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my past life.”
    Dr. Bridge tilts his head. “Why do you say that?”
    “I feel it.”
    “I see.”
    “It’s a powerful feeling.”
    “You have guilt?”
    “Yes, and something else. There’s a kind of horror attached. Well, it’s both more and less than horror—a sick feeling, a feeling of revulsion.”
    “Close your eyes now and try to relax. Does any sort of association with that feeling come to mind?”
    Stella does as she has been asked. But inside her, there is only a black void.
    “You lost your memory in early March,” Dr. Bridge states. “You say you were injured. You’d been under bombardment?”
    “Yes, several times.”
    “Your mind seems quite nimble and sharp. Your head was examined at Marne?”
    “I’m told it was. I’m surprised you didn’t send me to a hospital,” Stella says.
    “Would you have gone?”
    She shakes her head. “I’m not a shirker. If it weren’t for my desire to visit the Admiralty, I’d still be in France.”
    “I believe you.”
    “You’re fascinated by my case, aren’t you?” she asks.
    “Yes, I suppose I am,” Dr. Bridge says, crossing his legs. “From a professional point of view, it’s deeply intriguing to treat a woman who has been under bombardment, but my goal is to make you healthier, as is the goal of any physician.”
    “Dr. Bridge, I want to know who I am. What if Stella Bain really is my name?”
    He gazes at her as if contemplating whether to speak. “I have reservations. After your arrival here, my wife and I made inquiries at the War Office and the Red Cross as to a Stella Bain, VAD. I’ve been in touch with the American embassy, too. We’ve received no positive reply.”
    “I’m sometimes confused,” she confesses. “When I first told you and Lily my name, I had a fleeting thought that Stella Bain might not be accurate.”
    “I plan to contact the field hospital in Marne. It may be more difficult, French bureaucracy being what it is. There may be no record of your joining that field hospital because you weren’t there officially or because, for reasons unknown, no attempt was made to discover where you actually belonged. I imagine as soon as they found out you drove an ambulance, they might not have wanted to send you away. Do you intend to keep going to the Admiralty?”
    That afternoon, Lily had accompanied Stella to the Admiralty in the green-and-tan Austin Mary Dodsworth drove. Lily had explained that she was happy to wait for Stella across the street for as long as Stella liked. But Stella asked Lily to leave her at the gate and then park some distance away, as she did not want to be observed in her frustrating quest. Stella had no better luck at the Admiralty than she had during her first visit.
    “Yes, I do,” Stella says.
     
    Over the next several days, the Bridges and Stella settle into a routine. When Stella is not sketching, she often travels to the settlement house with Lily. There, she draws for children. In the afternoons, she tries to make it to the Admiralty, even though each visit seems a mere repetition of the first. Occasionally, Stella takes her meals with Lily and Dr. Bridge, but more often, she has a tray in her room. When Stella and Lily speak, the sessions in the orangery are never mentioned.

A t their next meeting, a week later, Stella announces to Dr. Bridge that she has been drawing. “I purchased paper and a pencil on the afternoon after I left your house. I meant to write a note to you and Lily, but when I returned here, I began to draw instead. I used to sketch in France.”
    “I wondered what was in that packet,” he says.
    Unwanted heat rises to her face. “I was up hours last night.”
    Dr. Bridge opens his mouth to speak, but Stella cuts him off.
    “I know, I know, I need rest. But I did sleep late this morning.”
    “May I see what you have?”
    “The drawings are…I’m not sure how to phrase it…somewhat sinister, and this bothers me. I thought maybe you could help me with