The most
natural seems to me to be what I have said; and you're quite right in
saying that it's this last thing that has made the difference. It's
exactly like the grain that turns the whole bottle into solid salt. It
needed that.... But, as I've said, I can't be actually and finally
convinced until I've seen more. I'm going to see more. I wrote to
Mr. Vincent this morning."
"You did?" cried the girl.
"Don't be silly, please.... Yes, I did. I told him I'd be at his
service when I came back to London. Not to have done that would have
been cowardly and absurd. I owe him that."
"Laurie, I wish you wouldn't," said the girl pleadingly.
He sat up a little, disturbed by this very unusual air of hers.
"But if it's all such nonsense," he said, "what's there to be afraid
of?"
"It's--it's morbid," said Maggie, "morbid and horrible. Of course it's
nonsense; but it's--it's wicked nonsense."
Laurie flushed a little.
"You're polite," he said.
"I'm sorry," she said penitently. "But you know, really--"
The boy suddenly blazed up a little.
"You seem to think I've got no heart," he cried. "Suppose it was
true--suppose really and truly Amy was here, and--"
A sudden clear sharp sound like the crack of a whip sounded from the
corner of the room.
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