Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/253

Rh was here and did that?" Pierce cried. "You think that was all real and—true!"

"Look in the drawer she indicated, and see if she was able, indeed, to save the papers as she said."

Mechanically and many times looking back at Trant's compelling face, Pierce went to the cabinet, stooped and, pulling out the drawer, tossed aside a mass of scattering papers on the top and rose with a bundle of manuscripts held together with wire clips. He stared at them almost stupidly, then, coming to himself, sorted them through rapidly and with amazement.

"They are all here!" he cried, astounded. "They are intact. But what—what trick is this, Mr. Trant?"

"Wait!" Trant motioned him sharply to be silent. "She is about to awake! Inspector, she must not find you here, or this other," and seizing Penol by one arm, while the inspector seized the other, he pushed him from the room, and closed the study door upon them both. Then he turned to the girl, whose more regular breathing and lessening rigidity had warned him that she was coming to herself.

Gently, peacefully, as those of a child wakening from sleep, her eyes opened; and with no knowledge of all that in the last half hour had so shaken those who listened in the little study, with no realization even that an interval of time had passed, she replied to the first remark that Trant had made to her when she entered the room:

"Yes, indeed, Mr. Trant, the afternoon sun is