"Then why—then why—" She could get no further. She stopped, gasping. His face swam blurred before her quivering vision,—Guy's face, yet with an inexplicable something in it that was not Guy.
"Sit down!" he said again, and put her with quiet insistence into the chair. "Wait till you have had something to eat! Then we'll have a talk and decide what had better be done."
She was shivering from head to foot, but she faced him still. "I can't eat," she said through white lips. "I can't do anything till—till I know—all there is to know."
He stood looking down at her. The fingers of his right hand were working a little, but his face was perfectly calm, even grim.
As he did not speak immediately, she went on with piteous effort. "You must forgive me for making that stupid mistake. I see now—you are not Guy, though there is a strong likeness. You see, I have not seen Guy for five years, and I—I was allowing for certain changes."
"He is changed," said Burke Ranger.
That nameless terror crept closer about her heart. Her eyes met his imploringly.
"Really I am quite strong," she said. "Won't you tell me what is wrong? He—cabled to me to come to him. It was in answer to my cable."
"Yes, I know," said Ranger.
He turned from her abruptly and walked to the window. The darkness had drawn close. It hung like a black curtain beyond the pane. The only light in the room was a lamp that burned on a side table. It illumined him but dimly, and again it seemed to the girl who watched him that this could be no other than the Guy of her dreams—the Guy she had loved so faithfully, for whose sake she had waited so patiently for so many weary years. Surely it was he who had made the mistake! Surely even yet he would turn and gather her to his heart, and laugh at her folly for being so easily deluded!