of Elwell's death." She noticed an odd shake in Parvis's
unemotional voice. "Surely you remember that!" he urged her.

Yes, she remembered: that was the profoundest horror of it.
Elwell had died the day before her husband's disappearance; and
this was Elwell's portrait; and it was the portrait of the man
who had spoken to her in the garden. She lifted her head and
looked slowly about the library. The library could have borne
witness that it was also the portrait of the man who had come in
that day to call Boyne from his unfinished letter. Through the
misty surgings of her brain she heard the faint boom of half-
forgotten words--words spoken by Alida Stair on the lawn at
Pangbourne before Boyne and his wife had ever seen the house at
Lyng, or had imagined that they might one day live there.

"This was the man who spoke to me," she repeated.

She looked again at Parvis. He was trying to conceal his
disturbance under what he imagined to be an expression of
indulgent commiseration; but the edges of his lips were blue.
"He thinks me mad; but I'm not mad," she reflected; and suddenly
there flashed upon her a way of justifying her strange
affirmation.

She sat quiet, controlling the quiver of her lips, and waiting
till she could trust her voice to keep its habitual level; then
she said, looking straight at Parvis: "Will you answer me one
question, please? When was it that Robert Elwell tried to kill
himself?"