The young man was clever and handsome, the aged woman said. He wore a close cropped auburn beard, but his hair grew long, and lay in large, loose curls upon his forehead. He seemed quiet and steady, and seldom remained away from his rooms at night, particularly, after his apparent fondness for Elizabeth had been observed by them. No one had ever called upon him except a queer Chinese peddler who, he said, brought him rare and expensive substances for his chemical experiments. Between this man and himself, there was evidently a most satisfactory understanding. They had met first in China, and Elizabeth frequently stood and listened to their comical gibberish, while the Mongolian's beady eyes watched her with never failing interest.
There were times even when she fancied he looked anxiously at her, and once, when Mr. Maynard was absent, he tried with poor success to tell her something, but what that mysterious something was she could never ascertain.
Mr. Maynard had frequently warned them all against touching any of the test tubes, flasks, retorts and crucibles in his room, but evening after evening he called Elizabeth to watch the changing colors in the delicate fluids, or the crystillization of rare substances while he instructed her, so they honestly supposed, by many scientific and wonderful experiments.
This was all Mrs. Sinclair could learn from the aged mourners, and weary at heart she returned once more to her now cheerless home. She felt certain that this Lawrence Maynard and her son were one and the same person, but little did she dream of the actual facts that remained untold in the aged woman's innocent recital.
It was in this cleverly improvised laboratory that Elizabeth Merril, unknown to her feeble grandparents, passed the few deliriously happy hours of her otherwise unromantic life. She had entered in the full possession of her womanly dignity and virtue, only to become faint from the exhalations of tempting perfumes and intoxicated by the fascinations of the tempter's smile and passionate pleadings. Long and fiercely she struggled with her new born passion, but her lover's first, warm kiss drew her very heart from her bosom and almost insane with love and fear she twined her white arms around his neck and pleaded for his dear protection.