Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/251

Rh old Groome was coming down the steps. I held out my hand to him.

"Mr. Groome!" I cried.

He looked at me—but that was all. Not the slightest glimmer of recognition flitted across his countenance. "Sir?" he said.

"Surely, Mr. Groome, you have not forgotten me already?"

He paid not the slightest attention to my outstretched hand. He looked straight past me.

"Ah, Bensberg," he observed in the most placid tones imaginable—the placid tones I had learned to know so well—it seemed that Bensberg had followed at my heels—"what did you think of it? That was a dream I had last night—a nightmare."

"So I should imagine."

Bensberg's tones were dry. He looked from Groome to me—and from me to Groome. In my bewilderment I made a further claim for recognition from Nora's father. "Mr. Groome, what have I done that you should have so soon forgotten me?"

"Forgotten you?" He looked at me quietly, yet intently, as if I were a perfect stranger. But it was old Groome. It was impossible—out of the stories—that there could be in existence two men so much alike, though when I observed him closely I perceived that in his eyes there was a new light and fire—I had almost written a new intelligence. "I am not in the habit, sir, of forgetting anyone. Groome is not my name. I am Isaac Goad."

Bensberg interposed. He laid his hand upon my arm.

"I fancied, just now, that you might be mistaken