The sunshine fell across the dusty room in a long, quivering shaft.

Outside, the branches of an elm tree swinging in the wind cast a shadow across the floor.

The professor, with folded arms, sat alert and expectant.

Burton, pale and shrunken with the labors of the last ten days, looked out of his burning eyes at the girl.

For a single moment she had raised her head, had met his fierce inquiry with a certain wistful pathos, puzzling, an incomplete sentiment.