e
you don't recollect that our game of euchre was played the night before
last and not last night?" Then he went with Dalrymple into a corner of
the reading room, and they talked together for a good while.

Dalrymple went back to his home that day in a mental whirl. It still
wanted a number of hours before the Governing Committee would meet. He
had lost a day out of his life--there could be no doubt of that. If he
had moved about the Club at all yesterday with a drunken manner,
reviling De Pommereul to everybody who would lend him an ear--if he had
afterward met De Pommereul in the Club and directed toward him in loud
and furious tones a perfect torrent of accusation--he himself was
completely, blankly ignorant.

For a good while he sat quite still and thought. Then he summoned Ann,
the elderly and very trustworthy Ann, who had been his dear mother's
maid, and was now his housekeeper. He questioned Ann, and after
dismissing her he pondered her answers. Three times yesterday she had
seen him, and regarding his appearance Ann had her distinct opinions.

Suddenly a light flashed upon Dalrymple while he sat alone and brooded.
He sprang up and a cry, half of awe, half of gladness, left his lips.
The baffling problem had been solved!

That evening he presented himself before the Governing Committee. All
assembled were sorry for him. Of course, punishment must be dealt, but
for an old and popular member like Dalrymple it must not be expulsion.
The general feeling of the Club had indeed already been gauged, and it
was in favor of suspension for six months or a year at the farthest.

Dalrymple, however, was determined that he should be visited with no
punishment at all. And he meant to state why.

The judges, as he faced them, all looked politely grim. The President,
after a few suave preliminaries, asked Dalrymple if he had anything to
say concerning the charges preferred against him. Dalrymple then
proceeded to speak with a clear voice and composed demeanor.

His first sentences electrified his hearers. "I have no possible
recollection of yesterday," he began, "and it is precisely as much of a
lost day to me as though I had lain chloroformed for twenty-four hours.
On Wednesday night I returned home from this club and went to rest. I
never really woke until Friday, possibly a little while after midnight,
and then within my own bed. On Thursday morning I must have risen in a
state of somnambulism, hypnotism, mental aberra