the door, but
+immediately sitting down again with a strange look at Ransom. "Let be,"
+he whispered, as the other rose in his turn to restore order. "Keep Hazen
+talking. It's important; imperative. I'll see to the door."
+
+But it was the window he closed, not the door.
+
+Ransom, with that obedience natural to a client in presence of his most
+trusted adviser, did as he was bid, and turned his full attention back to
+Hazen instantly. That gentleman, upon whom the rushing wind and the havoc
+it created had made little if any impression, rushed again into words.
+
+"I've led an adventurous life," he declared, "and, in the last few years
+especially, passed through many perils and experienced much awful
+suffering. I have felt the pang of hunger and the pang of biting despair;
+but nothing I have ever endured can equal the horror which beclouded my
+mind and rendered powerless my body as I felt myself sliding from the
+sight of earth and heaven into the jaws of that rapacious eddy, whose
+bottom no man had ever sounded.
+
+"I went in young--I have come out old. Look at my hands--they shake like
+those of a man of ninety. Yet yesterday they could have pulled to the
+ground an ox."
+
+"You saw Mrs. Ransom's body down in that pool some fathoms below the
+surface," observed the lawyer, after waiting in vain for some word from
+the shrinking husband. "Won't you particularize, Mr. Hazen? Tell us just
+how she was lying and where. Mr. Ransom cannot but wish to know,
+difficult as he evidently finds it to ask you."
+
+"The coroner has the story," Hazen began, with the slow, painful gasp of
+the unwilling narrator. "But I will tell it again; it is your right, the
+painful duty which we cannot escape. She was lying, not on the bottom,
+but in a niche of rock into which she had been thrown and wedged by the
+force of the current. One arm was free and was washing about; I tried to
+clutch this arm as I went down, but it eluded me. When I arose, the rush
+and swirl of the water was against me and I felt my senses going, but
+enough instinct was left for me to snatch again at the arm as I passed,
+and though it eluded me again, my fingers closed on something, which I
+was just conscious enough to hold on to with a frenzied grip. We have
+spoken of this thing--a little bag which must have been fastened to her
+side, for the end of its connecting strap is torn away by the wrench I
+gave it."
+
+"Vivid enough; but I am sure you will tell me one thing more. Did you see
+the face of this body as well as the arm? It would greatly add to the
+strength of your testimony if you could describe it."
+
+Ransom, who had been watching Hazen, cast a sudden look back at the
+lawyer as he dropped these insinuating words. Something more than a
+cold-blooded desire for truth had prompted this almost brutal
+inquisition. He must know what it was, if anything in Harper's
+well-controlled countenance would tell him. The result transfixed him,
+for following the lawyer's gaze, which was fixed not on the man he was
+addressing but on a small mirror hanging on the opposite wall, he saw
+reflected in it the face and form of Anitra standing in the open
+doorway behind them.
+
+She was looking at Hazen and, as Ransom noted that look, he understood
+Harper's previous caution and all that lay behind his insistent and
+cold-blooded questions. For her gaze was no longer one of simple inquiry
+but of horrified understanding;--_the gaze of one who heard_.
+
+Meantime, Hazen was answering in painful gasps the lawyer's pointed
+question, "Did you see the face of this body as well as the arm?"
+
+"Did I see--God help me, yes. Just a glimpse, but I knew it. Eyes that my
+mother had kissed, blind--staring--glassed in awe and unspeakable fright.
+The mouth, whose every curve I had studied in the old days of perfect
+affection, drawn into a revolting grin and dripping with unwholesome
+weeds brought down from the shallows. All strange, yet all familiar--my
+sister--Georgian--dead--stark--but recognizable. Don't ask me if I saw
+it. I always see it; it is before me now, the forehead--the chin--the
+eyes--"
+
+Ransom sprang to his feet, Harper also.
+
+The girl in the doorway had gone white as death, and with outstretched
+arms and frantic, haggard eyes was striving to ward off the frightful
+vision conjured up by her brother's words. The movement made by the
+two men recalled her in an instant to herself, and she drew back--the
+hesitating, appealing, anxious-eyed girl whom they all knew. But it
+was too late. Hazen had seen as well as the others, and leaping in
+frenzy from his chair stood confronting her--a dominant and accusing
+figure--between the quietly triumphant lawyer and the crushed, almost
+unconscious Ransom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+SHE SPEAKS
+
+
+Hazen's face was frightful to see; the more so that physical weakness
+contended with the outsweep of passion, so great and overwhelming in its
+power and destructive force that to the two onlookers it seemed to spring
+from deeper sources than ordinary life and death, and have its birth, as
+well as its culmination, in the unknown and all that is most terrible
+in the human mind and human experience.
+
+Anitra's eye was spellbound by it. As it dilated upon this vision of
+unspeakable wrath and almost superhuman denunciation, her own exquisite
+face filled with a reflected horror, almost equaling his in force and
+meaning, till the two awed spectators saw in this moment of startled
+recognition and the up-gathering of two great natures, the oncoming of
+some hideous climax for which the many strange and contradictory
+experiences of the last few days had not served to prepare them.
+
+"You _hear_!"
+
+In these words Hazen loosed out his soul.
+
+The keen cry of the wind running through the house was his only answer.
+
+"You _hear_!" he repeated, advancing and laying a determined hand upon
+her arm. "You have made a mock of us with your pretended deafness. What
+does it mean--Stop! no more play-acting," he fiercely admonished her, as
+her eyes assumed a look of startled inquiry and wandered away in vague
+curiosity to the papers scattered over the floor--"we have had enough
+of that; you cannot deceive us--you cannot deceive _me_ twice. You played
+at deafness--why? Because Anitra must have some disability to distinguish
+her from Georgian? Because you are not Anitra? Because you are Georgian
+after all?"
+
+Georgian!
+
+The word fell like a plummet into the hollow of that great expectancy.
+Ransom shivered and even Harper's hard cheek changed color. Hazen only
+stood unmoved, his look, his grasp, the spirit behind that look and
+grasp, implacable and determined. Their influence was terrible; slowly
+she succumbed to it against her will and purpose, the will and purpose of
+a very strong woman. Her eyes rose in a painful and lingering struggle to
+his face. Then, with a cry her drawn and parched lips could not suppress,
+she flashed them in agony on Ransom, and this long-suffering man read in
+them the maddening truth. They were his wife's eyes; the woman before him
+was indeed Georgian.
+
+"Speak!" rang out the voice of Hazen, as Harper, realizing from Ransom's
+face what Ransom had just realized from hers, stepped to the door and
+closed it. "The time is short; I have much, very much to do. For my sake,
+for the sake of this much-abused man, whom you allowed to marry you,
+speak out, tell the truth at once. You are Georgian."
+
+"Yes," fell in almost an inaudible whisper from her lips. "I am
+Georgian." Then as he loosed his grasp from her arm and she was left
+standing there alone, some instinct of isolation, some realization of the
+mysterious pit she had dug for herself and possibly for others, in this
+avowal of her identity, wrought her brain into momentary madness, and
+flinging up her arms she fell on her knees before Hazen as under the
+stroke of some unseen thunderbolt.
+
+"You made me say it," she cried. "On your head be the punishment, not on
+mine nor on his." Then as Hazen drew slowly back, touched in his turn by
+some emotion to which neither his look nor gesture gave any clew, she
+rose to her feet, and fixing him with a look of strange defiance, added
+in milder but no less determined tones: "A tongue unloosed talks long and
+loud. You have made me give up my secret, but I shall not stop at that. I
+shall say more; tell all my dreadful history; yours--mine. I will not be
+thought wicked because I undertook so great a deception. I will not have
+this good man's opinion of me shaken; not for a minute; what I did, I
+did for him and he shall know it whatever penalty it may incur. He is
+my husband--his love to me is priceless, and I will hold it against
+you--against the Cause--against Heaven--yes, and against Hell."
+
+Here was truth. To Ransom it came like balm and a renewed life. Bounding
+across the room, he strove to seize her hand and draw her to himself.
+But Hazen would not have it. His anger, indeterminate before, was
+concentrated now, and not the white pleading of her face, nor the warning
+gesture of Ransom, could hold it back.
+
+"Traitress!" he cried, "traitress to me and to the Cause. You thought
+to escape what is inescapable. Do you know what you have done? You
+have--" The rest hung in air. A sudden weakness had seized him and he
+sank faltering back into a chair Harper pushed towards him, still
+denouncing her, however, with lifted hand and accusing eyes, the
+image--though no longer a speaking one--of the implacable and determined
+avenger.
+
+Georgian, shocked into silence, stared at him in a frenzy of complicated
+emotions to which neither of them as yet had given the key capable of
+relieving the maddening tension.
+
+"It is the pool; the pool," she finally murmured. "Its waters have beaten
+out your life." But he calmly shook his head.
+
+"It is not in water to do that," he murmured. "Give me a moment. I've a
+question to ask. I think a drop of liquor--"
+
+Harper had flask in hand almost before the word had left the other's
+mouth. The draft revived Hazen; he looked up at Georgian. "I believe you,
+so do these men believe you. But you were not alone in this plot. Where
+is Anitra? Where is the deaf and solitary one you dragged from the
+streets of New York to bolster up your plot? Tell us and tell us quickly.
+Where is Anitra?"
+
+"Anitra? Do you ask that?" cried Harper, roused to speak for the first
+time by his boundless amazement and indignation. "You have described the
+body in the pool--a description which fits either sister, and yet you
+would make this woman tell us what you have seen with your own eyes."
+
+He might as well not have spoken. Neither he nor she seemed to hear him.
+Certainly neither heeded.
+
+"Anitra?" she repeated softly and with a strange intonation. "I am
+Anitra. I am both Georgian and Anitra. There have never been two of us
+since I came into this house."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+FIFTEEN MINUTES
+
+
+"There have never been but one of us since I came into this house."
+
+Monstrous assertion! or so it seemed to Ransom as the whirl of his
+thoughts settled and reason resumed its sway. Only one! But he had
+himself seen two; so had Mrs. Deo and the maids; he could even relate the
+differences between them on that first night. Yet had he ever seen them
+together, or even the shadow of one at the same moment he saw the person
+of the other? No, and with such an actress as she had shown herself to be
+these last two days, such changes of appearance might be possible, though
+why she should engage in such a deep, almost incredible plot was a
+mystery to make the hair rise,--she, the tender, exquisite, the beloved
+woman of his dreams.
+
+She saw the maddening nature of his confusion and, springing to him, fell
+on her knees with the imploring cry:
+
+"Patience! Do not try to think--I will tell you. It can all be said in a
+word. I was bound to this brother of mine, to do his bidding, to follow
+his fortunes through life, and up to death, by promises and oaths to
+which those uttered by me at the marriage altar were but toys and empty
+air. Anitra, or the dream sister my misery took from the dead, was not
+so bound, so I strove to secure our joy by the seeming death of Georgian
+and a new life as her twin. You do not understand; you cannot. You have
+no measure with which to gauge such men as my brother. But it will be
+given you. There is no hope now. The weakness of a moment has undone us."
+
+Ransom must have heard her, after events proved that he did, but he gave
+no token of it. The visions that were whirling through his mind still
+held it engrossed. He saw her, not as she stood before him now, trembling
+and appealing, but as she had looked to him in the hall that first night,
+as she had looked to him down by the mill-stream, as she had looked when
+she told her story as Anitra, and later when she had faced the landlady
+as Georgian, and the confusion of it all left no room in his conscience
+for any other impression. But Mr. Harper, though surprised as he had
+never been before in all his professional career, lost himself in no such
+abyss. With the freedom which long-delayed insight into the truth gives
+to a man of his positive nature and training, he left speculation and all
+endeavor to reconcile events with her declaration, and plunged at once to
+the obvious question of the moment.
+
+Fixing his keen gaze on Hazen, he observed very quietly, but with an
+underlying note of sarcasm:
+
+"If this lady is your sister, Georgian Ransom, and there is no Anitra
+save the fast fading memory of the child commemorated in your family's
+monument, then your statement as to the body you saw under the ledge was
+false?"
+
+The answer came deliberately, unaffected both by the manner of the
+accusation or by the accusation itself.
+
+"Perfectly so," said he, "I saw no body. Perhaps my description would
+have been less vivid if I had. My intention you know. This woman had
+deceived me to the point of making me believe that she was indeed Anitra,
+the twin, and not my millionaire sister, and Georgian's fortune being
+necessary to her heir, I wished to cut short the law's delay by an
+apparent identification. I never doubted from the moment this woman faced
+with such well-played ignorance the mark of great meaning we had placed
+upon her door, that Georgian was in the river, as you all believed. Why
+then not give her a positive resting-place, since this would smooth out
+all difficulties and hasten the very end for which she had apparently
+sacrificed herself."
+
+If there was any irony in his heart, his tongue did not show it. Indeed
+his manner betrayed little. Immobility had again replaced all tokens of
+anger, and immobility which only yielded now and then to a slight
+contortion more expressive of physical pain than of mental agitation.
+Yet in Georgian's eyes he had lost none of his formidable qualities, for
+the dismay with which she followed his words grew as she listened, and
+reached its height as he added in final explanation:
+
+"The bag I did draw out of the pool, but only because I had taken it down
+there in my blouse front. Did you think a man could see that or anything
+else indeed in that maddening swirl of water?"
+
+"But it was Mrs. Ransom's bag," came from Harper in ill-disguised
+amazement. Even his sang-froid was leaving him before these evidences
+of a plot so deep as to awaken awe. "Where did you get it? Not from Mrs.
+Ransom herself? Her own surprise is warranty for that."
+
+"No, I got it from the river, another reason why I credited her drowning.
+It was fished up from the sand, a little way from the Fall. My man found
+it; I had sent him there in a vain hope that he might find evidence of
+the tragedy which others had overlooked. He did, but he told no one but
+me. You flung the thing too far," he remarked to Georgian. "You should
+have dropped it nearer the bank. Only such a prodder as my man Ives would
+ever have discovered it."
+
+Georgian shook her head, impatient at such banalities, in the face of the
+important matters they had to discuss. "To the point," she cried, "tell
+these men what will clear me of everything but a wild attempt at
+freedom."
+
+"I have said what I had to say," returned her brother.
+
+Georgian's head fell. For a moment her courage seemed to fail her.
+
+Mr. Harper rose and locked the door.
+
+"We must have no intruders here," said he, pausing with a certain sense
+of shock, as he noticed the faint smile, full of some sinister meaning,
+which for an instant twisted Hazen's lips at these words.
+
+But the delay was but momentary. With an odd sense of haste he rushed at
+once to the attack.
+
+Stepping in front of Hazen, he observed with force and unmistakable
+resolution:
+
+"Your devotion to the legatee Auchincloss cannot possibly be explained by
+any ordinary feeling of obligation. Your sister has mentioned a Cause.
+Can he by any possibility be the treasurer of that Cause?"
+
+But Hazen was as impervious to direct attack as he had been to a covert
+one.
+
+"Georgian will tell you," said he. "When a woman looks as she looks now,
+and is so given over to her own personal longings that she forgets the
+most serious oaths, the most binding promises, nothing can hold back her
+speech. She will talk, and since this must be, let her talk now and in
+my presence. But let it be briefly," he admonished her, "and with
+discretion. An unnecessary word will weigh heavily in the end. You know
+in what scales. You shall have just fifteen minutes."
+
+He looked about for a clock, but seeing none drew out his watch from his
+vest pocket and laid it on the table. Then he settled himself again in
+his chair, with a look and gesture of imperative command towards
+Georgian.
+
+Struck with dismay, she hesitated and he had time to add: "I shall not
+interrupt unless you pass the bounds where narrative ends and disclosure
+begins." And Harper and Ransom, glancing up at this, wondered at his
+rigidity and the almost marble-like quiet into which his restless eye and
+frenzied movements had now subsided.
+
+Georgian seemed to wonder also, for she gave him a long and piercing look
+before she spoke. But once she had begun her story, she forgot to look
+anywhere but at the man whose forgiveness she sought and for the
+restoration of whose sympathy she was unconsciously pleading.
+
+Her first words settled one point which up to this moment had disturbed
+Ransom greatly.
+
+"You must forget Anitra's story. It was suggested by facts in my own
+life, but it was not true of me or mine in any of its particulars.
+Nor must you remember what the world knows, or what my relations say
+about my life. The open facts tell little of my real history, which
+from childhood to the day I believed my brother dead was indissolubly
+bound up in his. Though our fathers were not the same and he has
+old-world blood in his veins, while I am of full American stock, we loved
+each other as dearly and shared each other's life as intimately as if the
+bond between us had been one in blood as it was in taste and habit. This
+was when we were both young. Later, a change came. Some old papers of his
+father fell into his hands. A new vision of life,--sympathies quite
+remote from those which had hitherto engrossed him, led him further and
+further into strange ways and among strange companions. Ignorant of what
+it all meant, but more alive than ever to his influence, I blindly
+followed him, receiving his friends as my friends and subscribing to such
+of their convictions as they thought wise to express before me. Another
+year and he and I were living a life apart, owning no individual
+existence but devoting brain, heart, all we had and all we were, to the
+advancement and perpetuation of an idea. I have called this idea the
+Cause. Let that name suffice. I can give you no other."
+
+Pausing, she waited for some look of comprehension from the man she
+sought to enlighten. But he was yet too dazed to respond to her mute
+appeal, and she was forced to continue without it. Indicating Hazen with
+a gesture, she said, with her eyes still fixed on those of her husband:
+
+"You see him now as he came from under the harrow; but in those days--I
+must speak of you as you were, Alfred--he was a man to draw all eyes and
+win all hearts. Men loved him, women adored him. Little as he cared for
+our sex, he had but to speak, for the coldest breast to heave, the most
+indifferent eye to beam. I felt his power as strong as the rest, only
+differently. No woman was more his slave than I, but it was a sister's
+devotion I felt, a devotion capable of being supplanted by another. But I
+did not know this. I thought him my whole world and let him engross me in
+his plans and share his passions for subjects I did not even seek to
+understand.
+
+"I was only seventeen, he twenty-five. It was for him to think, not me.
+And he did think but to my eternal undoing. The Cause needed a woman's
+help, a woman's enthusiasm. Without considering my motherless condition,
+my helplessness, the immaturity of my mind, he drew me day by day into
+the secret meshes of his great scheme, a scheme which, as I failed to
+understand till it had absorbed me, meant the unequivocal devotion of my
+whole life to the exclusion of every other hope or purpose. Favored, he
+called it, favored to stand for liberty, the advancement of men, the
+right of every human being to an untrammeled existence. And favored I
+thought myself, till one awful day when my brother, coming suddenly into
+my room, found me making plans for an innocent pleasure and told me such
+things were no longer for me, that a great and immortal duty awaited me,
+one that had come sooner than he expected, but which my youth, beauty,
+and spirit eminently fitted me to carry on to triumph.
+
+"I was frightened. For the first time in my memory of him he looked like
+his Italian father, the man we had all tried to forget. Once while
+rummaging amongst my mother's treasures I had come across a miniature of
+Signor Toritti. He was a handsome man but there was something terrible in
+his eye; something to make the ordinary heart stand still. Alfred's
+burned with the same meaning at this moment, and as I noted his manner,
+which was elevated, almost godlike, I realized the difference in our
+heredity and how natural to him were the sacrifices for which my mind and
+temper were as naturally unprepared. With difficulty I asked him to
+explain himself, and it was with terror that I listened when he did.
+He may have been made to ask, but I was not made to hear such words. He
+saw my inner rebellion and stopped in mid-harangue. He has never forgiven
+me the disappointment of that moment. I have never forgiven him for
+making me sign away my independence, my holdings, and my life to a Cause
+I did not thoroughly understand."
+
+"Your life?" echoed Ransom, roused to involuntary expression by this
+word.
+
+"Surely not your life," echoed the lawyer, with the slow credulity of the
+matter-of-fact man.
+
+"I have said it," she murmured, her head falling on her breast. At which
+token of weakness, Hazen stirred and took the words from her mouth.
+
+"The organization," said he, "is a secret one and its code is
+self-sacrifice. To the band of noble men and women, of whose integrity
+and far-reaching purpose you can judge little from the whinings of a
+love-sick girl, life and all personal gratifications are as dust in the
+balance against the preservation and advancement of universal happiness
+and the great Cause. I thought my sister, young as she was, sufficiently
+great-minded to comprehend this and sufficiently great-hearted to do the
+society's bidding with joy at the sacrifice. But I found her lacking,
+and--" He stopped and almost lost himself again, but roused and cried
+with sudden fire, "Tell what I did, Georgian."
+
+"You took my duty on yourself," she conceded, but coldly. "That was
+brotherly; that was noble, if you had not exacted a vow from me in
+return, destined to lay waste my whole life. Released from this one great
+duty, I was to hold myself ready to fulfil all others. At the lift of a
+hand--a finger--I was to leave whatever held me and go after the one who
+beckoned in the name of the Cause. No circumstances were to be
+considered; no other human duty or affection. If it were to enter upon a
+fuller and more adventurous life, well and good; if it were to encounter
+death and the cessation of all earthly things, that was well too, and a
+good to be embraced with ardor. Obedience was all, and obedience at a
+mere signal! I took the oath and then--"
+
+"Yes, _then_--" emphasized Hazen in wavering but peremptory tones.
+
+"He told me what had led to all this misery. That as yet this compact was
+between us two, and us two only. That he had considered my youth, and in
+speaking of me to the Chief had held back my name even while promising
+my assistance. That he should continue to consider it, by keeping my name
+in reserve till he had returned from his mission, and if that mission
+failed, or succeeded too well, and he did not return, I might regard
+myself as freed from the Cause, unless my enlarging nature led me to
+attach myself to it of my own free will. That said, he went, and for a
+year I lived under the dread of his return and all the obligations that
+return would entail. Then came tidings of his death, tidings for which he
+may not have been responsible, but which he never contradicted, and I
+thought myself free--free to enjoy life, and the fortune that had so
+unexpectedly come to me; free to love and, alas! free to marry. And that
+is why," she pursued, in all the anguish of a dreadful retrospect, "I
+recoiled in such horror and hung, a dead weight on your arm, when on
+turning from the altar where we had just pledged ourselves to mutual love
+and mutual life, I saw among the faces before me the changed but still
+recognizable one of my brother, and beheld him make the fatal sign which
+meant, 'You are wanted. Come at once.'"
+
+"Wretch!" issued from the frenzied lips of the half-maddened bridegroom,
+as his glance flashed on Hazen. "Had you no mercy? Have you no mercy now,
+that you should torture her young, credulous soul with these fanciful
+obligations; obligations which no human being has any right to impose
+upon another, whatsoever the Cause, holy or unholy, he represents?"
+
+"Mercy? It is the weakness of the easy soul. There is no ease here," he
+cried, touching his breast with no gentle hand.
+
+"Then you forget my money," suggested Georgian. "Can you expect mercy
+from a man who sees a million just within his grasp? I know," she
+acknowledged, as Hazen lifted that same ungentle hand in haughty protest,
+"that it was not for himself. I do not think Alfred would disturb a fly
+for his own comfort, but he would wreck a woman's hopes, a good man's
+happiness for the Cause. He admitted as much to me, _and more_, in the
+interview we held that afternoon at the St. Denis. I had to go to him at
+once, and I had to employ subterfuge in order to do so," she went on in
+rapid explanation, as she saw her husband's eye refill with doubt under a
+remembrance of the shame and anguish of that unhappy afternoon. "I had
+not the courage to leave you openly at the carriage door. Besides, I
+hoped to work on Alfred's pity in our interview together, or, if not
+that, to buy my release and return to you a free woman. But the wound
+which had changed his face for me had changed and made hard his heart. He
+had other purposes for me than quiet living with a man who could have no
+real interest in the Cause. The money I inherited, the rare and growing
+beauty which he declared me to have, were too valuable to the brethren
+for me to hope for any existence in which their interests were not
+paramount. I might return to you, subject to the same authoritative beck
+and call which had put me in my present position, or I might leave you at
+once and forever. No half measures were possible. Was I, a bride, loving
+and beloved by my husband, to listen to either of these alternatives? I
+rebelled, and then the thunderbolt fell.
+
+"I was no longer on probation, no longer subject to his will alone. I was
+a fully affiliated member. That day my name had been sent to the Chief.
+This meant obedience on my part or a vengeance I felt it impossible to
+consider. While I lived I need never hope again for freedom without
+penalty.
+
+"'While I lived'; the words rang in my ears. I did not need to weigh
+them; I knew that they were words of truth. There is no power on earth
+so inescapable as that exercised by a secret society, and this one has
+a terrible safeguard. None but he who keeps the list knows the members.
+You, Roger, might be one, and I never suspect it, unless you chose to
+give me the sign. Knowing this, I realized that my life was not worth the
+purchase if I sought to cross the will of my own brother. Nor yours,
+either. It was the last thought which held me. While I dutifully
+listened, my mind was working out the deception which was to release me,
+and when I left him it was to take the first step in the complicated plot
+by which I hoped to recover my lost happiness. And I nearly succeeded.
+You have seen what I have borne, what difficulties I have faced, what
+discoveries eluded, but this last, this greatest ordeal, was too much. I
+could not listen unmoved to a description of my own drowned body. I, who
+had calculated on all, had not calculated on this. The horror overcame
+me--I forgot--perhaps because God was weary of my many deceptions!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+"THERE IS ONE WAY"
+
+
+"Have you done?"
+
+Hazen was on his feet and, rigid still, but oscillating from side to
+side, as though his strength did not suffice to hold him quite erect, was
+surveying them with eyes sunk so deeply in his head that they looked like
+dying sparks reanimated for an instant by some passing breath.
+
+The half-fainting woman he addressed did not answer. She was looking up
+at Ransom for the sympathy and pardon he was as yet too dazed to show.
+
+Hazen made a move. It was that of physical suffering sternly endured.
+
+"Let me speak," he urged. "I have a question to ask. I must ask it now.
+Who was the woman who came up from New York with you? There were two of
+you then."
+
+Without turning her head Georgian replied:
+
+"That was Bela, my maid; the same one who personated me on the afternoon
+of my wedding."
+
+"That accounts for the coarseness of her neck," Hazen explained with a
+certain grim humor to the lawyer, who had given a slight start of
+surprise or humiliation. Then quietly to Georgian:
+
+"Was it she who threw the comb and dropped your bag where my man found
+it?"
+
+"I threw the comb; threw it from my window before I uttered that loud
+shriek. It did not go very far; but I had to be satisfied with the fact
+that it lay in the direction of the waterfall. But it was to Bela I
+entrusted the flinging of the bag. I gave it to her when she left the
+coach. I had explained to her long before just what a place she would
+find herself in when she was set down at the foot of the lane; how she
+was to make her way in the darkness till she came to where there were
+no more trees, when she was to strike across to the stream, led by the
+noise of the waterfall. I was very particular in my directions, because I
+knew the danger she incurred of slipping into the chasm. It was her fear
+of this and the more than ordinary darkness, I presume, which made her
+throw the bag hap-hazard. I simply wanted it dropped on the bank above
+the waterfall."
+
+"I saw the girl," Mr. Harper broke in. "She wore a black skirt like the
+one you now wear, a black blouse and a red-checked handkerchief knotted
+about her throat. But the young woman who was seen leaving these parts
+the next morning had on some kind of a red dress and wore a hat. Bela had
+thrown away her hat; it was picked up where the coach stopped and
+afterwards brought here."
+
+"I know. My plans went deep; I foresaw the possibility of her being
+recognized by her clothes. To guard against this, I had her skirt and
+blouse made double, the one side black, the other a bright color. She had
+simply to turn them. The extra hat she carried with her; it was small and
+easily concealed. Her neckerchief she probably tucked away. I had its
+mate in my pocket, and when I left my room by the window, as I did the
+moment after I had locked the two rooms, it was with my hair pulled down
+and this neckerchief about my shoulders. How did I dare the risk! I
+wonder now; but it was life, life I was after; life and love; nothing
+else would have made me so fearless; nothing else would have given me
+such confidence in myself or lent such speed to my feet, running as I did
+in the darkness."
+
+"You ran around the house to the lane, and entered it by the turn-stile."
+
+"Yes, and so quickly that I had time to splash myself with mud and lose
+all my natural characteristics before any one came to find me. It was
+Anitra they met, panting and disheveled, at the head of the lane; Anitra
+in appearance, Anitra in heart. I did not act a part; I _was_ Anitra;
+Anitra as I had conceived her. To me she was and is an active, living
+personality. Whenever I faced you in her character, I thought with her
+half-educated mind; felt with her half-disciplined heart. I even shut my
+ears to sounds; I would not hear; half the time I did not. Nor did I fall
+back into my old ways when I was alone. From the minute Georgian closed
+her door upon you for the last time, and I darkened my skin in
+preparation for a permanent assumption of Anitra's individuality, I
+became the imaginary twin, in thought, feeling, and action. It was my
+only safeguard. Alas! had I only gone one step further and made myself
+really deaf!"
+
+The cry was bitterness itself, but it passed unheeded. Mr. Ransom could
+not speak and Hazen had other cares in mind.
+
+"Where is this woman Bela now?" he asked.
+
+Georgian was too absorbed or too unwilling, to answer.
+
+He repeated the question, this time with an authority she could not
+resist. Rising slowly, she faced him for one impressive moment.
+
+"My God!" came from her lips in startled surprise. "How pale you are! Sit
+down or you will fall."
+
+He shook his head impatiently.
+
+"It's nothing. Answer my question. Where is this Bela now?"
+
+"I don't know. She is beyond my reach--and _yours_. I told her to lose
+herself. I think she is clever enough to do so. The money I paid her was
+worth a few years spent in obscurity."
+
+The spark lighting his eye brightened into baleful flame, but she met
+it calmly. An indomitable spirit confronted one equally indomitable, and
+his was the first to succumb. Turning from her, Hazen took out pencil
+and paper from his pocket, and, crossing to the window with that same
+peculiar and oscillating motion of which he seemed unconscious, or which
+he found it impossible to subdue, he wrote a line, folded it, and before
+even Harper was aware of his purpose threw up the sash and flung it out,
+uttering a quick, sharp whistle as he did so.
+
+"What's that you're up to?" shouted the lawyer, rushing to the window and
+peering over the other's shoulder into the open space below, from which a
+man was just disappearing.
+
+"Am I a prisoner of the police that you should ask me that?" returned
+Hazen, haughtily.
+
+"No, but you should be," retorted Harper. "I don't like your ways, Hazen.
+I don't like what you and your sister have said about the Cause and the
+conscienceless obedience exacted from its members. I don't like any of
+it; least of all this passing over of poor Bela's name to one whose duty
+it will possibly be to make trouble for her."
+
+Hazen smiled and moved from the window. No one there had ever seen such a
+smile before, and the oppression which it brought heightened Georgian's
+fear to terror.
+
+"Let be!" she cried, lifting her hands towards Harper in inconceivable
+anxiety. "A quarrel with him will not help you and it may greatly injure
+_me_. Alfred, what am I to expect? Something dreadful, I can see. Your
+face is not the face of one who forgives, or who sees in a gift of money
+an adequate recompense for a cowardly withdrawal."
+
+"You read rightly," said he. "Your fortune will be accepted by the Chief,
+but he will never forget the cowardice. What faith can he put in one who
+prefers her own happiness to the general good? You must prepare for
+punishment."
+
+"Punishment!" broke scornfully from Harper's lips.
+
+She hushed him with a look before which even he stood aghast.
+
+"You will only waste words," she cried. "If he says punishment, I may
+expect punishment." And turning back to Ransom, in a burst of longing and
+passion, she raised her eyes to him again, saying, "You do not forgive
+because you do not realize my danger. But you will realize it when I am
+gone."
+
+Ransom, under a sudden releasement of the tension of doubt and awe which
+had hitherto held him speechless, gave her one wild stare, then caught
+her to his breast.
+
+She uttered a happy sigh.
+
+"Ah!" she murmured in the soft ecstasy and boundless relief of the
+moment, "how I have learned to love you during the fears and agonies
+of this awful week."
+
+"And I you," was the whispered answer. "Too deeply," he impetuously added
+in louder tones, "to let any harm come to you now."
+
+She smiled; but desperation fought with love in that smile. Gently
+releasing herself, she cast another glance at Hazen, upon whose gray
+and distorted countenance there had settled a great gloom, and
+passionately exclaimed:
+
+"Had law or love been able to interfere with the judgment of our Chief, I
+should not have been driven into the herculean task of deceiving you and
+the whole world as to my real identity." Then with slowly drooping head,
+and the manner of one who has heard his doom pronounced, she hoarsely
+whispered; "The death-mark was scrawled upon my door last night. This is
+never done without the consent of the Chief. No one can save me now, not
+even my own brother."
+
+"False. I scrawled those lines," declared Ransom. "It was a test--"
+
+"Which _I_ commanded you to make," put in Hazen. Then in fainter and less
+strenuous tones, "She's right. Georgian Ransom is doomed; no one can save
+her."
+
+"False again!" This time it was Harper who interposed. "I can and will.
+You forget that I know the name of your Chief. Conspiracy such as you
+hint at is indictable in this country. I am a lawyer. I shall protect,
+not only your sister, but her money."
+
+The smile he received in return evinced no ordinary scorn.
+
+"Try it," said he. Then with a laugh so low as to be almost inaudible,
+yet so full of meaning that even Harper's cheek lost color, he calmly
+declared: "No one knows the name of our Chief. Auchincloss is a member
+and a valuable one--the only one whose name Georgian positively knows;
+but he's but a unit in a thousand. You cannot reach the Head or even the
+Heart of this great organization through him, and if you did and punished
+it, the Cause would grow another head and you would be as far from
+injuring us as you are now. Georgian is right. Not even I can save her
+now." Then, with a steady look into each of their faces, he smiled again
+and one and all shuddered. "But the Cause will go on," he cried in tones
+ringing with enthusiasm. "Mankind will drop its shackles and we, we shall
+have unriveted one of its chains. It is worth dying for, I, Alfred Hazen,
+say it."
+
+Slowly he sank back into his chair. The pallor which had astounded all
+from the first had now become the ghastly mask of a soul whose only token
+of life glimmered through the orbits of his fast glazing eyes. He
+breathed, but in great pants. Georgian became alarmed.
+
+"What is it?" she cried, forgetting her own fears and threats in the
+horror which his appearance excited. "This is something more than
+exhaustion from the pounding of that murderous eddy. What have you done?
+Tell me, Alfred, tell me."
+
+For the first time since his entrance into the room a suggestion of
+sweetness crept into his tone.
+
+"Simply forestalled the verdict of the Chief," said he. "I was under oath
+to leave the country to-day on no ordinary errand. I failed to keep my
+word, believing that the interests of the Cause could be better served by
+what I have here undertaken than by the fulfilment of my primal duty. But
+we are not allowed the free exercise of our own judgment, else what man
+could be depended on? With us, neglect means death, no matter what the
+excuse or the Cause's benefit. I knew this when I made my choice last
+night. I have been dying ever since, but only actually since I came into
+this room. When the doctors decided that I had received no mortal hurt in
+the eddy, I--"
+
+"Alfred!" The sister-heart spoke at last. "Not--not poison!"
+
+"That is what you may call it here," said he, with a return to his old
+imperious manner, "but later and to the world it will be kindness on your
+part to name it exhaustion--the effect of my battle with the water. The
+doctors will reconsider their diagnosis and blame my poor heart. You will
+have no trouble about it. It _is_ my heart--I feel it failing--failing--"
+
+He was sinking, but suddenly his whole nature flared up. Bounding to his
+feet, he stood before them, with eyes aflame and a passionate strength in
+his attitude which held them spellbound.
+
+"What can law, what can selfish greed, what can self-aggrandizement and
+the most pitiless ambition effect against men who own to such discipline
+as this? Nothing. The world will go on, you will try your little ways,
+your petty reforms, your slow-moving legislation and promise of justice
+to the weak, but the invincible is the ready; ready to act; ready to
+suffer, ready to die so that God is justified of his children and man
+lifted into brotherhood and equality. You cannot strive against the
+unseen and the fearless. The Cause will triumph though all else fails.
+Georgian, I am sorry--" He was tottering now, but he held them back
+with a stern gesture, "I don't think I ever knew just what love was.
+There is one way--only one--"
+
+But from those lips the explanation of this one way never came. As they
+saw the change in him and rushed to his support, his head fell forward on
+his breast and all was over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+NOT YET
+
+
+They had laid him on the bed and Mr. Harper, in his usual practical way,
+was hastening to rouse the house, when Georgian stepped before him and
+laid her hand upon the door.
+
+"Not yet," said she with authority. "He said there was a way--let us find
+it before we give up our secret and our possible safety. Mr. Harper, have
+you guessed that way?"
+
+"No, except the usual one of protection through the law which he scouts.
+I do not believe, Mrs. Ransom, in any other being necessary. Your
+brother's threats answered a very good purpose while he was alive, but
+now that he is dead they need not trouble you. I'm not even sure that I
+believe in the organization. It was mostly in your brother's brain, Mrs.
+Ransom; there's no such band, or if there is, its powers are not so
+unlimited as he would make you believe."
+
+She simply pointed to the motionless form and the distorted face which
+were slowly assuming an expression of great majesty.
+
+"There is my answer," said she. "Men of his strong attributes do not kill
+themselves from fancy. He knew what he did."
+
+"And you think--"
+
+"That I will not live a week if I pass that door under the name of
+Georgian Ransom. Mr. Harper, I am sure of it; Roger, I beg you to believe
+what I say. It may not come here--but it will come. The mark has been set
+against my name. Death only will obliterate this mark. But the name--that
+is already a dead one--shall it not stay so?--It is the one way--the way
+he meant."
+
+"Georgian!"
+
+It was a cry of infinite protest. Such a cry as one might expect from the
+long-suffering Ransom. It drew her from the door; it brought her to his
+side. As their eyes and hands met, Harper stepped back to the bedside,
+and remembering the sensitiveness of the man before him, softly covered
+his poor face. When he turned back, Mrs. Ransom was slowly shaking her
+head under her husband's prolonged look and saying softly:
+
+"No, not Georgian, Anitra. Henceforth Anitra, always Anitra. Can you
+endure the ordeal for the sake of the safety and peace of mind it will
+bring?"
+
+"I endure it! Can you? Remember the deafness that marks Anitra."
+
+"That can be cured." Her smile turned almost arch. "We will travel; there
+are great physicians abroad."
+
+"A sister--not a wife?"
+
+"Your wife in time--Ah, it will mean a new courtship and--Anitra is a
+different woman from Georgian--she has suffered--you will love her
+better."
+
+"O God! Harper, are we living, awake, sane? Help me at this crisis. I do
+not know where I am or what this is she really asks."
+
+"She asks the impossible. She asks what you can, perhaps, give, but not
+what I can. You forget that this deception calls for connivance on my
+part, and whatever you may think of me or my profession, deception is
+foreign to my nature and very repugnant to me."
+
+"And you refuse?"
+
+"Mrs. Ransom, I must."
+
+The hope which had held her up, the life which had returned to body and
+spirit since this prospect of a possible future had dawned upon her,
+faded from glance and smile.
+
+"Then good-by, Roger, we shall never have those happy days together of
+which we have often dreamt. I may stay with you a week, a month, a year,
+but the horror of a great fear will be over us, and never, never can we
+know joy."
+
+She threw herself into her husband's arms; she clung to him.
+
+"One moment," she cried, "one moment of perfect happiness before the
+shadow falls. Oh, how I must love you, Roger, to say such words, to think
+such thoughts, with the body of the brother I loved so deeply once, lying
+there dead before us, killed by his own hand."
+
+Ransom softly drew her aside where her eyes could not fall upon the bed.
+
+Harper stopped still where he was, the picture of gloom and uncertainty.
+
+"It must be settled now," said Ransom. "As we leave this room, our
+relations must remain."
+
+"I cannot but think your fears all folly," muttered Harper. "Yet the
+responsibility you force upon me is terrible. If it were not for that
+will! How can I present it to the Surrogate when I know the testator is
+still alive?"
+
+"You need not. I will do that," said Ransom.
+
+"And the property! Given to a man we none of us know. Property that is
+not legally his."
+
+"I will make it so," cried Georgian with a burst of new and
+uncontrollable hope as she saw, as she thought, this conscientious lawyer
+yielding. "There is paper here; draw up a deed of gift. I will sign it
+and you shall hold it so that whether I live or die, Auchincloss' title
+to his money shall be absolute. Thus much I wish to do, that Alfred's
+life should not have been sacrificed for nothing."
+
+"Let me think."
+
+Harper was wavering.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A half-hour later the door of Ransom's room was flung hurriedly open, and
+loud cries for Mrs. Deo and the office clerk rang through the house. And
+when they and others came running at the call, it was to find Mr. Ransom
+and the lawyer hanging over the recumbent figure of the dead Hazen, and
+the deaf girl Anitra pointing at the group, with wild and inarticulate
+cries.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+_Works by Anna Katharine Green_
+
+
+THE LEAVENWORTH CASE. A Lawyer's Story.
+
+"She has worked up a _cause celebre_ with a fertility of device and
+ingenuity of treatment hardly second to Wilkie Collins or Edgar
+Allan Poe."--_Christian Union_.
+
+
+A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE
+
+"A most ingenious and absorbingly interesting story. The
+readers are held spellbound until the last page."--_Cincinnati
+Commercial_.
+
+
+THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. A Story of New York Life.
+
+"'The Sword of Damocles' is a book of great power, which far
+surpasses either of its predecessors from her pen, and places her
+high among American writers. The plot is complicated and is
+managed adroitly.... In the delineation of characters she has
+shown both delicacy and vigor."--_Congregationalist_.
+
+
+BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
+
+" ... She has never succeeded better in baffling the reader."--_Boston
+Christian Register_.
+
+
+HARD AND RING
+
+"It is a tribute to the author's genius that she never tires and
+never loses her readers.... It moves on clean and healthy....
+It is worked out powerfully and skilfully."--_N. Y. Independent_.
+
+
+THE MILL MYSTERY
+
+
+X. Y. Z. and 7 TO 12: DETECTIVE STORIES
+
+"Well written and extremely exciting and captivating.... She
+is a perfect genius in the construction of a plot."--_N. Y. Commercial
+Advertiser_.
+
+
+THE OLD STONE HOUSE, AND OTHER STORIES
+
+"It is a bundle of quite cleverly constructed pieces of fiction, with
+which an idle hour may be pleasantly passed."--_N. Y. Independent_.
+
+
+CYNTHIA WAKEHAM'S MONEY
+
+"'Cynthia Wakeham's Money' is a story notable even among the
+many vigorous works of Anna Katharine Green."--_New York Sun_.
+
+
+MARKED "PERSONAL."
+
+"The ingenious plot is built up with all the skill of the writer of
+'The Leavenworth Case' to the very last chapter, which contains
+the surprising solutions of several mysteries."
+
+
+MISS HURD: AN ENIGMA
+
+"A strong and interesting novel in an entirely new field of romance."
+
+
+THE DOCTOR, HIS WIFE, AND THE CLOCK
+
+"The story is entertainingly told...."--_Cincinnati Tribune_.
+
+
+DR. IZARD
+
+"Those who have read her other books will not need to be urged
+to read this; they will be eager to do so, and we assure them a very
+interesting story."--_Boston Times_.
+
+
+THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR
+
+"Startling in its ingenuity and its wonderful plot."--_Buffalo
+Enquirer_.
+
+
+LOST MAN'S LANE
+
+
+AGATHA WEBB
+
+
+ONE OF MY SONS
+
+
+THE DEFENCE OF THE BRIDE, AND OTHER POEMS
+
+
+RISIFI'S DAUGHTER
+
+
+THE FILIGREE BALL
+
+
+THE MILLIONAIRE BABY
+
+
+THE AMETHYST BOX
+
+
+THE HOUSE IN THE MIST
+
+
+THE WOMAN IN THE ALCOVE
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHIEF LEGATEE***
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