timbre of her voice--and there she is again! The next moment I am ready
to laugh at myself."

"Couldn't you question the aunt?"

"How could I?"

"You couldn't!"

"I have thought of that doctor at the asylum--what in the devil was his
name? I might write to him; but I shrink from doing it. I have been
brutal enough in other ways. I am ashamed to confess to what
unforgivable expedients I have resorted to solve my uncertainty. Once we
were speaking of Genoa, where the Denhams had spent a week; I turned the
conversation on the church of St. Lorenzo and the relic in the treasury
there--the Sacra Catino, a supposed gift to Solomon from the Queen of
Sheba. Miss Denham listened with the calmest interest; she had not seen
it the day she visited the church; she was sorry to have missed that.
Then the aunt changed the subject, but whether by accident or design I
was unable for the soul of me to conjecture. Good God, Flemming! could
this girl have had some terrible, swift malady which touched her and
passed, and still hangs over her--an hereditary doom?"

"Then she's the most artful actress that ever lived, I should say. The
leading lady of the Theatre Francais might go and take lessons of her.
But if that were so, Ned?"

"If that were so," said Lynde slowly, "a great pity would be added to my
love."