SKAGGS'S THEORY
the woman's back. "Leslie, why do you keep the gentleman at the door? Let him come in at once."
Mrs. Oakley stepped from the door and Skaggs went in. Had he seen Oakley before he would have been shocked at the change in his appearance; but as it was, the nervous, white-haired man who stood shiftily before him told him nothing of an eating secret long carried. The man's face was gray and haggard, and deep lines were cut under his staring, fish-like eyes. His hair tumbled in white masses over his pallid forehead, and his lips twitched as he talked.
"You're from Paris, sir, from Paris?" he said. "Come in, come in."
His motions were nervous and erratic. Skaggs followed him into the library, and the wife disappeared in another direction.
It would have been hard to recognise in the Oakley of the present the man of a few years before. The strong frame had gone away to bone, and nothing of his old power
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