It was my
only safeguard. Alas! had I only gone one step further and made myself
really deaf!"
The cry was bitterness itself, but it passed unheeded. Mr. Ransom could
not speak and Hazen had other cares in mind.
"Where is this woman Bela now?" he asked.
Georgian was too absorbed or too unwilling, to answer.
He repeated the question, this time with an authority she could not
resist. Rising slowly, she faced him for one impressive moment.
"My God!" came from her lips in startled surprise. "How pale you are! Sit
down or you will fall."
He shook his head impatiently.
"It's nothing. Answer my question. Where is this Bela now?"
"I don't know. She is beyond my reach--and _yours_. I told her to lose
herself. I think she is clever enough to do so. The money I paid her was
worth a few years spent in obscurity."
The spark lighting his eye brightened into baleful flame, but she met
it calmly. An indomitable spirit confronted one equally indomitable, and
his was the first to succumb. Turning from her, Hazen took out pencil
and paper from his pocket, and, crossing to the window with that same
peculiar and oscillating motion of which he seemed unconscious, or which
he found it impossible to subdue, he wrote a line, folded it, and before
even Harper was aware of his purpose threw up the sash and flung it out,
uttering a quick, sharp whistle as he did so.
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