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“Mordaunt” struck a faint resonance, like the toll of a distant bell, immediately lost in the relief of being addressed as “Miss Ferrars.” His voice was low and hesitant; we might have been meeting in a drawing room. I invited him to sit down, but he remained hovering awkwardly in the doorway.
    “Really I should not,” he stammered. “I am not a doctor, and it would not be seemly for me to . . . There is a sitting room just along the hall; the fire is lit, and I thought perhaps, if you felt strong enough, we could . . .”
    Twenty minutes later, I was walking down the dim corridor, a little shakily but without Bella’s assistance. She had done her best to make me presentable, and though I still felt very bedraggled, Lucy Ashton’s blue woollen travelling-dress fitted me perfectly. Mr. Mordaunt was waiting by the window in a room not much larger than my own, but furnished with a settee, and cracked leather armchairs on either side of the hearth. The walls were papered in dark green vertical stripes, suggesting the bars of a cage, on a background much stained by smoke, with a faded hunting print above the mantel.
    “We have already met, Miss Ferrars,” he said, once we were seated by the fire. “It was I who admitted you here—as Miss Ashton,” he added, colouring a little. “But you do not remember me, do you?”
    “No, sir, I am afraid not. May I ask what Dr. Straker has told you about me?”
    “I know that you have suffered a seizure and lost your memory of the past few weeks. And that you prefer to be addressed as Miss Ferrars—”
    “I am Miss Ferrars,” I broke in. “I presume Dr. Straker has shown you the telegram?”
    “I am afraid so,” he replied. “But Miss Ferrars, I am not here to question your—that is to say, I have no right; I am not a medical man. Dr. Straker simply thought that a little conversation might help you recall . . .”
    He made an expansive gesture, then clasped his hands self-consciously.
    “You must understand, Mr. Mordaunt,” I said firmly, “that although I cannot explain what has happened to me, that telegram is a mistake or a fraud, and I shall certainly be going home on Monday.”
    He murmured something which was obviously meant to sound reassuring, but made no further reply.
    “May I ask,” I continued, “how I appeared to you when I arrived here?”
    “Well,” he said, colouring again, “you seemed agitated, and fearful—as many patients are when they first arrive here—but quite resolved that you must see Dr. Straker and no one else, on what you described as ‘an urgent and confidential matter.’”
    “And did I say anything at all, beyond what you wrote on that paper, about why I had come here?”
    “Well, no, Miss Ash—Ferrars, I mean—you did not. You struck me as preoccupied, almost as if—how shall I put it?—as if you were repeating a lesson you had learnt, whilst your mind was elsewhere.”
    “And after? You told Dr. Straker that you saw me walking about the grounds.”
    “Yes, I did. Even at a distance, you looked utterly desolate. I went out to you once, to ask if there was anything at all I could do to help.”
    He looked at me appealingly, as if willing me to remember him.
    I was about to ask him what I had said in reply, when Bella came in with a laden tray.
    “It is almost midday,” said Mr. Mordaunt, “and I thought you might like—I took the liberty of ordering a light luncheon.”
    I realised that, for the first time since my awakening, I was hungry. It seemed very strange to be sitting by a fireside, drinking tea and eating bread and butter and potted shrimp with this personable young man, and my hopes suddenly lifted. Why should I not simply say, I am quite recovered now, and need not wait for Dr. Straker to return? I remembered that I had no money; but perhaps I could persuade him to lend me enough for the fare to London.
    “Tell me, Mr. Mordaunt,” I said, “what is it that you do for Dr.