work was of a queer kind.  It kept him in his little room and meant spending money, and not getting it.  Men came to see him and were locked up with him in his little room.  And if he went out, he locked the door and took the key away, and said great times were coming and that I would be glad to marry him some day, whether his neck was big or small.  But I knew I shouldn’t and kept very close to Mother Duda and begged her to get me a new home, and she promised and I was feeling happier, when one day Hans was called out by a man and went away so fast that he forgot to lock his door, and Mother Duda and I went into the room, and it was then that the thing happened which spoiled all my life.  I don’t understand it.  I never did, for no one could tell me anything after that day.  Mother Duda had gone up to a table and was moving things about, trying to see what they were, when everything turned black, the room shook, and I was whirling all about, trying to take hold of things which seemed to be falling about me, till I too fell.  When I knew anything, there was lots of people looking at me; people of the house, men, women, and children, but what was strangest of all was the awful stillness.  No one made any sound—­nothing made any sound, though I saw an old book-shelf tumble down from the wall while I was looking, and people moved about and opened their lips and seemed to be talking.  Had Hans struck me again?  I began to think so, and got up from the floor where I was lying and tried to call out, but my voice made no noise though people looked around as if it had, and I felt an awful fright, not only for myself but for Mother Duda, who was being carried out of the door by two men, and who did not move at all and who never moved again.  Poor Mother Duda, she was killed and I was deaf.  I knew it after a little while, but I don’t know what did it; something that Hans had; something that Mother Duda touched—­a square something—­I had just caught a glimpse of it in Mother Duda’s hand when the room flew into a wreck and I became what I am now.”

“Dynamite,” murmured Ransom; then paused and had a small struggle with his heart, for she was looking up into his face, demanding sympathy with Georgian’s eyes; and being close together on the short seat, he could not help but feel her shudders and share the intense excitement which choked her.

“Oh,” she cried, as he laid his hand a moment on her arm and then took it away again, “one minute to hear! the next to find the world all still, always still,—­a poor girl—­not knowing how to read or write!  But you cannot care about that; you cannot care about me.  It’s sister you want to hear about, how she came to find me; how we came here for new and terrible things to happen; always for new and terrible things to happen which I don’t understand.