Page:Wadsworth Camp--the gray mask.djvu/311

Rh brakeman the signals we had arranged in New York."

The inspector's wink was brazen.

"That's a bright girl by you, Garth," he grunted. "Guess it's time I enjoyed a cigar again. So long, children."

He drifted down the aisle.

Garth wanted to tell Nora of his gratitude, realizing how far beyond expression that lay. With a smile she stopped his awkward attempts.

"I think I know what you would say, Jim. It was nothing—only what I had to do."

All at once he looked away. He had caught in her smile a new, untrammeled quality.

"Why do you look away, Jim?" she asked softly.

He turned back. He tried to meet her eyes.

"Things can't be the same," he said hoarsely. "I know I'm a beast to speak of it. I know you expect me to take what you did in the cellar as acting. But, Nora, lying there as I was, it made me happier than I ever have been in my life."

He looked straight at her.

"Tell me how you managed such acting."

Her lips trembled.

"I—I think nobody could act like that."

He saw the tears in her eyes. She closed them.

"While I was doing it," she went on, "it came to me that it wasn't acting at all."

There was no one to see the quick surrender of her hands.

THE END