The incongruity with his almost insipid smiling and this ready response struck me, and I continued to speculate idly about him as the evening wore on. By the time he left, alone, clearly disappointed, his smile began to seem haggard and more like a grimace. He had none of the grace or charm of the other boys, showed no sign of real wit; he was passive, and seemed to smile at his own passivity with something like the wisdom of an older man. Later, after everyone else had gone to bed, Jeremias told me that Ernest was the son of a newspaper man, and I was, by then, so tired, that I for a moment imagined he meant a man cut from newspaper, like a doll.

“There’s not much to him, I think, poor fellow,” Jeremias said.

When I finally returned home that night, I found a message waiting for me; an urgent note from Amelia, begging me to come see her as soon as I could, irrespective of the time. I went at once. She was frantic when I arrived.

“What kept you?” she cried, in a voice I will never be able to forget. She collapsed, all but fainted, and I was only just quick enough to catch her before her head struck the floor. I set her on her the sofa; as I examined her, she began to struggle back up out of whatever trance had seized her, groping in the air, as if she could find some purchase there and pull herself back into waking life. It had been weeks since I had last seen her, and she was much deteriorated from that time.

“Is he here?” she asked. “Look for me, won’t you? Please! I have to know if he’s here! You would tell me if he were here, wouldn’t you?”

“That man in your dream?”

“I dreamt about the man I told you about, I saw him, he was here. Or, I can’t be sure, but I think he was here.”