"But who is this Mary, self-styled Lytton?"
"I know no more than the dead!"
"But are you sure you never had a slight flirtation with, or a platonic affinity for, a Mary or anybody else?"
"Never! Nor do I even know a single 'Mary' in this world, except—"
"Oh, yes!—except whom—except whom?"
"Mrs. Mary Grey," answered Alden, gravely, and with a certain new disturbance in his manner that had not been there before.
Mr. Lyle brought his hand down upon the table with an emphatic thump.
"That is the woman!" he said, with an air of entire conviction. "But surely you never fell under her baleful spell?"
"Ah, who that ever knew her has not fallen under that baleful spell? But for the last two years I have been entirely disillusioned," answered Alden.
"Come, gentlemen, I am sorry to hurry you; but really," said Sheriff Bowlen, taking out his watch, "it is now two o'clock, and we must get on to Wendover."