"The meaning of what?"
When I showed him what he had been writing on the piece of paper he seemed to be as much taken aback as I was. At first he wanted me to believe that he had been writing a name over and over again without having an idea of what it was that he was doing. I could not make him out at all. He made me feel uneasy.
So far as I was aware, I was the only person in England who had been acquainted with the girl's real name. She had always assured me that such was the case, and I had believed her. Everybody, except myself, knew her by her stage name--Milly Carroll. Her father was the only relative she had in the world, and he was in Colorado. Father and daughter had fallen out. Coming to England with a burlesque company from New York, she had left him on the other side of the world. If this story of hers was true--and I did not, and do not, believe she lied--she was not that sort of girl--how did Mr. Thomas Tennant come to be in possession of her name?
I put the question to him point blank.
"What do you know about Louise O'Donnel?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing? Tennant, I say!"
"I heard it mentioned for the first time in my life last night."
"Last night?" The coincidence made me shiver again.
"As I was coming up from Brighton."