Their mutual surprise was something paralyzing. They drew apart and looked at one another as they might have done at ghosts.
"What do you want here?" he asked hoarsely.
Was it his fancy, he wondered, or did her lips curl for a moment in something like mockery?
"I came to repay a debt," she whispered. "I came to find the paper which you are afraid may fall into someone else's hands. I came to search for it, but it is not here."
"And I," Deane answered.
"You have found it, perhaps?" she exclaimed.
He shook his head. "It has gone!"
"Perhaps he never had it," she whispered.
Deane shook his head. He was being led away by the excitement, the tenseness of the moment,—the unexpectedness of the whole situation. "He showed it to me," he answered, "only just before that night."
"Ah!"