For an instant she looked at him, and then a light leaped into her eyes.
"Why, Harold Excell!—" she stopped abruptly as he caught her outstretched hands, and she remembered the sinister association of the name. "Why, why, I didn't know you. Where do you come from?" Her face was flushed, her eyes eager, searching, restless. "Come in here," she said abruptly, and before he had time to reply, she led him to a little anteroom with a cushioned wall seat, and they took seats side by side.
"It is impossible!" she said, still staring at him, her bosom pulsating with her quickened breath. "It is not you—it can't be you," she whispered, "Black Mose sitting here—with me—in Chicago. You're in danger."
"I don't feel that way."
He smiled for the first time, and his fine teeth shining from his handsome mouth led her to say:
"Your big mustaches are gone—that's the reason I didn't know you at once—I don't believe I like you so well——"
"They'll grow again," he said; "I'm in disguise." He smiled again as if in a joke.
Again the thought of who he really was flamed through her mind. "What a life you lead! How do you happen to be here? I never expected to see you in a city—you don't fit into a city."
"I'm here because you are," he replied, and the simplicity of his reply moved her deeply. "I came as soon as I got your letter," he went on.
"My letter! I've written only one letter, that was soon after your visit to Marmion."