ceeded to spring his trap, perceiving that he should take her wholly at unawares.
"We are not speaking of the same person," he said. "I expect him here in a few days."
"You expect—whom?"
"My brother,—Henry Mainwaring."
"Ah!" said Sinfire, in a low tone. But her hands turned cold, and slipped from her companion's clasp. . . .
After all, I am still in doubt. But, henceforth, who shall dare affirm that Doctor Frank Mainwaring is not romantic?
VI.
I am more of a wizard than I had myself imagined.
When I told Sinfire, three days since, that I expected Henry to be here in a few days, I told her a white fib: at least, I expected him no more than I have done any time during the last three or four years. He might come, of course, but the chances were about ten thousand to one that he would not. The truth is, I was merely trying an experiment. Various more or less vague indications—some of them trifles light as air—had suggested to my mind the notion that Sinfire and Henry had already met, perhaps in India, and that their meeting had not been without an effect upon them both. What sort of an effect? I cannot pretend to say. But, taking into consideration Sinfire's beauty and Henry's incorrigible susceptibility, and the power of fascination of both of them, it did not seem altogether unlikely that they might have fallen desperately in love with each other.
So far, so good: there would be no particular harm done. It was the sequel that was questionable. For, if it were probable that they had come together, it was certain that they were together no longer; they had separated; and the fickleness of Henry's disposition made me surmise that Sinfire had not been the one to blame. In other words, I feared that he had abandoned her. Whether his wrong had stopped there, I had no means of knowing: I could only hope (and believe, in lack of proof to the contrary) that he had not shown himself a villain. Yet there was that in Sinfire's bearing—assuming my theory to have some foundation—that seemed to point to an experience much deeper and more tragic than the mere jilting of a handsome girl by a thoughtless fellow. Her misfortune, if she had been unfortunate at all, could have been no trivial one. Her self-possession, her reserve, the very transparency (so to call it) of her expression, which, like the transparent sky, concealed within its depths all mysteries,—these things, and still
