Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/359

 hard. She holds the hand out to you and smiles; you used to kiss that scar, she means to say."

Jaccard had seized the sides of his chair and was staring, with lips wincing. "Laura?" he said, against his will.

"There is some one with her; a girl, young and beautiful, too. You never saw her as she is; she has developed since. You saw her, Laura wants to say, only when a baby; when they both died. She has hair like Laura and—"

Jaccard's breath whistled audibly. He made no other inquiry but sat struggling with himself; what had happened had come as a complete surprise to him and, for the moment at least, was so overwhelming as to drive from him all other thoughts. A moment later, when the Voice ceased to speak of Laura and her child, Jaccard turned and gazed at Lucas Cullen blankly and as if he had forgotten him; and as the client stared at his lawyer, Lucas Cullen's big form quivered.

Throughout the great room, every one sat very still. The lights in one of the wall brackets went out, leaving the left end of the rows of chairs only vaguely illumined by the ruddy glow from the center. A servant tiptoed from the rear of the room to restore the lights, but a whisper halted him and he retired. The whistle of Jaccard's breathing diminished; in the front row, the woman who had groped for the form of her child suddenly sobbed again and then controlled herself. Near Barney, the girls who once had giggled sat looking about with sobered, scared faces.

"That was Mr. Jaccard!" one confided, half frightened. "Mr. Jaccard." It seemed that the fact that Jaccard had been affected was particularly significant to every one; or perhaps it was that now every one