t-heads on him, that look like fat
skeleton faces. But it wasn't. It was--

Guess, Mag.

Moriway.

Both of us thought the same thing of each other for the first second
that our eyes met. I could see that. He thought I was caught at last.
And I thought he'd been sharp once too often.

And, Mag, it would be hard to say which of us would have been happier
if it had been the truth. Oh, to meet Moriway, bound sure enough for
Sing Sing!

He got up and came over to me, smiling wickedly. He took the seat
behind me, and leaning forward, said softly:

"Is Miss Omar engaged to read to some invalid up at Sing Sing? And for
how long a term--I should say, engagement?"

I'd got through shivering by then. I was ready for him. I turned and
looked at him in that very polite, distant sort o' way Gray uses in her
act when the Charity superintendent speaks to her. It's the only decent
thing she does; chances are that that's how Lord Gray's mother looks at
her.

"You know my sister, Mr.--Mr.--" I asked humbly.

He looked at me, perplexed for just a second.

"Sister be hanged!" he said at last. "I know you, Nat, and I'm glad to
my finger-tips that you've got it in the neck, in spite of all your
smartness."

"You're altogether wrong, sir," I said very stately, but hurt a bit,
you know. "I've often been taken for my sister, but gentlemen usually
apologize when I explain to them. It's hard enough to have a sister
who--" I looked up at him tearfully, with my chin a-wabble with sorrow.

He grinned.

"Liars should have good memories," he sneered. "Miss Omar said she was
an orphan, you remember, and had not a relative in the world."

"Did she say that? Did Nora say that?" I exclaimed piteously. "Oh,
what a little liar she is! I suppose she thought it made her more
interesting to be so alone, more appealing to kind-hearted gentlemen
like yourself. I hope she wasn't ungrateful to you, too, as she was to
that kind Mr. Latimer, before he found her out. And she had such a
good position there, too!"

I wanted to look at him, oh, I wanted to! But it was my role to sit
there with downcast eyes, just--the picture of holy grief. I was the
good one--the good, shocked sister, and though I wasn't a bit afraid of
anything he could do to me, or any game he could put up, I yearned to
make him believe me--just because he was so suspicious, so wickedly
smart, so sure he was on.

But his very silence sort of told me he almost bel