Part 31 (1/2)

Never, to my knowledge.

”Have I ever visited a house in The Boltons, at Kensington?”

”I think not,” he responded.

”Curious! Very curious!” I observed, thinking deeply of the graceful, dark-eyed Mabel whom I had loved six years before, and who was now lost to me for ever.

”Among my friends is there a man named Doyle?” I inquired, after a pause.

”Doyle? Do you mean Mr Richard Doyle, the war correspondent?”

”Certainly,” I cried excitedly. ”Is he back?”

”He is one of your friends, and has often visited here,” Gedge replied.

”What is his address? I'll wire to him at once.”

”He's in Egypt. He left London last March, and has not yet returned.”

I drew a long breath. d.i.c.k had evidently recovered from fever in India, and was still my best friend, although I had had no knowledge of it.

What, I wondered, had been my actions in those six years of unconsciousness? Mine were indeed strange thoughts at that moment. Of all that had been told me I was unable to account for anything. I stood stunned, confounded, petrified.

For knowledge of what had transpired during those intervening years, or of my own career and actions during that period, I had to rely upon the statements of others. My mind during all that time had, it appeared, been a perfect blank, incapable of receiving any impression whatsoever.

Nevertheless, when I came to consider how I had in so marvellous a manner established a reputation in the City, and had ama.s.sed the sum now lying at my bankers, I reflected that I could not have accomplished that without the exercise of considerable tact and mental capacity. I must, after all, have retained shrewd senses, but they had evidently been those of my other self--the self who had lived and moved as husband of that woman who called herself Mrs Heaton.

”Tell me,” I said, addressing Gedge again, ”has my married life been a happy one?”

He looked at me inquiringly.

”Tell me the truth,” I urged. ”Don't conceal anything from me, for I intend to get at the bottom of this mystery.”

”Well,” he said, with considerable hesitation, ”scarcely what one might call happy, I think.”

”Ah, I understand,” I said. ”I know from your tone that you sympathise with me, Gedge.”

He nodded without replying. Strange that I had never known this man until an hour ago, and yet I had grown so confidential with him. He seemed to be the only person who could present to me the plain truth.

Those six lost years were utterly puzzling. I was as one returned from the grave to find his world vanished, and all things changed.

I tried to reflect, to see some ray of light through the darkness of that lost period, but to me it seemed utterly non-existent. Those years, if I had really lived them, had melted away and left not a trace behind. The events of my life prior to that eventful night when I had dined at The Boltons had no affinity to those of the present. I had ceased to be my old self, and by some inexplicable transition, mysterious and unheard of, I had, while retaining my name, become an entirely different man.

Six precious years of golden youth had vanished in a single night. All my ideals, all my love, all my hope, nay, my very personality, had been swept away and effaced for ever.

”Have I often visited Heaton--my own place?” I inquired, turning suddenly to Gedge.

”Not since your marriage, I believe,” he answered. ”You have always entertained some curious dislike towards the place. I went up there once to transact some business with your agent, and thought it a nice, charming old house.”

”Ay, and so it is,” I sighed, remembering the youthful days I had spent there long ago. All the year round was suns.h.i.+ne then, with the most ravis.h.i.+ng snow-drifts in winter, and ice that sparkled in the sun so brilliantly that it seemed almost as jolly and frolicsome as the sunniest of sunlit streams, dancing and s.h.i.+mmering over the pebbles all through the cloudless summer. Did it ever rain in those old days long ago? Why, yes; and what splendid times I used to have on those occasions--toffee-making in the schoolroom, or watching old Dixon, the gamekeeper, cutting gun-wads in the harness-room.