. She was
strangely unlike herself, but Stewart comforted himself by remembering
that she had been odd in her manner and behavior, though in a different
way, after her long sleep in Switzerland. After he had given her tea, he
suggested that they should walk in the garden, as the rain was over.

"Not yet, Ian," she said. "I want to try and tell you something. I can
do it better here."

Her mouth quivered. He sat down by her on the sofa.

"Must you tell me now?" he asked, smiling. "Do you really think it
matters?"

"Yes--it does matter," she answered, tremulously, pressing her folded
hands against her breast. "It's something I ought to have told you
before you married me--but indeed, indeed I didn't know how dreadful it
was--I didn't think it would happen again."

He was puzzled a moment, then spoke, still smiling:

"I suppose you mean the sleep-walking. Well, darling, it is a bit
creepy, I admit, but I shall get used to it, if you won't do it too
often."

"Did I really walk?" she asked--and a look of horror was growing on her
face. "Ah! I wasn't sure. No--it's not that--it is--oh, don't think me
mad, Ian!"

"Tell me, dearest. I promise I won't."

"I've not been here at all since you've been living in this house. I've
not seen you, my own precious husband, since I went to sleep in
Switzerland, at the Hotel du Chalet--don't you remember--when we had
been that long walk up to the glacier and I was so tired?"

Stewart was exceedingly startled. He paused, and then said, very gently
but very firmly:

"That's nonsense, dearest. You have been here, you've been with me all
the time."

"Ah! You think so, but it was not _I_--no, don't interrupt me--I mean to
tell you, I must, but I can't if you interrupt me. It was awfully wrong
of me not to tell you before; but I tried to, and then I saw you
wouldn't believe me. Do you remember a dinner-party at the Fletchers',
the autumn before we were engaged--when Cousin David had just bought
that picture?"

"That portrait of Lady Hammerton, which is so like you? Yes, I remember
it perfectly."

"You know I wanted my First so much and I had been working too hard, and
then I was told that evening that you had said I couldn't get it--"

"Silly me!"

"And I felt certain you didn't love me--"

"Silly you!"

"Don't interrupt me, please. And I wasn't well, and I cried and cried
and I couldn't leave off, and then I allowed Tims to hypnotize me. We
both knew she had no business