I returned the look steadily, but bit my lip nearly through as I guessed well enough the discovery she had made. I answered lightly:—
"Excellently acted. But what is it all about?"
"Who are you? That tells me who you are not." She spoke in the same hard discordant whisper, and pointed to my arm again.
"Are you mad?" I cried sternly. "What do you mean by this pretence?"
Her only answer was to stare with the same stony intensity right into my eyes.
"Shall I send for my own sister to identify me?" I cried, with what I intended as sarcastic emphasis. But the effect of my question quite disconcerted me.
It broke her down and with a cry that was almost a scream, she threw herself into a chair and gave vent to emotions that were no longer controllable.
For an hour she was in this semi-hysterical condition; and I could guess the leading thought of her frenzy. If I was not the man she had believed, she would jump to the thought that Olga and I were lovers, and not brother and sister. Her jealousy made her a madwoman.
By the time she had recovered from her frenzy I had resolved on my course. The only thing possible was to hold strenuously to the old deception. What had shaken her belief in me, I could not, of course, even guess. If by any means she could make her words good, it was clear she carried my life in her hands. Strong as the story which she had concocted as to my supposed crime would have been against the real Alexis, it was a hundred times stronger as told against someone impersonating Alexis for what she would of course declare were Nihilist purposes. The mere fact of the impersonation would be accepted as proof of guilt in everything: while Olga's share in the conspiracy would render her liable to a punishment only less in extent than mine.
As I thought of all this, my rage against the woman passed almost beyond control; but I forced it back and listened when she spoke—telling me of all the things which had made me seem so different. My conduct to her; my manner; my lack of love; the difference in looks, in gestures, and in what I said and the way I said it; the thousand things that had set her wondering at the change in me.