This drew Mr.
Harper from his seat.
"What is it ?" he cried, softly approaching the other and whispering, though after events proved that he might have spoken aloud with impunity.
Mr.Ransom pointed to her temple from which her hair had just fallen away.
"The veining here.

I have often studied it.

I recognize its every convolution.

It is Georgian, Georgian who lies there--ah, she's stirring, waking! Let me go--" He dragged himself from Mr.Harper's detaining hand, bent over the bed and murmured softly but with the thrilling intensity of a suffering, hoping heart, the name which at that moment meant the whole wide world to him: "Georgian!" Would she greet this expression with recognition and a smile?
The lawyer half expected her to and stepped near enough to see, but the eyes which had opened upon the white wall in front of her stared on, and when they did turn, as they did after one halting, agonizing minute, it was in response to some movement made by Mr.Ransom and not in reply to his voice.
This sudden and unexpected overthrow of his secretly cherished hopes was terrible.

As he saw her rise on one elbow and meet his gaze with one which revealed the astonishment and resentment of a wild creature suddenly entrapped, he felt, or so he afterwards declared, as if the viper which had hitherto clung cold and deathlike about his heart had suddenly sprung to life and stung him.