<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></SPAN>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
<h3>"I DON'T HEAR"</h3>
<p>The afternoon passed without further developments. Mr. Harper, who had
his own imperative engagements, left on the evening train for New York,
promising to return the next day in case his presence seemed
indispensable to his client.</p>
<p>That client's final word to him had been an injunction to keep an eye on
Georgian's so-called brother and to report how he had been affected by
the news from Sitford; and when, in the lull following the lawyer's
departure, Mr. Ransom sat down in his room to look his own position
resolutely in the face, this brother and his possible connection with the
confusing and unhappy incidents of this last fatal week regained that
prominent place in his thoughts which the doubts engendered by the
unusual character of these incidents had for a while dispelled.</p>
<p>What had been the hold of this strange and uncongenial man on Georgian?
And was his reappearance at the same time with that of a supposedly long
deceased sister simply a coincidence so startling as to appear unreal?</p>
<p>He had not seen Anitra again and did not propose to, unless the meeting
came about in a natural way and without any show of desire on his part.
If any suspicion had been awakened in the house by his peculiar conduct
in the morning, he meant it to be speedily dissipated by the careful way
in which he now held to his rôle of despairing husband whose only
interest in the girl left on his hands was the dutiful one of a reluctant
brother-in-law, who doubts the kindly feelings of his strange and
unwelcome charge.</p>
<p>The landlady, with a delicacy he highly appreciated, cared for the young
girl without making her conspicuous by any undue attention. No tidings
had come in of any discovery in the mill-stream or in the river into
which it ran, and there being nothing with which to feed gossip, the
townsfolk who had gathered about the hotel porches gradually began to
disperse, till only a few of the most persistent remained to keep up
conversation till midnight.</p>
<p>Finally these too left and the house sank into quiet, a quiet which
remained unbroken all night; for everybody, even poor Mr. Ransom, slept.</p>
<p>He was up, however, with the first beam entering his room. How could he
tell but that news of a definite and encouraging nature awaited him? Some
one might have come in early from town or river. All search had not been
abandoned. There were certain persistent ones who had gone as far as
Beardsley's. Some of these might have returned. He would hasten down and
see. But it was only to find the office empty, and though the household
presently awoke and the great front door was thrown open to all comers,
no eager straggler came rushing in with the tidings he equally longed and
dreaded to receive.</p>
<p>At half-past ten the representative of the county police called on Mr.
Ransom, but with small result. Shortly after his departure, the mail
came in and with it the New York papers. These he read with avidity. But
they added nothing to his knowledge. Georgian's death was accepted as
a fact, and the peculiarities of their history since their unfortunate
wedding-day were laid bare with but little consideration for his feelings
or the good name of his bride. With a sorer heart than ever, he flung the
papers from him and went out to gather strength in the open air.</p>
<p>There was a corner of the veranda into which he had never ventured. It
was likely to be a solitary one at this hour, and thither he now went.
But a shock awaited him there. A lady was pacing its still damp boards.
A lady who did not turn her head at his step, but whom he instantly
recognized from her dress, and wilful but not ungraceful bearing, as her
whom he was determined to call, nay recognize, as Anitra Hazen.</p>
<p>His judgment counseled retreat, but the fascination of her presence held
him, and in that moment of hesitation she turned towards him and flight
became impossible.</p>
<p>It was the first opportunity he had had of observing her features in
broad daylight. The effect was a confused one. She was Georgian and she
was not Georgian. Her skin was decidedly darker, her eyes more lustrous,
her bearing less polished and at the same time more impassioned. She was
not so tall or quite so elegantly proportioned;—or was it her rude
method of dressing her hair and the awkward cut of her clothes which made
the difference. He could not be sure. Resolved as he was to consider her
Anitra, and excellent as his reasons were for doing so, the swelling of
his heart as he met her eye roused again the old doubt and gave an
unnatural tone to his voice as he advanced towards her with an impetuous
utterance of her name:</p>
<p>"Anitra!"</p>
<p>She shrunk, not at the word but at his movement, which undoubtedly was
abrupt; but immediately recovered herself and, meeting him half-way,
cried out in the unnaturally loud tones of the very deaf:</p>
<p>"They don't bring my sister back. She is drowned, drowned. But you still
have Anitra," she exclaimed in child-like triumph. "Anitra will be good
to you. Don't forsake the poor girl. She will go where you go and be very
obedient and not get angry ever again."</p>
<p>He felt his hair rise. Something in her look, something in her manner of
making evident the indefinable barrier between them even while expressing
her desire to accompany him, made such a disturbance in his brain that
for the moment he no longer knew himself, nor her, nor the condition of
things about him. If she saw the effect she produced, she gave no
evidence of it. She had begun to smile and her smile transformed her. The
wild look which was never long out of her eyes softened into a milder
gleam, and dimples he had been accustomed to see around lips he had
kissed and called the sweetest in the world flashed for a moment in the
face before him with a story of love he dared not read, yet found it
impossible to forget or see unmoved.</p>
<p>"What trial is this into which my unhappy fate has plunged me!" thought
he. "Can reason stand it? Can I see this woman daily, hourly, and not go
mad between my doubts and my love?"</p>
<p>His face had turned so stern that even she noticed it, and in a trice the
offending dimples disappeared.</p>
<p>"You are angry," she pouted. "You don't want Anitra. Nod if it is so, nod
and I will go away."</p>
<p>He did not nod; he could not. She seemed to gather courage at this, and
though she did not smile again, she gave him a happy look as she said:</p>
<p>"I have no home now, nor any friend since sister has gone. I don't want
any if I can stay with you and learn things. I want to be like sister.
She was nice and wore pretty clothes. She gave me some, but I don't know
where they are. I don't like this dress. It's black and all bad round the
bottom where I fell into the mud."</p>
<p>She looked down at her dress. It showed, in spite of Mrs. Deo's effort at
cleaning it, signs of her tramp through the wet lane. He looked at it
too, but it was mechanically. He was debating in his mind a formidable
question. Should he grasp her hand, insist that she was Georgian and
demand her confidence and the truth? or should he follow the lawyer's
advice and continue to accept appearances, meet her on her own ground and
give her the answer called for by her lonely and forsaken position? He
found after a moment's thought that he had no choice; that he could not
do the first and must do the last.</p>
<p>"You shall come with me," said he quietly. "I will see that you have
every suitable protection and care."</p>
<p>She surveyed him with the same unmoved inquiry burning in her eyes.</p>
<p>"I don't hear," said she.</p>
<p>He looked at her, his lips set, his eyes as inquiring as her own.</p>
<p>"I don't believe it," he muttered just above his breath.</p>
<p>The steady stare of her eyes never faltered.</p>
<p>"You loved sister, love me," she whispered.</p>
<p>He fell back from her. This was not Georgian. This was the untutored girl
about whom Georgian had written to him. Everything proved it, even her
hands upon which his eyes now fell. Why had he not noticed them before?
He had meant to look at them the first thing. Now that he did, he saw
that he might have spared himself some of the miserable uncertainties of
the last few minutes. They were small and slight like Georgian's, but
very brown and only half cared for. That they were cared for at all
astonished him. But she soon explained that. Seeing where his eyes were
fixed, she cried out:</p>
<p>"Don't look at my hands. I know they are not real nice like sister's. But
I'm learning. She showed me how to rub them white and cut the nails. A
woman did it for me the first time and I've been doing it ever since, but
they don't look like hers, for all the pretty rings she bought me. Was I
foolish to want the rings? I always had rings when I was with the
gipsies. They were not gold ones, but I liked them. And Mother Duda liked
rings too and made me one once out of beads. It was on my finger when my
sister took me home with her. That is why she brought me these. She
didn't think the bead one was good enough. It wasn't much like hers."</p>
<p>Ransom recalled the diamonds and the rich sapphires he had been
accustomed to see on his bride's hand.</p>
<p>But this did not engage him long. Some method of communication must be
found with this girl, which could be both definite and unmistakable.
Feeling in his pocket, he brought out pencil and a small pad. He would
write what he had to say, and was hesitating over the words with which to
open this communication, when he saw her hand thrust itself between his
eyes and the pad, and heard these words uttered in a resolute tone, but
not without a hint of sadness:</p>
<p>"I cannot read. I have never been taught."</p>
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<h2><SPAN name="PART_III" id="PART_III"></SPAN>PART III</h2>
<h3><span class="smcap">Money</span></h3>
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