He looked as crestfallen as a boy whose long-planned trick deceives no one.
“You know who I am then? You only pretended you didn’t?”
“I didn’t know, at first. I thought you were just the—the tramp—the vagabond you said you were, till that awful man in the garden came and told me your real name.”
“An awful man in the garden told you my real name?” he asked, puzzled. He, too, forgot caution and the whisper. He rose and crossed the room to her, unaware that his moving shadow had flickered upon the screen of Constable Marks’s dream.
“Yes; a foreign, guttural, blackish man. He speaks all sorts of languages. He says his name is Lass—Lass—ass—an—a—wiz.”
“Lassanavatiewicz?” he exclaimed, in great astonishment.
“Yes. He has come for you.”
“Oh! but that’s ridiculous!” he asserted, indignantly. “I’ve committed no crime. He has no right to follow me here. Of all...!”
She interrupted him, thinking altogether of the gravity of his situation and the need of haste.
“You must get away secretly, if you can, before the light comes—without his seeing you. I can give some explanation—temporarily. And when the truth comes out, you will be safely out of that man’s reach, and everything will be all right for me. Then they will all look foolish, and it will serve them right.”