"She told me only what I told you that night, on my honour as a gentleman! Alice, what makes you say what you do?"
"Ah, Chris," his wife cried, almost frantically, "look at her! Look at her! Why, her voice is Annie's, the same identical voice—she looks like my father, like Theodore—she looks like us all! She and Leslie were so much alike, as they sat there, in spite of the colouring, that I almost screamed it at them! Surely—surely, you see it—everyone sees it!"
He stared at her, beginning to breathe a little quickly in his turn.
"By George!" she heard him whisper, as if to himself.
"Do you see it, Chris?" Alice whispered, almost fearfully.
"But—but——" He got up and walked restlessly to the window, and came back to sit down again. "But there's a cousinship somewhere," he said, sensibly. "There's no reason to suppose that the thing can't be explained. I do think you're taking this thing pretty hard, my dear. What can you possibly suppose? There might be a hundred girls——"
His voice fell. Alice was watching him expectantly.
"Mama felt it—saw it—as I do," she said. "You may be very sure that Mama wouldn't have almost lost her mind, as she did, unless something had given her cause!"
They looked at each other in silence, in the utter silence of the lovely, cool-toned room.
"Alice," Chris said in a puzzled voice after awhile, "you suspect me of keeping something from you. But on my honour you know all that your mother told me—all that I know!"