Her visit to me has always seemed vague and hazy; shrouded in mist of some kind, the mist of my suffering mind, I imagine. There lies a feverish touch of fantasy all over it. It was on the evening of the second day since Boyde had disappeared, though I could have sworn that at least a week’s loneliness had intervened. It _was_ the second day, I know, because the doctor came on the fourth. During the afternoon an unintelligible telegram had come, sent from a Broadway office: “_Don’t be anxious--have surprising news for you--no drinking--home this afternoon.----B._” There was not much comfort in it, though at least I knew then he had not been arrested, but an hour or so later a second telegram had arrived, sent from an office above 42nd Street: “_Married Pauline this afternoon.----B._” It all mystified, confused and troubled me extremely, and the strain on nerves and emotions had been so prolonged that, I think, I was half stupefied with it all, half stupid certainly. At any rate, the visit always seemed a sort of unreal visit, veiled as it were, and shadowy. Two thoughts were in my mind when the knock sounded on the door: food and Boyde. I was always listening intently for his tread, but I was also listening for Mrs. Bernstein’s footstep with a possible tray. It was after six o’clock; since coffee and bread at 8.30 in the morning I had eaten nothing, for our own supplies were finished. Instead of Boyde or the tray, however, in walked the woman with yellow hair and statuesque figure. She wore furs, she was over-dressed and painted, she reeked of scent. To me it was a kind of nightmare vision. Details of her long visit I remember but very few. She at once announced herself--“I am Pauline M----” and asked excitedly, “Are you Blackwood?” She was in a “state.” Her great figure filled the little room. She poured out a torrent of words in a cockney voice. Her face was flaming red beneath the paint. Occasionally she swept about. The name of Boyde recurred frequently. She was attacking me, I gathered. Boyde had said this and that about me. I understood less than nothing. I remember asking her to sit down, and that she refused, and that presently I asked something else: “Has he married you?” and that she suddenly caught sight of the telegrams lying on my bed--I had pointed--then picked them up and read them. She came closer to me while she did this, so that I caught the stink of spirits.