d crying
out for sleep.

'I went to my room, dismissed Mrs. Titwing, and went to bed at once.
But no sooner had I got into bed than I began to perceive that,
instead of sleep, a long wakeful night was before me. Mr. D'Arcy's
story about finding me in a London studio took entire possession of
my mind. How did I get there? Where had I been and what had been my
adventures before I got there? Why did the painter, in whose studio
Mr. D'Arcy found me, believe that I had been super-naturally sent to
him? I shuddered as a thousand dreadful thoughts flowed into my mind.
"Mr. D'Arcy," I said to myself, "must know more than he has told
me." Then, of course, came thoughts about you. I wondered why you had
allowed me to drift away from you in this manner. True, I was
probably removed from Raxton immediately after my illness, when you
were very ill, as I knew; but then you had recovered!'

VII

When Winifred reached this point in her story, I said,

'And so you wondered what had become of me from your last seeing me
down to your waking up in Mr. D'Arcy's house?'

'Yes, yes, Henry. Do tell me what you were doing all that time.'

As she said these words the whole tragedy of my life returned to me
in one moment, and yet in that moment I lived over again every
dreadful incident and every dreadful detail. The spectacle on the
sands, the search for her in North Wales, the meeting in the cottage,
the frightful sight as she leapt away from me on Snowdon, the
heart-breaking search for her among the mountains, the sound of her
voice, singing by the theatre portico in the rain, the search for her
in the hideous London streets, the scenes in the studios, the
soul-blasting drama in Primrose Court--all came upon me in such a
succession of realities that the beautiful radiant creature now
talking to me seemed impossible except as a figure in a dream. And
she was asking me to tell her what I had been doing during all these
months of nightmare. But I knew that I never could tell her, either
now or at any future time. I knew that to tell her would be to kill
her.

'Winnie,' I said, 'I will tell you all about myself, but I must hear
your story first. The faster you get on with that the sooner you will
hear what I have to tell.'

'Then I will get on fast,' said she. 'After a while my thoughts, as I
tossed in my bed, turned from the past to the future. What was the
future that was lying before me? For months I had evidently been
living on t