Barbara sat ruminating. It seemed that she would say something to Mr. Carlyle, but a feeling caused her to hesitate. When she did at length speak, it was in a low, timid voice.
“You remember the description Richard gave, that last night, of the person he had met—the true Thorn?”
“Yes.”
“Did it strike you then—has it ever occurred to you to think—that it accorded with some one?”
“In what way, Barbara?” he asked, after a pause. “It accorded with the description Richard always gave of the man Thorn.”
“Richard spoke of the peculiar movement of throwing off the hair from the forehead—in this way. Did that strike you as being familiar, in connection with the white hand and the diamond ring?”
“Many have a habit of pushing off their hair—I think I do it myself sometimes. Barbara, what do you mean? Have you a suspicion of any one?”
“Have you?” she returned, answering the question by asking another.
“I have not. Since Captain Thorn was disposed of, my suspicions have not pointed anywhere.”
This sealed Barbara’s lips. She had hers, vague doubts, bringing wonder more than anything else. At times she had thought the same doubts might have occurred to Mr. Carlyle; she now found that they had not. The terrible domestic calamity which had happened to Mr. Carlyle the same night that Richard protested he had seen Thorn, had prevented Barbara’s discussing the matter with him then, and she had never done so since. Richard had never been further heard of, and the affair had remained in abeyance.