Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/340

330 "I didn't mean to frighten you," she heard the officer saying to her, solicitously. "I'm sorry. It isn't a joke. I didn't mean to frighten you."

"I'm not frightened," she managed to murmur through her tightly closed teeth. They mustn't chatter!

"I'm going to tell you all about it," the man beside her went on kindly, tenderly.

She knew him to be Nathan of course. But what she didn't know, what she absolutely couldn't fathom was his uncanny transformation. Even as he proceeded to relate to her the story of it, she was unable to follow him very closely, battling as she was with her unruly emotions. Still pressing her lips with her handkerchief, she could only sit and marvel, stealing frequent glances at him and listening amazedly to the altered accents.

Slowly, in detail, Nathan described to her his life in San Francisco, careful only to avoid the part she had played in it, in way of inspiration and impulse. He would not buy her with any such medium of exchange.

She listened silently at first, but after a while, gaining gradual control of her voice, she asked an occasional question or two. Nathan answered them in detail, painstakingly. For a whole hour-and-a-half he tried to tear away for her the mystery of his metamorphosis.

When he believed at last that he had succeeded, he said brightly, "So you see what I meant when I told you that you were as free as if the poor sailor-boy you married out of pity were dead and buried. I've got rid of him for you. I guess I'd do for you as much