Harper approached to his side, but he did not address him. Something
stirred in his own breast and kept him silent. But there was another
person near who was not so deterred. As Harper stood watching Ransom's
crouched, almost insensible figure, he perceived a slight dark form steal
from the shadows and lay a hand on the stooping man's shoulder, then as
he failed to move or give any token of feeling this touch, he heard
Anitra's voice say in accents almost musical:
"You will get ill here; you are not used to the cold and the night air.
Come back to the house; Georgian would wish it."
The name roused him and he looked up. Their eyes met and a strange
gleam--a shock, perhaps, of sympathetic feeling, flashed upon either
face. The lawyer saw and instinctively retreated from out the circle of
light cast by the lantern; but the men at the stream's edge heard
nothing. The flash of something white had caught their eyes and one man
was reaching for it.
"Georgian," came in astonished repetition from the bereaved man's lips.
"She would wish it," persisted the other with still deeper and more
urgent meaning.
[Illustration: A slight, dark form stole from the shadows and laid a
hand on the stooping man's shoulder.]
Then in a whisper so penetrating that even Mr. Harper caught its least
inflection through all the thunder of the waterfall, "She loved you.
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