"How do you know that 'the other one' was here for two days?"
"Only because Sunday is the last thing I remember before yesterday morning. The doctor was down then. You know that there's a hiatus when she's here—a perfect blank in my memory. I lose time, as she does, when I'm here."
Her mention of the doctor started a new train of thought, but I put that by for the present, to tell her of the letter I had received from Leah, which made it probable that she had left on Tuesday, the second day of "the other one." The situation was serious enough, I was sure, for me to disobey Leah's injunction to secrecy.
"Oh," said Joy, "that relieves my mind a little. It shows that Leah had a plan, and she must have stayed somewhere near here, expecting you, though how she happened to miss you, I don't see. It's quite right for you to have told me, for I had already telephoned to you—to-day, after you started. I was surprised to see you appear so soon, for that reason. I was at my wits' end yesterday, but I hated to drag you into this. But what could I do? Doctor Copin has gone out of town for a few days."
"I'm glad you sent for me," I said. "I shan't have to feel that I'm intruding. But now the question is, why doesn't Leah come back? Why didn't she wait for me at the station?"
"She must have been awfully frightened, to have gone away like this," Joy said.
"Perhaps she discharged her—I know she complained of Leah a good deal."
"Yes, I've thought of that. But I fear it's even worse."
"In any case, there's no reason why she shouldn't come back, now that 'the other one' has disappeared," I said.
"How can Leah tell?" Joy exclaimed. "How will she know whether it is I or 'the other one'? We're really the same person, outwardly. There's no difference that she could recognize unless she talked to me. That's what has terrified me."