king 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 deep