Digital heart book

The telephone vibrated and hummed in
miniature with all the numerous talk of a great city:
but the voice of 2241 was silent. Once and twice I put
my question; but the tiny sing-song English voice I
heard no more. The man, then, had fled--fled from an
impertinent question. It scarce seemed natural to me--
unless on the principle that the wicked fleeth when no
man pursueth. I took the telephone list and turned the
number up: "2241, Mrs. Keane, res. 942 Mission Street"
And that, short of driving to the house and renewing my
impertinence in person, was all that I could do.
Yet, as I resumed my seat in the corner of the office,
I was conscious of a new element of the uncertain, the
underhand, perhaps even the dangerous, in our
adventure; and there was now a new picture in my mental
gallery, to hang beside that of the wreck under its
canopy of sea-birds and of Captain Trent mopping his
red brow--the picture of a man with a telephone dice-
box to his ear, and at the small voice of a single
question struck suddenly as white as ashes.


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