“I don’t know but it’s wrong,” said Ellen, “but I believe I should be happy if I thought he would never come again. He has only brought me trouble, and I dread his influence upon the children; we are better off without him. But how are you getting along yourself, Mrs. Hogan?”
“I’ve no cause to complain,” answered the Irish widow. “I’m well, and Mike and I pick up a living. Just now I’m taking care of a sick man in the room across the entry. It’s an ould man—a kind of miser he is, I surmise—and his name is the same as your own, Mrs. Barclay.”
The name of Barclay is not an uncommon one, but this statement seemed to produce a strong impression on Mrs. Hogan’s visitor.
“An old man named Barclay?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“How old, should you think?”
“I don’t know, but he’s all dried up, and wrinkled. He may be siventy.”
“May I see him?” asked the visitor, eagerly.
“Shure you may go in with me when I give him his medicine.”
Ellen Barclay followed Mrs. Hogan into the opposite room, and looked with strange interest at the wan, emaciated old man stretched out on the bed.