"Yes, but looks cannot always be trusted. I must know just what you mean to do. I will leave nothing to a mind and hand I do not trust any more fully than I do yours. You are too eager for Georgian's money; too little interested in herself; _and you are too sly in your ways_. I overlooked this when you had the excuse of a possible distrust of myself. But now that your confidence is restored in me, now that you recognize the fact that I stand outside of this whole puzzling affair and have no other wish than to know the truth about it and do my duty to all parties concerned, secrecy on your part means more than I care to state. If you persist in it I shall lend myself to nothing that you propose, but wait for time to substantiate her claim or prove its entire falsity." "You will!" The words rang out involuntarily. It almost seemed as if the man would spring with them straight at the other's throat. But he controlled himself, and smiling bitterly, added: "I know the marks of human struggle. I have read countenances from my birth. I've had to, and only one has baffled me--_hers_. But we are going to read that too and very soon. We are going to learn, you and I, what lies behind that innocent manner and her rude, uncultivated ways. We are going to sound that deafness. I say _we_," he impressively concluded, "because I have reconsidered my first impulse and now propose to allow you to participate openly, and without the secrecy you object to, in all that remains to be done to make our contemplated test a success. Will that please you? May I count on you now?" "Yes," replied Ransom, returning to his old monosyllable. "Very well, then, see if you can make a scrawl like this." Pulling a piece of red chalk from his pocket, he drew a figure of a somewhat unusual character on the bare top of the table between them; then he handed the chalk over to Ransom, who received it with a stare of wonder not unmixed with suspicion. "I'm not an adept at drawing," said he, but made his attempt, notwithstanding, and evidently to Hazen's satisfaction. "You'll do," said he. "That's a mystic symbol once used by Georgian and myself in place of our names in all mutual correspondence, and on the leaves of our school-books and at the end of our exercises. It meant nothing, but the boys and girls we associated with thought it did and envied us the free-masonry it was supposed to cover. A ridiculous make-believe which I rate at its full folly now, but one which cannot fail to arouse a hundred memories in Georgian. We will scrawl it on her door, or rather you shall, and according to the way she conducts herself on seeing it, we shall know in one instant what you with your patience and trust in time may not be able to arrive at in weeks."