“You forget, sir, that I do not even know your name.”
“My name is probably forgotten on the island now. I stopped here between steamers during your American Civil War. A passing boat put in to leave a young girl who had cholera. I saw her hair floating out of the litter.”
“Oh!” I exclaimed; “that is an island story.” The blue man was actually presenting credentials when he spoke of the cholera story. “She was taken care of on the island until she recovered; and she was the beautiful daughter of a wealthy Southern family trying to get home from her convent in France, but unable to run the blockade. The nun who brought her died on shipboard before she landed at Montreal, and she hoped to get through the lines by venturing down the lakes. Yes, indeed! Madame Clementine has told me that story.”
He listened, turning his head attentively and keeping his eyes half closed, and again worked his lips.
“Yes, yes. You know where she was taken care of?”
“It was at Madame Clementine's.”
“I myself took her there.”
“And have you been there ever since?”
He passed over the trivial question, and when his voice arrived it gushed without a stammer.