“This is the man—the man who came for my husband!”
She heard Parvis start to his feet, and was dimly aware that she had slipped backward into the corner of the sofa, and that he was bending above her in alarm. With an intense effort she straightened herself, and reached out for the paper, which she had dropped.
“It’s the man! I should know him anywhere!” she cried in a voice that sounded in her own ears like a scream.
Parvis’s voice seemed to come to her from far off, down endless, fog-muffled windings.
“Mrs. Boyne, you’re not very well. Shall I call somebody? Shall I get a glass of water?”
“No, no, no!” She threw herself toward him, her hand frantically clenching the newspaper. “I tell you, it’s the man! I know him! He spoke to me in the garden!”
Parvis took the journal from her, directing his glasses to the portrait. “It can’t be, Mrs. Boyne. It’s Robert Elwell.”
“Robert Elwell?” Her white stare seemed to travel into space. “Then it was Robert Elwell who came for him.”
“Came for Boyne? The day he went away?” Parvis’s voice dropped as hers rose. He bent over, laying a fraternal hand on her, as if to coax her gently back into her seat. “Why, Elwell was dead! Don’t you remember?”
Mary sat with her eyes fixed on the picture, unconscious of what he was saying.