ou wish to tell."
But Fenwick would have none of this. He shook his head decidedly.

"I _must_ talk to some one about it. And my wife I cannot...."

"Why not?"

"You will see. You need not be frightened of too many confidences.
I haven't recollected any grave misdemeanours yet. I'll keep them
to myself when they come. Now listen to what I can and do recollect
pretty clearly." He paused a second, as if his first item was shaky;
then said, "Yes!--of course." And went on as though the point were
cleared up.

"Of course! I went up to the Klondyke almost in the first rush, in
'97. I'll tell you all about that after. Others besides myself became
enormously rich that summer, but I was one of the luckiest. However,
I don't want to tell you about Harrisson at Klondyke--(that's how I
find it easiest to think of myself, third person singular!)--but to get
at the thing in the dream, that concerns me most _now_. Listen!... Only
remember this, Vereker dear! I can only recall jagged fragments yet
awhile. I have been stunned, and can't help that...." He stopped the
doctor, who was about to speak, with: "I know what you are going to
say; let it stand over a bit--wait and be patient--all that sort of
game! All very good and sensible, but I _can't_!"

"Can't?"

"No! Can't--simply _can't_. Because, look you! One of the things
that has come back is that I am a married man--by which I mean
that Harrisson was. Oh dear! It _is_ such an ease to me to think of
Harrisson as somebody else. You can't understand that." But Vereker
is thoroughly discomposed.

"But didn't you say--only just now--there was nothing--_nothing_--to
unsettle your present life? No; I can't understand--I _can't_
understand." His reply is to Fenwick's words, but the reference is
to the early part of his speech.

"You will understand it better if I tell you more. Let me do it my
own way, because I get mixed, and feel as if I might lose the clue
any moment. All the time I was with the Clemenceaux at Ontario I was
a married man--I mean that I _knew_ I was a married man. And I remember
knowing it all that time. Indeed, I did! But if you ask me who my wife
was--she wasn't there, you know; you've got all that clear?--why, I
can't tell you any more than Adam! All I know is that all that time
little Ernestine was growing from a girl to a woman, the reason I felt
there could be no misunderstanding on that score was that Clemenceau
and his wife knew quite well I had been mar