irst he lay either
unconscious or delirious. She listened to his incoherent speech in a
sort of agony, as though it might contain some clue to a riddle; and
sat with her passionate eyes brooding on his countenance, as though in
that too might lie the answer. But if there was one, neither his words
nor his face revealed it. "When he wakes," she whispered to herself,
"he'll tell me. How can there be barriers between us any more?"

After three days he came to himself. She was sitting by the window
preparing sheep's-wool for her spindle. She bent over her task, using
the last of the light, which fell upon her head. She did not know that
he was conscious, or had been watching her, until he spoke.

"Your hair used to be quite brown, didn't it?" he said. "Nut-brown."

She started and turned to him, and a faint flush stained her cheeks.

"Ah, you're not pleased," said Peter with a slight grin. "None of us
like getting old, do we?"

Helen put by the question. "You're yourself again."

"Doing my best," said he. "How long is it?"

"Three days."

"As much as that? I could have sworn it was only yesterday. Well, time
passes."

He said no more, and fell into a doze. Helen was as grateful for this
as she could have been for anything just then. She couldn't have gone
on talking. She was stunned with misgivings. How could he ever have
thought her hair was brown? Couldn't he see even now that it had once
been as black as jet? She put her hand up to her head, and unpinned a
coil of her heavy hair, and spread it over her breast and looked at it.
Yes, the silver was there, too much and too soon. But there was less
silver than black. It was still time's stitchery, not his fabric. The
man who was not her boy need never have seen her before to know that
once her hair had been black. This was worse than forgetfulness in him;
it was misremembrance. She pulled at the silver hairs passionately as
though she would pluck them out and make him see her as she had been.
But soon she stopped her futile effort to uncount the years. "I am
foolish," she whispered to herself, and coiled her lock again and bound
it in its place. "There are other ways of making him remember.
Presently when he wakes again I will talk to him. I will remind him of
everything, yes, and I'll tell him everything. I WON'T be afraid." She
waited with longing his next consciousness.

But to her woe she found herself defeated. While he slept she was able,
as when he had bee