The carpet, as you can tell by look and feeling, is still wet with the soaking it got." Mr.Harper's air changed to one of reluctant conviction.
"The evidence seems conclusive of your wife having left this room and the house in the remarkable manner stated by Miss Hazen.

Yet--" This _yet_ showed that he was not as thoroughly convinced as the first phrase would show.

But he added nothing to it; only stood listening, apparently to the even breathing of the sleeper on the other side of this loosely hanging door.
As he did so, his eye encountered the hot, dry gaze of Mr.Ransom, fixed upon him in a suspense too cruel to prolong, and with a sudden change of manner he moved from the door, saying significantly as he led the way out: "Let us have a word or two in your own room.

It is a principle of mine not to trust even the ears of the deaf with what it is desirable to keep secret." Had the glance with which he said this lingered a moment longer on his companion's face, he would undoubtedly have been startled at the effect of his own words.

But being at heart a compassionate man, or possibly understanding his new client much better than that client supposed, he had turned quite away in crossing the threshold, and so missed the conscious flash which for a moment replaced the somber and feverish expression that had already aged by ten years the formerly open features of this deeply grieved man.
Once in the hall, it was too dark to note further niceties of expression, and by the time Mr.Ransom's room was reached, purpose and purpose only remained visible in either face.
As they were crossing the threshold, the lawyer wheeled about and cast a quick look behind him.
"I observe," said he, "that you have a full and unobstructed view from here of the whole hall and of the two doors where our interest is centered.