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Mrs. Savareen had not given much pre-consideration as to her line of action during the impending interview. She had merely resolved to be guided by circumstances, and what she saw before her made her errand one of some difficulty. Her main object, of course, was to ascertain, beyond the possibility of doubt, whether the man calling himself Jack Randall was the man known to her as Reginald Bourchier Savareen.

The tenant of the room rose as her visitor entered, and even that slight exertion brought on a hollow cough which was pitiful to hear.

“I am sorry to see,” gently remarked the visitor, “that you are far from well.”

“Yes,” was the reply; “I’ve got a cold, and ain’t very smart. Take a chair.” And so saying, she placed a chair in position, and made a not ungraceful motion towards it with her hand.

Mrs. Savareen sat down, and began to think what she would say next. Her hostess saved her from much thought on the matter by enquiring whether she had called to see Mr. Randall.

“Yes,” replied Mrs. Savareen, “I would like to see him for a few moments, if convenient.”

“Well, I am sorry he’s out, and I don’t suppose he’ll be in for some time. He’s generally out in the fore part of the evening; but he’s most always home in the morning. Is it anything I can tell him?”

Here was a nice complication. Had Mrs. Savareen been a student of Moliere, the fitting reply to such a question under such circumstances would doubtless have risen to her lips. But I shrewdly suspect that she had never heard of the famous Frenchman, whose works were probably an unknown quantity in Millbrook in those days. After a momentary hesitation she fenced with the question, and put one in her turn.

“Do you know if he has heard from his friends in Hertfordshire lately?”

“Hertfordshire? O, that is the place he comes from in the Old Country. No, he never hears from there. I have often wanted him to write to his friends in England, but he says it is so long since he left that they have forgotten all about him.” Here the speaker was interrupted by another fit of coughing.

“No,” she resumed, “he never even wrote to England to tell his friends when we were married. He was only a boy when he left home, and he was a good many years in Canady before he came over to the States.”

Just at this point it seemed to occur to Mrs. Randall that she was talking rather freely about her husband to a person whom she did not know, and she pulled herself up with a rather short turn. She looked intently into her visitor’s face for a moment, as though with an inward monition that something was wrong.

“But,” she resumed, after a brief pause, “do you know my husband? I can’t remember as I ever seen you before. You don’t live in New York: I can see that. I guess you come from the West.”

Then Mrs. Savareen felt that some explanation was necessary. She fairly took the animal by the extreme tip of his horns.

“Yes,” she responded, “I live in the West, and I have only been in New York a very short time. I accidentally heard that Mr. Randall lived here, and I wish to ascertain if he is the same gentleman I once knew in Canada. If he is, there is something of importance I should like to tell him. Would you be so kind as to describe his personal appearance for me?”

The woman again inspected her very carefully, with eyes not altogether free from suspicion.

“I don’t exactly understand,” she exclaimed. “You don’t want to do him any harm, do you? You haven’t got anything agin him? We are in deep enough trouble as it is.”

The last words were uttered in a tone very much resembling a wail of despair. By this time the visitor’s sympathies were thoroughly aroused on behalf of the poor broken creature before her.