"Sit down," said Van, moving around to the door of the dismantled summerhouse, and dropping to its worm-eaten seat. "I want to tell you something. I wasn't looking in that window expecting to see your mother."
"No?"
"Not at all."
"Then it must have been Mrs. Davis, the woman who lives there."
"Is that her name?" inquired Van, with a shrewd smile.
"She says it is."
"You know her, then? Well, I don't, Ralph. Never saw her before. Yet, I've traveled a long distance to get a look at her. See here--can you make it out?"
Van took from his pocket the card Ralph had seen him consult at the window. Ralph held it up to the moonlight.
It was an old-fashioned card photograph. Judging from its yellow, faded appearance, it seemed taken in another generation. It presented the face of a woman of about thirty years of age.
Ralph scanned this with a certain token of recognition.