“It is notorious, Miss Carrington,” said the old man, nodding. “There can be no mistake. Belas Salgo was a strange man. All geniuses, perhaps, are strange——”
“He was a wicked foreigner!” declared Miss Carrington, sharply.
“Wicked in your eyes, perhaps. He married and carried away with him your dearest friend.”
“My cousin Anne—yes,” said she, slowly. “She had been in my care. She was musical. She went mad over the man—and he no better than a Gypsy.”
“Gypsy blood he confessed to—yes,” said the lawyer, shaking his head. “But he could make wonderful music. I remember hearing him once in this very town.”
“Oh, he charmed everybody—but me,” said Miss Carrington, vigorously. “And he would have charmed me, perhaps, with his fiddle if Anne had not gone mad over him. I knew how it would be for her—misery and trouble!”
“We do not know that,” said the old gentleman, shaking his head. “Her few years with Belas Salgo were happy enough, by all account.”
“But she never wrote to me!” cried the Central High teacher.
“Nor she never wrote to her father’s partner, Mr. Chumley. Eben Chumley, by the way, is for denying the identity of this girl, Margit?”
“Well! so was I,” admitted Miss Carrington. “Though heaven knows it was for another reason! I did not think poor Anne would have had a daughter and never written me a word about it.”