But she with infinite tact and a smile he could not but meet, answered softly: “I know that too; but I am better acquainted with you than she is, and I am confident that you have had some cause for keeping the truth from Polly, which will not apply to me. Is there not something connected with those old days—something, perhaps, known only to you, which would explain your horror of this man’s pretensions and help her possibly out of her dilemma? Are you afraid to confide it to me, when perhaps in doing so you would make two innocent ones happy?”
“I cannot talk about it,” he replied with almost fierce emphasis. “Ephraim Earle and I—” He started, caught her by the arm and turned his white face toward the door. “Hush!” he whispered, and stooped his ear to listen. She watched him with terror and amazement, but he soon settled back, and waving his hand remarked quietly:
“The boughs are losing their leaves and the vines sometimes tap against the windows like human fingers. You were saying——”
“You were saying that Ephraim Earle and you——”
But his blank looks showed that he had neither understood nor followed her. “Were you not good friends?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, oh, yes,” he answered hastily; “too good friends for me to be mistaken now.”
“Then it is from his looks alone that you conclude him to be an impostor?”
The doctor did not respond, and she, seeming quite helpless to move, sat for a minute silently contemplating his averted face.
“I know you did not talk with him long. Nor have I attempted to do so, yet in spite of everybody’s opinion but your own I have come to the same conclusion as yourself, that he is not Polly’s father.”
The doctor’s lips moved, but no words issued from them.