"— that's why I say I hope to God it's true. My father is dead, and so is my brother, and that can't be helped now. But at least it was something clean; it was something you could understand, like an auto wreck. Do you see?"
"Yes. And we've got to find the secret of that cryptogram, if there is a secret. Will you let me have a copy?"
"Come back and copy it now, before the rest of them get away. I mustn't see you for a while…."
"But you can't — I mean, you've got to! We've got to see each other, if only for a few minutes-!"
She looked up slowly. "We can't. People would talk." Then, as he nodded blankly, she put out the palms of her hands as though she would put them against his breast, and went on in a strained voice: "Oh, do you think I don't want to as much as you? I do. More! But we can't. They'd talk. They'd say all sorts of horrible things, and that I was an unnatural sister, and maybe I am." She shivered.
"They always said I was a strange one, and I'm beginning to think it's true. I shouldn't be talking like this, with my 'brother just dead, but I'm human — I — Never mind! Please go and copy out that paper. I'll get it for you."
They said no more as they went down to the little office, where Rampole scribbled down the verses on the back of an envelope. When they returned to the hall everybody had disappeared except a shocked and open-eyed Budge, who passed them with an air of not having seen them at all.
"You see?" she enquired, lifting her eyebrows.
"I know. I'll go, and I won't try to see you until you give the word. But — do you mind if I show this thing to Dr. Fell? He'll keep it a secret. And you know from today how good he is at this sort of thing."
"Yes, show it to Dr. Fell. Do! I hadn't thought of that. But not to anybody else — please. And now you must hurry along… "