The young man turned suddenly and began to pace back and forth across the room. After a few minutes he paused before The Thinking Machine, who stood impatiently waiting for an answer.
"I'll tell you, yes," said Cabell, firmly. "Miss Austin is a middle-aged woman whom my sister befriended several times--was, in fact, my sister's governess when she was a child. Of late years she has not been wholly right mentally, and has suffered a great deal of privation. I had about concluded arrangements to put her in a private sanitarium. I permitted her to remain in these rooms in my absence, South. I did not take Jean--he lived in the quarters of the other employees of the place, and gave the apartment entirely to Miss Austin. It was simply an act of charity."
"What was the cause of your sudden determination to go South to-night?" asked the scientist.
"I won't answer that question," was the sullen reply.
There was a long, tense silence. Jean, the valet, came and went several times.
"How long has Miss Austin known Mr. Henley?"
"Presumably since she has been in these apartments," was the reply.
"Are you sure _you_ are not Miss Austin?" demanded the scientist.
The question was almost staggering, not only to Cabell, but to Hatch. Suddenly, with flaming face, the young Southerner leaped forward as if to strike down The Thinking Machine.
"That won't do any good," said the scientist, coldly. "Are you sure you are not Miss Austin?" he repeated.