"Won't know you in that beard. I have told him that you are a murderer whom I have saved from the chair. That in gratitude for this and for the further services of smuggling you out of the country and giving you a large sum of money--not forgetting the crying interests of science--you have consented to give me your legs. He will ask you if you consent to have your legs cut off, and you will nod your head without speaking--then when my old stumps have been prepared--you will be put under an anaesthetic--"
"First I must know that Miss Ferris is safe."
"Give me your word of honor that when you know that she is--you will consent."
"I don't know what you have to do with honor," said Wilmot, "but I give my word."
"Then," said Blizzard, sliding to the floor, "I go to set Miss Ferris free."
XLIV
At first Barbara could not bear to tell her father, but at last her excitement and distress became so great that she had to tell him. In a few hours she had changed from a radiant person to one white, sick, and shadowed.
"I've seen that man," she said. "I was writing notes in the summer-house. He--"
"What man--Blizzard? Well?"