“I tell you the message is there,” Helen said imperiously.
“It’s impossible,” Pryde began with a shrug.
“Then prove it to me,” the girl said hotly; “prove it to me—that’s the only way you can convince me.”
“She’s right,” Hugh exclaimed; “of course, that’s the only way to help her.”
There was a brief, tense pause, and then Latham, assuming the judiciary and the dictatorship to which his being the one disinterested person there entitled him, said—
“Yes. Well. If there was a message, it would be in the words you just spoke—and their context.”
Helen nodded.
“I could find the place blindfold,” Latham continued. He sat down, the book still in his hand. He opened it, turned but a page or two, and said, “Yes, here it is.” The three listened with breathless eagerness, as he read, “‘There was a beggar in the street when I went down, and as I turned my head towards the window, thinking of her calm, seraphic eyes, he made me start by muttering, as if he were an echo of the morning, “Blind—Blind—Blind.”’” He closed the book and turned to Helen.
“You see,” Stephen remarked quietly, “there’s nothing in it.”
“No,” Latham concurred reluctantly, disappointed, in spite of himself, scientist as he was, skeptic as he once had thought himself; “no, your suddenly remembering those words—it could have been no more than a coincidence.”