"And that charm," Lance continued—"the one that you put on the belt—came from her, too? Did she teach it to her children?"
"Yes; that came from her, too," said Adela.
Lance turned toward Jessie in a bewildered way, gazing at her as if he expected her to say or do something which would dispel the phantasm that was growing so like a reality. But Jessie only reflected his amazement in the glance which she gave him in return.
"Isn't this very remarkable?" he said.
"Very," said Jessie. "It's a perfect puzzle. I don't see what to make of it. But, Adela," she went on, addressing the girl, "why have you never told me this before?"
Adela responded only with a reticent smile, and her luminous gray eyes roved from Jessie to Lance and back again without betraying what she thought.
"We don't tell it," muttered her father. "It was our story—only for us."
"But you have told it now," Jessie argued. "You've told Mr. Lance, and he is a stranger." Here Jessie blushed, and corrected herself: "Any way, he was a stranger to you."
The old man raised his hand to point at Lance; and—by an odd coincidence—his forefinger, separated from the others, was curved with a beckoning emphasis, as if he were himself the Old-man-without-a-name of the legend. "He is one of us," he declared.
"I'm not so sure of that!" Lance exclaimed, feeling that the mystery was going almost too far. "I don't see it at all."