“First, your reasons for doubting the girl,” retorted Ransom.  “They must be excellent ones for you to resist the evidence of such conclusive proofs as you have yourself been witness to since entering this house.  I am Georgian’s husband.  I have the strongest wish in the world to see her again at my side; yet with the exception of her wonderful likeness to my wife, I find nothing in this raw if beautiful girl, of the polished, highly trained woman I married.  I have not even succeeded in startling her ear—­something which I should have been able to do if she were not the totally deaf woman she appears.  Confide to me then your reasons for demanding additional proofs of her identity.  If they carry conviction with them, I will aid you in any scheme you can propose which will neither frighten nor afflict her.”

Hazen rose to his feet.  Narrow as the room was, he yielded to his restless desire to move about and began pacing up and down the restricted quarters bounded by the edge of the table and the door.  Not until he had made the second turning did he speak; then it was with seeming openness.

“It’s like putting the torch to my last ship,” said he; “but this is no time to hesitate.  Mr. Ransom, I do not trust my eyes, I do not trust my ears, nor your eyes, nor your ears, nor those of any one here, because I have talked with a man who was on the same train with my sisters.  He noticed them because of their similar appearance and close intimacy.  They were not dressed alike, but they were veiled alike and one did not move without the other.  More than that, they not only walked about the various stations where they waited, arm in arm, but they sat thus closely joined in the cars all the way from New York.  This interested him especially as he noted great anxiety and incessant movement in the one, and complete passiveness in the other.  She who sat in the outer seat was watchful, busy, and ready to press the other’s arm at the least provocation, but if either spoke it was always the other.  It was not till the quick rush and shrill whistle of a passing train made one start and not the other, that he got the idea that one of them was deaf.  As this was the one by the window, he felt that their peculiar actions were now accounted for, and indeed thus far it all tallied with what we might expect from Georgian traveling with the hapless Anitra.  But there remained a fact to be told, which rouses doubt.  When they reached G——­ and he saw from their quick rising that they were about to leave the train, he naturally glanced their way again, and this time he caught a glimpse of the inner one’s neck.  Her veil had become slightly disarranged, exposing the whole nape.  It was unexpectedly dark, almost brunette in color, and quite devoid of delicacy; such a skin as one might look for in the gipsy Anitra after years of outdoor living and a long lack of nice personal attention, but not such as I saw and admired a few hours ago on the neck of the woman bending over her work in the landlady’s room.  Oh, I recognized the difference; I have an eye for necks.”