gne late at night to drive to Abbeville, and how your hired
chauffeur held you up, and left you at the roadside," she said. "Yet
the curious fact about your strange story is the money."

"Money! What money?" I gasped, utterly astounded by the Sister's
remark.

"The money they found upon you, a packet of bank notes. The police
have the five thousand pounds in English money, I believe."

"The police! Why?" I asked.

"No," she said, smiling, and still humouring me as though I were a
child. "Don't bother about it now. You are a little better to-day.
To-morrow we will talk of it all."

"But where am I?" I demanded, still bewildered.

"You are in St. Malo," was her slow reply.

"St. Malo!" I echoed. "How did I get here? I have no remembrance of
it."

"Of course you have not," replied the kindly woman in the cool-looking
head-dress. "You are only just recovering."

"From what?"

"From loss of memory, and--well, the doctors say you have suffered
from a complete nervous breakdown."

I was aghast, scarce believing myself to be in my senses, and at the
same time wondering if it were not all a dream. But no! Gradually all
the events of that night in Stretton Street arose before me. I saw
them again in every detail--Oswald De Gex, his servant, Horton, and
the dead girl, pale but very beautiful, as she lay with closed eyes
upon her death-bed.

I recollected, too, the certificate I had given for payment--those
notes which the police held in safe custody.

The whole adventure seemed a hideous nightmare. And yet it was all so
real.

But how did I come to be in St. Malo? How did I travel from London?

"Sister," I said presently. "What is the date of to-day?"

"The eleventh of December," she replied.

The affair at Stretton Street had occurred on the night of November
7th, over a month before!

"And how long have I been here?"

"Nearly three weeks," was her answer.

Was it really possible that I had been lost for the previous ten days
or so?

I tried to obtain some further facts from my nurse, but she refused to
satisfy my curiosity.

"I have been ordered by the doctors to keep you very quiet," she said.
"Please do not ask me to break my promise. You will be much better
to-morrow--and they will tell you everything."

"But mine is a strange case, is it not?" I asked.

"Very strange," she admitted. "We have all been much puzzled
concerning you."

"Then why not tell me all the circumstances now? Why keep me