I thought he was preparing the way for a revelation about the foot-prints, but he said nothing more.
"Oh, that woman!" she exclaimed, as if to change the subject. "I do not know, I cannot say, why she affects me so. I saw a change in my father, when he knew her. I have told you how he was, how sometimes I thought he was mad. Did you notice a change in Mr. Whitney, or haven't you known him long enough? And lately I have fancied that I see the same sort of change beginning in Mr. Lockwood. At times they become so excited, their eyes seem staring, as if some fever were wasting them away. Father seemed to see strange visions, and hear voices, was worse when he was alone than when he was in a crowd. Oh, what is it? I could think of nothing else, not even what she was saying, all the time I was with her."
"Then you fear that in some way she may be connected with these strange changes?" asked Kennedy.
"I don't know," she temporized; but the tone of her answer was sufficient to convey the impression that in her heart she did suspect something, she knew not what.
"Oh, Professor Kennedy," she cried finally, "can't you see it? Sometimes—when she looks out of those eyes of hers—she almost makes people do as she pleases."
We had come to the taxicab stand before the hotel, and Kennedy had already beckoned to a cab to take her home.
As he handed her in she turned with a little shiver.
"Don't please, think me foolish," she added, with bated breath, "but often I fear that it is, as we call it, the mal de ojo—the evil eye!"