laring
head-lines, "Widow of Boyne's Victim Forced to Appeal for Aid," ran down
the column of text to two portraits inserted in it. The first was
her husband's, taken from a photograph made the year they had come to
England. It was the picture of him that she liked best, the one that
stood on the writing-table up-stairs in her bedroom. As the eyes in the
photograph met hers, she felt it would be impossible to read what was
said of him, and closed her lids with the sharpness of the pain.

"I thought if you felt disposed to put your name down--" she heard
Parvis continue.

She opened her eyes with an effort, and they fell on the other portrait.
It was that of a youngish man, slightly built, in rough clothes, with
features somewhat blurred by the shadow of a projecting hat-brim. Where
had she seen that outline before? She stared at it confusedly, her heart
hammering in her throat and ears. Then she gave a cry.

"This is the man--the man who came for my husband!"

She heard Parvis start to his feet, and was dimly aware that she had
slipped backward into the corner of the sofa, and that he was bending
above her in alarm. With an intense effort she straightened herself, and
reached out for the paper, which she had dropped.

"It's the man! I should know him anywhere!" she cried in a voice that
sounded in her own ears like a scream.

Parvis's voice seemed to come to her from far off, down endless,
fog-muffled windings.

"Mrs. Boyne, you're not very well. Shall I call somebody? Shall I get a
glass of water?"

"No, no, no!" She threw herself toward him, her hand frantically
clenching the newspaper. "I tell you, it's the man! I KNOW him! He spoke
to me in the garden!"

Parvis took the journal from her, directing his glasses to the portrait.
"It can't be, Mrs. Boyne. It's Robert Elwell."

"Robert Elwell?" Her white stare seemed to travel into space. "Then it
was Robert Elwell who came for him."

"Came for Boyne? The day he went away?" Parvis's voice dropped as hers
rose. He bent over, laying a fraternal hand on her, as if to coax her
gently back into her seat. "Why, Elwell was dead! Don't you remember?"

Mary sat with her eyes fixed on the picture, unconscious of what he was
saying.

"Don't you remember Boyne's unfinished letter to me--the one you found
on his desk that day? It was written just after he'd heard of Elwell's
death." She noticed an odd shake in Parvis's unemotional voice. "Surely
you remember that!" h