For in that fleeting second it seemed to her that the past had opened its gates to reveal to her a figure which of late had drifted into the back alleys of memory--the figure of the dreadful old native who, in some vague fashion, she had come to regard as the cause of her husband's death.
She had never seen him again since that awful morning when oblivion had caught her as it were on the very edge of the world, but for long after he had haunted her dreams so that the very thought of sleep had been abhorrent to her.

But now--like the grim ghost of that strange life that she had so resolutely thrust behind her--the whole revolting personality of the man rushed vividly back upon her.
She sat as one petrified.

Surely--surely--she had seen him in the flesh! It could not have been a dream.

She was certain that she had not slept.
And yet--how had that horrible old Kashmiri beggar come all these hundreds of miles from his native haunts?
It was not likely.

It was barely possible.