The possible truth flashed over me. They were sisters. That was the strange tie that bound them together; one the open and flashing and opulent, and the other the broken and hidden and hopeless.
"Do you know Harriet Walter?" I asked.
She laughed a little, forlornly, bitterly. The wine, I imagined, had rather gone to her head.
"I am Harriet Walter!" was her somewhat startling declaration.
She was still shaken and ill, I could see. I took the Burgundy glass from her hand. I wanted her mind to remain lucid. There was a great deal for me still to fathom.
"And they say she's going to die?" she half declared, half inquired, as her eyes searched my face.
"But what will it mean to you?" I demanded.
She seemed not to have heard; so I repeated the question.
"It means the end," she sobbed, "the end of everything!"
"But why?" I insisted.