Rosalind thought she saw what he was trying to say, and herself tried to supplement it. "You mean, why isn't Sally like him?" "Ah, to be sure! Like father like son, they say. His son's a chip of the old block. But then--he's his mother's son, too. Two such!--and then see what comes of 'em. Sallykin's your daughter ... Rosey's daughter. Sallykin...." He seemed to be drowsing off from mere weakness; but he had something to say, and his mind made for speech and found it: "Yes, Rosey; it's the end of the story. Soon off--I shall be! Not very long now. Wasn't it foggy?" "Yes, dear; it was. But it's clear now. It's snowing." "Then you could send for Jack Roper. Old Jack! He can tell me something I want to know.... I know he can...." "But it's the middle of the night, dear. We can't send for him now. Sally shall go for him again when she comes in the morning. What is it you want to know?" "What became of poor Algernon Palliser.... I know Old Jack knows.... Something he heard.... I forget things ... my head's not good. Ah, Rosey darling! if I'd been there in the first of it ... I could have got speech of him. I might have ... might have...." As the old man's mind wandered back to the terrible time it dragged his hearer's with it. Rosalind tried to bear it by thinking of what Sally was like in those days, crumpled, violent, vociferous, altogether _intransigeante_. But it was only a moment's salve to a reeling of the reason she knew must come if this went on. If he slept it might be averted. She thought he was dropping off, but he roused himself again to say: "What became of poor Palliser--your husband?" Then Rosalind, whose head was swimming, let the fact slip from her that the dying man had never seen or known her husband in the old days; only he had always spoken of him as one to be pitied, not blamed, even as she herself thought of him. Incautiously she now said, "Poor Gerry!" forgetting that Colonel Lund had never known him by that name, or so slightly that it did not connect itself. Yet his mind was marvellously clear, too; for he immediately replied: "I did not mean Fenwick. I meant your first husband. Poor boy! poor fellow! What became of him?" "_His_ name was Algernon, too," was all the answer she could think of. It was a sort of forlorn hope in nettle-grasping. Then she saw it had little meaning in it for her listener. His voice went on, almost whispering: "Many a time I've thought ... if we could have found the poor boy ... and shown him Sally ... he might have ... might have...."