This reflection of his own tenuous dream fell upon him so unexpectedly, struck him so gruesomely, that, for the moment, he could make no reply. And before he did find his tongue her thought was diverted into a new channel. She suddenly remembered something that she had heard at the door.
“Oh, Robert, what woman’s eyes were they that Mr. Westgate wanted unsealed? Were they mine?”
“No, dear, they were not yours.”
“Whose then?”
“Ruth Tracy’s.”
She backed away a little and looked at him inquiringly.
“Ruth—Tracy’s? I don’t understand. What did he mean?”
“Why, he appears to think that I have cast some sort of a hypnotic spell over Miss Tracy to induce her to go along with me in my fight.”
“That’s just what Jane Chichester says that so many people are saying. She told me so yesterday. They say that Miss Tracy must be hypnotized, the way she’s sacrificing herself in your interest.”
He became a little impatient at that.