Part 5 (2/2)

I laughed.

”Then I am still an interesting case, Sister--eh?”

”Yes. You certainly are.”

”But do tell me more of what I am in ignorance,” I implored. ”I want to know how I came here--in France--when I lost all consciousness in a house just off Park Lane, in London.”

”To-morrow,” she said, firmly, but kindly. She was a charming woman, whose name she gave me as Soeur Marie.

We strolled back to the hospital, but on the way along the Quai Duguay-Trouin--I noticed it written up--I became again confused. My vision was not as it should have been, and my memory seemed blurred, even of the happenings of the past hour.

My nurse chatted as we walked together through the streets, but I know that my answers were unintelligible. I felt I was not myself. All my senses were keen as far as I could gauge--all save that of my memory of the past.

As I ascended through the pretty grounds of the hospital, the Sister beside me, I felt a curious failing of my heart. I experienced a sensation which I cannot here describe, as of one who had lost all interest in life, and who longed for death.

There may be some among my readers who have experienced it, perhaps. I cannot describe it; I merely explain that I felt inert, inefficient, and bored with life.

No such feeling had ever fallen upon me before. Hitherto I had been quick, alert, and full of the enjoyment of living. At Rivermead Mansions Harry Hambledon and I had prided ourselves on our post-war alertness.

Where was Harry? What was he doing? Would he be wondering why I was absent from our riparian bachelor home?

I was reflecting upon all this when suddenly, without any apparent cause, I once more lost consciousness. We were at that moment entering the door of the hospital and the Sister had just exclaimed:

”Now, do remain quite quiet and not worry over the past. It will all be right to-morrow,” she urged.

I know not what words I uttered in reply. A curious sense of oppression had fallen upon me, a hot, burning feeling as though my skull was filled with molten metal, while at the back of my neck was a sharp excruciating pain which caused me to hold my breath.

The Sister apparently noticed my sudden relapse, for she expressed a hope that I was not feeling worse. I tried to rea.s.sure her that I was all right, but I know I failed to do so, for once again I lost all knowledge of things about me.

After that I recollect nothing more. Probably I walked on mechanically back to my bed.

When my lapse had pa.s.sed, and I again regained consciousness, I found myself in bed gazing up at the ceiling. On either side of me were men, also in bed. They were talking in French.

I listened, and in a few seconds I recollected the events of the previous day. Then a sharp-featured nurse, whom I had not seen before, told us it was time to dress. I obeyed, but my clothes were entirely unfamiliar. They were coa.r.s.e and did not fit me.

While I washed I burst out laughing. The humour of the situation struck me as distinctly amusing. At one hour I was myself; at the next I was another being!

Was my case that of Jekyll and Hyde?

I knew, and I felt keenly about it, that I had accepted a bribe to perform an illicit service. I had posed as a medical man and given a certificate of death. But my one and only object in life was to see Mr. De Gex and demand of him a full explanation of the amazing and suspicious circ.u.mstances.

My lapses were intermittent. At times I was fully conscious of the past. At others my brain was awhirl and aflame. I could think of nothing, see nothing--only distorted visions of things about me.

Apparently twenty-four hours had pa.s.sed since I walked in the suns.h.i.+ne.

The men in the hospital ward were all Frenchmen, apparently of the lower cla.s.s. At one end of the room a heated argument was in progress in which four or five men were gesticulating and wrangling, while one man was seated on his bed laughing idiotically, it seemed, at his own thoughts.

Presently a tall thin man in spectacles entered, and addressing me, asked me to follow him.

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