mazing 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 under