threw a grotesque shadow of him on the wall, shook his head. After a
moment he asked: "How long did you tell me her swoon had lasted after
the accident to her mother?"

"I don't think she recovered consciousness for two days, and then she
remembered nothing. What do you think are the chances of her remembering
now?"

"I don't know. But there's a kind of psychopathic logic--If she lost her
memory through one great shock, she might find it through another."

"Yes, yes!" the father said, rising and walking to and fro, in his
anguish. "That was what I thought--what I was afraid of. If I could die
myself, and save her from living through it--I don't know what I'm
saying! But if--but if--if she could somehow be kept from it a little
longer! But she can't, she can't! She must know it now when she wakes."

Lanfear had put up his hand, and taken the girl's slim wrist quietly
between his thumb and finger, holding it so while her father talked on.

"I suppose it's been a sort of weakness--a sort of wickedness--in me to
wish to keep it from her; but I _have_ wished that, doctor; you must
have seen it, and I can't deny it. We ought to bear what is sent us in
this world, and if we escape we must pay for our escape. It has cost her
half her being, I know it; but it hasn't cost her her reason, and I'm
afraid for that, if she comes into her memory now. Still, you must
do--But no one can do anything either to hinder or to help!"

He was talking in a husky undertone, and brokenly, incoherently. He made
an appeal, which Lanfear seemed not to hear, where he remained immovable
with his hand on the girl's pulse.

"Do you think I am to blame for wishing her never to know it, though
without it she must remain deprived of one whole side of life? Do you
think my wishing that can have had anything to do with keeping her--But
this faint _may_ pass and she may wake from it just as she has been. It
is logical that she should remember; but is it certain that she will?"

A murmur, so very faint as to be almost no sound at all, came like a
response from the girl's lips, and she all but imperceptibly stirred.
Her father neither heard nor saw, but Lanfear started forward. He made a
sudden clutch at the girl's wrist with the hand that had not left it and
then remained motionless. "She will never remember now--here."

He fell on his knees beside the bed and began to sob. "Oh, my dearest!
My poor girl! My love!" still keeping her wrist in his hand, a