He shrugged his shoulders.
"We are in your hands—literally," he said, and made an amiable gesture of assent.
CHAPTER XX
AYLMER CLIMBS—AND FALLS
The door of the lazaret was pulled quietly back. The opening showed Miller, silhouetted as in a frame, a splash of sunshine which flowed down into the outer cabin hanging in a golden halo, as it were, behind his remarkably solid looking head. Coming from the full light into the darkness—for the lamp was already flickering to final extinction—he blinked. And there was something unhuman in his aspect as he stood there, searching the gloom with his impassive eyes, something not altogether stealthy, but yet something with a tinge of menace in it. So, no doubt, the hovering night-bird comes to a pause above its victim.
His glance first recognized Miss Van Arlen. He demonstrated the fact by a little deferential movement—a bow which seemed to deprecate, or even criticize, the circumstance of her surroundings. He smiled, but with slightly raised eyebrows, and as his glance travelled on to meet Aylmer's there was a hint of suggestion in it. It was a glance, at any rate, which was responsible for the faint flush which rose to the girl's cheek and for the hardening of Aylmer's lips. For some reason unknown even to himself, the latter's bound arms instinctively moved towards the child, who had nestled against his shoulder and had there fallen asleep.
"A scene which would catch a painter's—or a poet's eye—" said the gray man, meditatively. "We could call it Innocence, could we not?"
Again he looked from one to the other with that questioning, suggestive glance which somehow seemed to deprecate, and yet, at the same time, imply equivocation. Neither answered him, and he made an energetic gesture—one which relegated trivialities to forgetfulness.
"I must be a source of wonder to you; I am to myself!" he cried. "To allow myself to be trapped into such trifling at such a moment! It is the artistic temperament; you must address your amazement to it and your forgiveness to me. I bring good news, relatively."