"No—he hasn't a wife."
"His sister?"
"No—just—just——"
"I see," said the sister very gently. "Please come in," and I saw that she did not see—she thought that Walter Markham and I had sentimental relations.
She took me into a little grey distempered room hung with orange curtains, and sent the matron to me. She reminded me of snow, so deep that it could never, never melt—kind snow, deep enough to be soft.
"Are you Pam?" she said.
I looked up, startled and taken unawares.
"Yes," I said briefly, and stared.
She sat down; she was a large woman, and there was a soothing placidity about all her movements.
"I thought so," she said. "Captain Markham has been calling for you night and day—if we could have ascertained your other name we should have sent for you, but when he was conscious he said there was no Pam." She looked at me thoughtfully. "So you are Pam," she said.