"Remarkable," Dr. Phillips said unexpectedly, "that we should have
_two_ Bostonians with us."
"Let's count ten and start over again," Justin told him. "Isn't this
Boston?"
"Hardly!" Dr. Phillips' laugh was dry and sharp. "This is Belvoir. As
to myself, I was in my diggings in London, taking a doze after tea
before marking some tests, when I made the trip here."
Justin made his way to a chair in the corner and sat down heavily. Dr.
Phillips said, "Perhaps I'd better get your fellow Bostonian. I don't
seem to be doing you much good."
"Perhaps you'd better, doctor--thanks," murmured Justin. He put his
head in his hands and tried not to think of what was happening.
A minute or two passed. Then quick soft footsteps sounded and a
pleasant voice said in utterly indefinable accents, "Ye mustn't feel so
upset, Master Justin--we're all in the same boat."
The girl had heavy brown hair that fell in neat slow ripples well below
her shoulders. Like himself she was barefoot and her figure looked
enormous in a tentlike white nightgown that covered her from shoulder
to ankle. She had fine healthy pink-and-white skin, made intriguing
rather than marred by an occasional pockmark, and her eyes were as blue
as the waters of Cohasset Bay.
Instinctively, despite a growing conviction that he was utterly mad,
Justin scrambled to his feet. He said, "It does take a bit of getting
used to--but perhaps you can help."
"That's why I'm here, Master Justin," she said. "Poor Dr. Phillips
tells me ye too are from Boston. I must say I do not find ye'r
countenance familiar."
Her accent, her phraseology--both were alien. As, come to think of it,
was the nightgown she was wearing. Yet it was of a piece with his own
pajamas and the dignified Dr. Phillips' lack of trousers. And those
pockmarks--Justin studied them, then felt a surge of excitement. He
said, "Pardon me for not knowing your name but--"
"Deborah Wilkins, spinster, of Prince Street," she cut in.
"--but," he went on, "would you mind telling me, Miss Wilkins, just
_when_ it was that you were brought here?"
"To Belvoir? Why, I retired to my bed on a February evening in
seventeen sixty-one, to dream of the great white ship that would carry
me far from prosaic Boston to some fine city overseas, instead of which
the ship brought me here to Belvoir."
"I'll be damned!" said Justin, stunned not only by the date of
Deborah's transfer to Belvoir but by the similarity of her experience
to his own.
"Methinks we are all damned," said Deborah Wilkins. "Certes we are not
in heaven unless our good pastors have been led sorely astray. And if
they have been led astray they must indeed be tools of the devil, which
leaves us small chance of salvation."
There was a neat syllogistic logic to her reasoning that brought Justin
up short. This girl, who or whatever she might be, possessed both
fearlessness and intellect. He said, "You don't seem to be afraid of
hell, Deborah."
An unexpected dimple appeared in one smooth cheek. She said, "Thus far
there seems little to be afeard of, Master Charles." Then, eying him
with frank curiosity, "What sort of attire are ye clad in? I have seen
nought like it."
"I might say the same of yours," he replied as frankly.