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"The most unmanly aspect, according to my feelings," went on the American
doctor, "is this perpetual deception of innocent women by a wild simulation
of innocence. From almost every house where this great imaginative devil
has been, he has taken some poor girl away with him; some say he's got
a hypnotic eye with his other queer features, and that they go like automata.
What's become of all those poor girls nobody knows. Murdered, I dare say;
for we've lots of instances, besides this one, of his turning his hand
to murder, though none ever brought him under the law. Anyhow, our most
modern methods of research can't find any trace of the wretched women.
It's when I think of them that I am really moved, Miss Hunt. And I've
really nothing else to say just now except what Dr. Warner has said."
"Quite so," said Warner, with a smile that seemed moulded in marble--"that
we all have to thank you very much for that telegram."
The little Yankee scientist had been speaking with such evident
sincerity that one forgot the tricks of his voice and manner--
the falling eyelids, the rising intonation, and the poised
finger and thumb--which were at other times a little comic.
It was not so much that he was cleverer than Warner;
perhaps he was not so clever, though he was more celebrated.
But he had what Warner never had, a fresh and unaffected seriousness--
the great American virtue of simplicity. Rosamund knitted
her brows and looked gloomily toward the darkening house
that contained the dark prodigy.
Broad daylight still endured; but it had already changed from gold to silver,
and was changing from silver to gray. The long plumy shadows of the one or
two trees in the garden faded more and more upon a dead background of dusk.
In the sharpest and deepest shadow, which was the entrance to the house
by the big French windows, Rosamund could watch a hurried consultation
between Inglewood (who was still left in charge of the mysterious captive)
and Diana, who had moved to his assistance from without. After a few minutes
and gestures they went inside, shutting the glass doors upon the garden;
and the garden seemed to grow grayer still.
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