"It's humbug," said the bass voice of Doctor Brown, "and until you show me the source of this 'occult' energy, I shall so contend. Animal magnetism and sleight-of-hand! What do you think, Mrs. Hunter?"
Amidon looked across and saw—Mrs. Hunter, of Hazelhurst! It was she and her daughter from whom he had bashfully flown to the buffet, just before he alighted from the train at Elm Springs Junction. As he looked at her all the old life returned to him! He saw himself sitting with her and Minnie in the car, as she talked fashions to him and chattered her anticipations of the lovely time Minnie was to have with the family of Senator Fowler on the Maine coast. He saw Blodgett come in, and himself seize the opportunity to escape with his lawyer to the buffet. Then he saw the rural railway platform, the fading glory of the west—and then the waking in the sleeping-car! Could it all be possible?
"Do you know the lady talking with Doctor Brown?" he asked of Miss Waldron.
"Mrs. Hunter?" said Elizabeth questioningly. "Why, didn't you meet her when you came in? She is Mrs. Pumphrey's sister, of Hazelhurst, Wisconsin. She receives with Mrs. Pumphrey to-night."
"I thought it was Mrs. Hunter, as soon as I saw her," answered Amidon; "she is an old acquaintance of mine."
And it was some little time, so far had he forgotten his peculiar position, before the baleful possibilities of this innocent and truthful remark occurred to him. When he thought of it, any observing friend might well have inquired after his health, so gray with pallor and moist with sweat had his face become. Not that he felt hanging over him any such danger as he had feared when he found himself in the shoes of another man, with that other man unaccounted for. He really cared very little about that, now. The people of Bellevale, and Hazelhurst, too, might think what they pleased about this mystery of disappearance and reappearance: he was independent of them all, and those he really cared about would understand.
But Elizabeth! Everything now revolved about her. Now that she had grown so dear—that she had come to smile on him in his new character—how could he let her know that this Eugene Brassfield whom she so admired and loved, was no more for ever; and that Florian Amidon had never seen her, never loved her, never wooed her until these past few days! Would she ever see him again? Could she regard him as anything else than an interloper and an impostor? His right to Brassfield's clothes and Brassfield's fortune might be as clear as Judge Blodgett said; but would not Elizabeth feel that as to her he had attempted the very deed of which he had first suspected himself—fraud and robbery? And her "perfect lover," whom Amidon habitually thought of as "that fellow Brassfield"—all the perfections which Elizabeth had learned to attribute to him, would no longer be credited to Amidon. It was tragic!
As a matter of fact, beloved, any man would have been a perfect lover, or none at all, to Elizabeth. A perfect lover is the noblest work of woman.
"Te autience," went on the professor, "vill haf te eggstreme gourtesy to assist in a temonstration of Madame le Claire's power as a hypnotist. Not effery vun gan pe hypnoticed te fairst dime; bud ve vill try. Vill te autience bleace suchest te name of a laty or shentleman as a supchect?"
"Doctor Brown!" said many voices. "Alvord!" said others, but most of the votes appeared to be for Brassfield—a name which the professor hailed joyfully as insuring against failure. It is not often that the audience will hit on the only practised sensitive in the room.