little
matters, which hardly concern the story, had been landed on a
comfortable footing at the date of this conversation.

But Mr. Fenwick did not lend himself to the agreeable anticipation of
Sally's "lark." There was a pained distraction on his handsome face as
he gave his head a great shake, tossing about the mass of brown hair,
which was still something of a lion's mane, in spite of the recent
ministrations of a hairdresser. He walked to the window-bay that
looked out on the little garden, shaking and rubbing his head, and
then came back to where he had been sitting--always as one wrestling
with some painful half-memory he could not trace. Then he spoke again.

"Whether the sort of flash that comes in my mind of writing my name
in a cheque-book is really a recollection of doing so, or merely
the knowledge that I _must_ have done so, I cannot tell. But it is
disagreeable--thoroughly disagreeable--and _strange_ to the last
degree. I cannot tell you how--how torturing it is, always to be
compelled to stop on the threshold of an uncompleted recollection."

"I have the idea, though, quite!" said Sally. "But of course one never
remembers signing one's name, any particular time. One does it
mechanically. So I don't wonder."

"Yes! But the nasty part of the flash is that I always know that it is
not _my_ name. Last time it came--just now this minute--it was a name
like Harrington or Carrington. Oh dear!" He shook and rubbed his head
again, with the old action.

"Perhaps your name isn't Fenwick, but Harrington or Carrington?"

"No! That cock won't fight. In a flash, I know it's not my _own_ name
as I write it."

"Oh, but I see!" Sally is triumphant. "You signed for a firm you
belonged to, of course. People _do_ sign for firms, don't they?" added
she, with misgivings about her own business capacity. But Mr. Fenwick
did not accept this solution, and continued silent and depressed.

The foregoing is one of many similar conversations between Fenwick
and Sally, or her mother, or all three, during the term of his stay
at Krakatoa Villa. They were less encouraged by the older lady, who
counselled Fenwick to accept his oblivion passively, and await the
natural return of his mental powers. They would all come in time, she
said; and young Dr. Vereker, though his studious and responsible face
grew still more studious and responsible as time went on, and the mind
of this case continued a blank, still encouraged passivity, and