“You must forgive me, Sir,” he said after a pause. “You must forgive me, Mr. Solent. The truth is, your voice, coming suddenly upon me like that, reminded me of things that ought to be⁠—reminded me of⁠—of too many things.” The old man’s voice rose at the words “too many,” but his next remark was quiet and natural. “I knew your father quite well, sir. We were intimate friends. His death was a great blow to me. Your father, Mr. Solent, was a very remarkable man.”

Wolf, on hearing these words, moved up to the bookseller’s side, and with an easy and spontaneous gesture laid his hand upon the hand of the old man as it rested upon the arm of his chair.

“You are the second friend of my father’s that I have met lately,” said he. “The other was Miss Selena Gault.”

The old man hardly seemed to listen to these words. He kept staring at him, out of his sunken eye-sockets, with deprecatory intensity.