hes. To guard against this, I had her skirt and
blouse made double, the one side black, the other a bright color. She had
simply to turn them. The extra hat she carried with her; it was small and
easily concealed. Her neckerchief she probably tucked away. I had its
mate in my pocket, and when I left my room by the window, as I did the
moment after I had locked the two rooms, it was with my hair pulled down
and this neckerchief about my shoulders. How did I dare the risk! I
wonder now; but it was life, life I was after; life and love; nothing
else would have made me so fearless; nothing else would have given me
such confidence in myself or lent such speed to my feet, running as I did
in the darkness."

"You ran around the house to the lane, and entered it by the turn-stile."

"Yes, and so quickly that I had time to splash myself with mud and lose
all my natural characteristics before any one came to find me. It was
Anitra they met, panting and disheveled, at the head of the lane; Anitra
in appearance, Anitra in heart. I did not act a part; I _was_ Anitra;
Anitra as I had conceived her. To me she was and is an active, living
personality. Whenever I faced you in her character, I thought with her
half-educated mind; felt with her half-disciplined heart. I even shut my
ears to sounds; I would not hear; half the time I did not. Nor did I fall
back into my old ways when I was alone. From the minute Georgian closed
her door upon you for the last time, and I darkened my skin in
preparation for a permanent assumption of Anitra's individuality, I
became the imaginary twin, in thought, feeling, and action. 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 sp