"Dear father, yet another word! You will not find Kitty alone!"
"Who is with her, then?" asked O'Neil, astonished.
"An old man whom I found yesterday evening near this place, bleeding and wounded, who had probably lost his way upon the chase, and injured himself through some unlucky fall."
"Did you say he was an old man?"
"So he appears to be, for the thin hairs which scantily cover his head are white as snow; but whether they have whitened by the frost of years, or through the weight of cares and sorrows, I am not able to say."
"Have you no suspicion who the stranger may be?"
"Yes, father, I have more than a suspicion; I know it certainly. Like a flash of lightning, the recognition passed through my soul, when he, after a long fainting fit, opened his eyes and gazed upon me, although I have never seen him but once before, and that but for a flying moment, in the whole course of my life."
"And his name is—"
"I know it not."
"My child, you speak in riddles! You know the stranger; and yet you cannot tell me his name?"