The old man sat looking at Mary in silence for some moments; not a great
space of time, perhaps, as marked by the shadow on the dial behind them,
but to Mary that gaze was unpleasantly prolonged. He looked at her as if
he could read every pulsation in every fibre of her brain, and knew
exactly what it meant.

'Who are you?' he asked, at last.

'My name is Mary Haselden.'

'Haselden,' he repeated musingly, 'I have heard that name before.'

And then he resumed his former attitude, his chin resting on the handle
of his crutch-stick, his eyes bent upon the gravel path, their unholy
brightness hidden under the penthouse brows.

'Haselden,' he murmured, and repeated the name over and over again,
slowly, dreamily, with a troubled tone, like some one trying to work out
a difficult problem. 'Haselden--when? where?'

And then with a profound sigh he muttered, 'Harmless, quite harmless.
You may trust him anywhere. Memory a blank, a blank, a blank, my lord!'

His head sank lower upon his breast, and again he sighed, the sigh of a
spirit in torment, Mary thought. Her vivid imagination was already
interested, her quick sympathies were awakened.

She looked at him wonderingly, compassionately. So old, so infirm, and