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."