“It’s all assumed,” he told himself. “The rôle of the haughty, suspicious woman is but a rôle. Beneath it is a nature as sweet as one could desire; I had a glimpse of it as she came in; it was only a glimpse but it was enough.”

But why she wore this mask, and apparently for his special benefit, he could not understand. It was this that caused the resentment.

“I haven’t done anything to merit it,” muttered he. “It’s the first time she ever saw me, and it’s not quite the right sort of thing to take snap judgments that way.”

Hong Yo was left in the room below, still seated in the chair by the wall and still deep in thought. Indeed, he had scarcely raised his head upon the girl’s entrance; however, as[42] Kenyon was closing the door behind him, he fancied that he caught a glimpse of the sunken, slanting eyes.

[42]

“Pah!” muttered the young adventurer, shudderingly. “He’s more like a death’s-head than ever! I don’t want to do anyone an injustice, for I really do dislike snap judgments, but if there is anything wrong here, which there decidedly seems to be, why, our friend Hong Yo is most intimately concerned in it.”

Both young men followed the girl up the staircase and into a dimly lighted room upon the second floor. An aged, white-bearded man lay upon a bed; in a chair beside him sat a tall girl with a great crown of golden hair; she was pale-faced and anxious; her attitude was watchful.

As they entered, the sick man struggled up; the girl bent and whispered something to him, and a look of joy came into his face.

“You are welcome, my friends,” he said, weakly. “And I thank you.”

Both men bowed gravely, and then the old man turned peeringly to Kenyon.

“And so, you have come at last! Welcome. But pardon; I cannot see you very well. My eyes are growing dim.”

He held out a shaking hand, and Kenyon took it in his strong clasp.

[43]“It’s a sort of obsession,” Kenyon told himself, as he alternately looked at the sick man and those at his bedside. “I don’t know these people. I’ve never seen any of them before to-night, and they can’t possibly know me.”

[43]

And yet the supreme confidence of them all seemed to assure him that he was wrong. It was as though, 

 Prev. P 20/161 next