at you are. You are, I should
judge, a man thirty years of age. What your history has been you don't
know. Possibly you have a wife somewhere.'

I was sorry the moment I had uttered the words, for he gave a cry almost
amounting to agony.

'No, no,' he gasped, 'not that!'

'You don't know,' I said; 'the past is an utter blank to you; you have no
recollection of anything which happened before you lost your memory,
and----'

'No, no, not that, Luscombe. I am sure that if I ever married, if I ever
loved a woman, I should know it,--I should feel it instinctively.'

'I am not sure. You say you have no memory of your father or mother;
surely if you remembered anything you'd remember them? Now suppose,--of
course it is an almost impossible contingency, but suppose you won Lorna
Bolivick's consent to be your wife; suppose you obtained a position
sufficiently good for Sir Thomas and Lady Bolivick to consent to your
marrying her; and then suppose your memory came back, and the whole of
your past were made known to you, and you discovered that there was a
woman here in England, or somewhere else, whom you married years ago, and
whom you loved, and who had been grieving because of your loss? Can't
you see the situation?'

I could see I had impressed him. Instead of the light of resolution,
there was a haunting fear in his eyes.

'I had not thought of that,' he murmured. 'Of course it is not so,--I am
sure it is not so. Still, as you say, it would not be fair to submit her
to a suspicion of danger.'

'Then of course you give up the thought?'

'Oh, no,' he replied. 'Of course I must think it out, and I must meet
the situation; but I give up nothing--nothing.'

As I rose to leave him, McClure stood in the door of the bedroom and
beckoned to me.

'Springfield and Buller are downstairs,' he whispered to me; 'they have
come to lunch. Can you manage to get a chat with the fellow? It seems
horrible to have such suspicions, but----'

'Yes, I understand,' I replied, noting his hesitation.

'If what is in both our minds has any foundation in fact,' he went on,
'Edgecumbe should be warned. I hate talking like this, and it is just
horrible.'

'I know what you feel,' I said, 'but what can we do? As we both have to
admit, nothing can be proved, and it would be a crime to accuse an
innocent man of such a thing.'

'Yes, I know; but the more I have thought about the matter, the more I am
sure that--that--anyhow, get