Page:The Avenger.djvu/263

Rh "There is only one question I want answered," the girl replied, with straining eyes fixed upon Wrayson's face, and a little break in her tone. "Shall I see him again? If Augustus was really—his brother—where is he? What has happened to him?"

There was a moment's silence. Sydney Barnes had evidently said nothing as to his brother's tragic end. Wrayson could see, too, that the girl was on the brink of hysterics, and needed careful handling.

"We will tell you everything," he said presently. "But first of all we have to decide whether your Augustus Howard and Morris Barnes were the same person. I think that the best way for you to decide this would be to come home to my flat. Mr. Barnes' is just above, and I dare say you can recognize some of his brother's belongings, if he really was—your friend."

She rose at once. She was perfectly willing to go. They left the place together and entered a four-wheeler. During the drive she scarcely opened her lips. She sat in a corner looking absently out of the window, and nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. She answered a remark of Sydney Barnes' without turning her head.

"I always watch the people," she said. "Wherever I am, I always look out of the window. I have always hoped—that I might see Augustus again that way."

Wrayson, from his seat in the opposite corner of the cab, watched her with growing sympathy. In her very conformity to type, she represented so naturally a real and living unit of humanity. Her poor commonplace prettiness was already on the wane, stamped out by the fear and trouble of the last few months. Yet inane though her features, lacking altogether strength or dis-