“Oh!” said Ruth. She staggered a little and the candle shook in her hand. “I thought I knew those eyes, but I don’t. I must be mistaken. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Cartwright,” said Ruth, “but I am tired. I don’t think I can go on. Will some one take my place?”
Ruth’s expression was so peculiar that Mrs. Cartwright came up to her. “You foolish child!” she said, putting her hand on Ruth’s shoulder, “I believe this game is making you nervous. Who is it sitting there with the eyes that Ruth remembers, yet will not reveal to us?” she called.
“Harry Townsend, Harry Townsend!” the people sitting closest to him answered.
“Harry,” said Mrs. Cartwright, “you come and take Ruth’s place. Let’s see if you are a better ‘eyeologist’ than she is.”
Before Harry Townsend had slipped out from under his strange covering, Ruth turned to Mrs. Cartwright. “Excuse me for a minute,” she begged. “My labors as an optician have used me up. I will be back in a little while.”
Barbara crept from under the sheet, and, without speaking to anyone, ran after Ruth, who was on her way upstairs to Mrs. Cartwright’s boudoir.
“Ruth, dear, what on earth has happened to you? Are you sick?” asked Barbara.
“Oh, I am worse than sick, Bab!” muttered Ruth, with a shudder. “Don’t ask me to talk until we get upstairs.”
The girls closed the dressing-room door.
“I must be wrong, Bab, yet I don’t believe I am. I saw to-night the same eyes that glared at us from behind a black mask the time of that horrible burglary at New Haven, when, for a little while, I thought you were killed. I have never said much about it. I wanted to forget and I wanted everyone else to forget it, but those eyes have followed me everywhere since. To-night——”