emembered, the better his wife would be pleased. So the
principal idea in his mind at that moment was, what a very sensible
as well as handsome woman he was talking to! It was the way in which
most people catalogued Rosalind Fenwick. But her ready assent to his
wishes had intensified the doctor's first item of description. A
subordinate wave of his thought created an image of the girl Fenwick
must have pictured to himself coming out of the railway carriage. He
only repeated: "Let us have patience, and wait," with a feeling of
relief from possible further catechism.

But in order to avoid showing his wish to abate inquiry, he could talk
about aspects of the case that would not involve it. He could tell of
analogous cases well known, or in his own practice. For instance, that
of a Frenchwoman who wandered away from Amiens, unconscious of her
past and her identity, and somehow got to Buda-Pesth. There, having
retained perfect powers of using her mother-tongue, and also speaking
German fluently, she had all but got a good teachership in a school,
only she had no certificate of character. With a great effort she
recalled the name of a lady at Amiens she felt she could write to for
one, and did so. "Fancy her husband's amazement," said Dr. Conrad,
"when, on opening a letter addressed to his wife in her own
handwriting, he found it was an application from Fraeulein Schmidt, or
some German name, asking for a testimonial!" He referred also to the
many cases of the caprices of memory he had met with in his studies of
the _petit-mal_ of epilepsy, a subject to which he had given special
attention. It may have crossed his mind that his companion had fallen
very thoroughly in with his views about not dissecting her husband's
case overmuch for the present. But he put it down, if it did, to her
strong common-sense. It is rather a singular thing how very ready men
are to ascribe this quality--whatever it is--to a beautiful woman.
Especially if she agrees with them.

Nevertheless the doctor was not very sorry when he saw that Sally and
Fenwick, on in front, had caught up with--or been caught up with by--a
mixed party, of a sort to suspend, divert, or cancel all conversation
of a continuous sort. Miss Gwendolen Arkwright and her next eldest
sister had established themselves on Fenwick's shoulders, and the
Julius Bradshaws had just intersected them from a side-alley. The
latter were on the point of extinction; going back to London by the