Deftly he did the few things necessary to restore the swooning woman, noting with a doctor’s eye the first faint flush of pink under the dead white nails, then the flutter of breath through the parted lips and the slow unclosing of the hazel eyes which, at sight of him, sprang widely, vividly into life.

“Harry!” The name was the merest whisper and held a quiver of fear.  He remembered, stolidly, that just so had she whispered it upon the evening of their hurried marriage.

“Yes, Molly.  It is all right.  Don’t be frightened!”—­Just so had he soothed her.

She closed her eyes a moment while strength came back and then, raising herself, slipped out of his arms with a little breathless movement of avoidance.  She seemed indeed to cower away and the fear in her eyes hurt him with a physical pang.  Instinctively he put out his hand to reassure her, repeating his entreaty that she should not be frightened.

“But I am frightened!” Her voice was hoarse.  “You terrified me!  You had no right to come like that.  You should have let me know—­sent word—­or—­or something.”

“Sent word?” He repeated the words, in a dazed way.  “How could I?  How could I know?”

“How could you come if you didn’t know?” Already the miracle of readjustment which in women is so marvellously quick, had given back to Mary Coombe something of her natural manner.  Besides, she had always known that some day he might find her—­if he cared to look.

“Why should you come at all?” she flashed, raising defiant eyes.  “The time to come was long ago.”

“I did come.”  Callandar spoke slowly.  “I came—­” he paused, for how could he tell her that his coming had been to a house of death.

The bald answer, the strangeness of his gaze stirred her fear again.  For a moment they stared at each other, each busy with the shifting puzzle.  Then her quicker intuition abandoned the mystery of the present meeting to straighten out the past.

“Then you followed the letter?”

“Yes, I followed the letter.”

“And you saw her—­my mother?”

“Yes, I saw your mother.”

Impulsively he moved toward her but she shrank back, plainly terrified.

“Don’t!  I didn’t know.  I swear I did not know.  I never saw the letter—­until last night.  And I don’t understand.  What—­what did my mother tell you when you came?”

“There was only one thing which would have kept me from you, Molly.”

“Only one thing?  What?” she almost whispered.

“She told me you were dead.”

The flash of understanding on her face showed that she, at least, had shifted part of the puzzle into place.

“I see now,” she said slowly, “I have wondered ever since I saw the letter.  But I did not think she would go that far.  Yet it was the simplest way.  There was no date on the letter—­but I guessed that it must have come too late.”