"It is time to undeceive you," said Clement. "The likeness in your hands is not that of the Elinor Pengarvon of ninety years ago, but of another young lady who is alive and well at this moment. It is the portrait of Miss Hermia Rivers."
Clement had nothing to go upon as to whether the mention of the name would wake any dormant echo in Barney's memory. He could only trust to chance that it might do so. As it proved, his hit was a fortunate one.
"Of Miss Hermia Rivers!" repeated the old man, in a sort of awed whisper. "Can the dead come back to life?" Then his eyes went again to the portrait. "But you say that she isn't dead--that she is alive and well; is it the truth you are telling me?"
"I was in the company of Miss Rivers less than a fortnight ago."
"Thank goodness that she still lives! M'appen, then, it may not be too late."
"Too late! What do you mean?" asked Clem.
But the old man sank into a chair and took no heed of the question.
"And I to have got it into my doited old head that the darling died long years ago!" he said presently, with the air of one who is talking to himself. "To be sure it was the mistress herself that led me to think so, and how was I to guess that she wanted to hide the truth?"
Presently he roused himself, and after staring at Clem for a few moments like one collecting his faculties, he said, laying a finger on the photograph:
"And you say, sir, that you know her, and that she is alive and well?"