“Very well, then,” returned the other. “Come at ten and I will gather the tangled threads together.”
During the balance of that day Raikes devoted his powers of concentration to the consummation of the treatment to which he had subjected himself, and this, together with the prospect of the recovery of his property, resulted in a condition which made the visits of the astonished physician no longer necessary.
With an eagerness intensified to a childish impatience, almost, by the vague suggestions of Gratz that the story would be personally interesting, and exhausting his mind with futile speculations as to the manner of its application to the unnatural conditions which distressed him so, Raikes at last concluded his contemplation of the clock, and promptly upon the stroke of ten, hastened from his room and hurried to the apartment occupied by the Sepoy.
Seating himself in the chair indicated by his host, he shortly found that he was unable to avoid recalling his recent guilty appropriation of the diamond, and a degree of confusion, which he could not entirely disguise, manifested itself in his difficulty of adjusting his eyes to the inscrutable gaze of the Sepoy.
On this occasion the narrator, as hitherto, did not provide his auditor with a brilliant to look upon during the progress of the story—an omission that was radiantly repaired by the two lambent gems in the eyes of the former.
Upon these the shifting gaze of the restless listener finally fastened itself with a fascination which he found it impossible to resist, and the Sepoy, with all the modulated lights and shadows of ardor, animation, lethargy, somnolence, peace, with which he complemented his sedative phrases, began:
(The conclusion of this interesting tale will be found on Bosom No. 1, Dickey Series C.)
As Dennis looked up from his reading, a pair of eyes of unclouded blue, vivid with interest and altogether friendly, met his animated glance.
With alert intuition his sweet-faced auditor believed that she discovered a shadow of vexation in the ingenuous countenance of the reader.
“What is it?” she asked.