The girl turned to Ashton-Kirk.
"Never," she said, "has any one been better or kinder than Dr. Morse has been to me. Everything that I have I owe to him. And so can you wonder that I have been quick to see?"
"Quick to see—what?"
"The fear," she answered, "the fear which has gradually taken possession of him. You have seen some of it," to Warwick, "but not all. It is terror of the unseen, of the unknown. It is fear of a danger which he does not understand."
"You think, then, that Dr. Morse does not know the meaning of these grotesque messages which he has been receiving?"
"I know that he does not. I have always known it; but just how, I cannot say. This evening, upon opening the letter, he rushed out of the library. I happened to be passing the hall, and heard him cry out: 'Be plain! Who are you? What do you want?'"
"Is that all you heard?"
"Yes; for with the last word he threw open the front door and was gone."
Ashton-Kirk glanced at the two-colored cross.
"Perhaps," said he, "if we could find the envelope which this came in, it would tell us something."