The visitor nodded.
“Do you mean my uncle?” said Bayre, in impressive, deliberate tones, thinking that the shock of the meeting had affected her to the point of making her hysterical.
But Miss Merriman sprang to her feet, and searching every corner of the room with her eyes, said, in a low voice indeed, but quite distinctly, quite sanely,—
“No, I don’t mean your uncle. I mean your uncle’s cousin—Miss Ford.”
Olwen started to her feet.
“I thought you were going to say that,” she said.
“What?”
She turned to him with excitement. Miss Merriman seemed still too much agitated to be talked to.
“Yes. The idea only came into my head a moment ago. I think I understand now the mystery of the woman hidden in the house.”
Bayre could not yet understand.