Her dress,
as she came beneath the lamp, was, I saw, coarse, yet clean, and her
beautiful, regular features, which in her photograph had held me in such
fascination, were even more sweet and more matchless than I had believed
them to be. I stood before her dumbfounded in admiration.
In silence she bowed gracefully, and then looked at me with
astonishment, apparently wondering what I, a perfect stranger, required
of her.
"Miss Elma Heath, I presume?" I exclaimed at last. "May I introduce
myself to you? My name is Gordon Gregg, English by birth, cosmopolitan
by instinct. I have come here to ask you a question--a question that
concerns yourself. Lydia Moreton has sent me to you."
I noticed that her great brown eyes watched my lips and not my face.
Her own lips moved, but she looked at me with an inexpressible sadness.
No sound escaped her.
I stood rigid before her as one turned to stone, for in that instant, in
a flash indeed, I realized the awful truth.
She was both deaf and dumb!
She raised her clasped hands to me in silence, yet with tears welling in
her splendid eyes.
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