He looked at her with the keen, incisive eye of his profession, and pressed his ear once more to her heart, listening to the irregular and rapid pulsations.
"Miss Earl, are you an orphan?"
"Yes, sir."
"Have you any living relatives?"
"None that I ever heard of."
"Did any of your family die suddenly?"
"Yes, I have been told that my mother died while apparently as well as usual, and engaged in spinning; and my grandfather I found dead, sitting in his rocking-chair, smoking his pipe."
Dr. Howell cleared his throat, sighed and was silent.
He saw a strange, startled expression leap into the large shadowy eyes, and the mouth quivered, the wan face grew whiter, and the thin fingers grasped each other; but she said nothing, and they sat looking at one another.
The physician had come like Daniel to the banquet of life, and solved for the Belshazzar of youth the hideous riddle scrawled on the walls.