“That is an assertion too absurd to be heeded,” she said, and turning again, as if to leave the room.
The man placed himself in her path, thus intercepting her.
“I have told you only the truth,” he said, with cold deliberateness. “There is not one drop of Adam Brewster’s blood in your veins; you are of no kin to either him or the late Mrs. Brewster—so called.”
“Who—am—I—then?” came slowly from Allison’s white lips, for at last the arrow had struck home, although she did not appear to have heeded the last two ambiguous words which the man had uttered.
“I do not know; no one knows,” he answered, with cruel indifference.
“I do not believe it—I will not believe it! You will have to prove it!” the girl cried, tremulously.
“I can prove it.”
“Then I demand proof, here and now—this instant!” with an imperative stamp of her foot.
John Hubbard left the room without a word. In less than three minutes he returned, carrying in his hands one of the boxes which had been found in Gerald’s possession on that fatal Sunday morning of the previous winter.