"Then who was sitting, as it were, where I am now?"

"Yes," said Morewood. "I thought you couldn't miss it."

"Who was it?" asked Eugene, in an excited way.

The others looked keenly at him for a moment.

"You know," said Morewood. "Claudia Territon. She was sitting there
reading. He had a book, too, but had laid it down on his knee. She sat
reading, and he looking. In a moment I caught the look. Then she put
down the book; and as she turned to him to speak, in a second it was
gone, and he was not this picture nor the other, but as we know him
every day."

"She didn't see?" asked Eugene.

"No."

"Thank God!" he cried. Then in a moment, recollecting himself, he looked
at the two men, and saw what he had done. They tried to look as if they
noticed nothing.

"You must destroy that thing, Morewood," said he.

Morewood's face was a study.

"I would as soon," he said deliberately, "cut off my right hand."