“If you are Madame Helga,” he answered.
She came a little further into the room, looking at him with a slight frown contracting her pencilled eyebrows. He had no appearance of being a client.
“You have brought a letter, then?” she asked.
“My name is Bertrand Saton,” he explained. “This letter was given to me in Paris more than a year ago, by an elderly lady. I have carried it with me all that time. At first it did not seem likely that I should ever need to use it. Unfortunately,” he added, a little bitterly, “things have changed.”
She took the letter, and tore open the envelope. Its contents consisted only of a few lines, which she read with some appearance of surprise. Then she turned once more to the young man.
“You are the Mr. Bertrand Saton of whom the writer of this letter speaks?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I am,” he answered.
She looked him over from head to foot. There was scarcely an inch of his person which did not speak of poverty and starvation.
“You have had trouble,” she remarked.