’"A Welsh warbler,” he said, with a smile, “but who was the original of the impostor?”

’"Miss Dalrymple,” I said.

’"Miss Dalrymple, the writer!—­why I knew her years ago—­before you were born.”

’Our talk had been so lively that we had not noticed the passage of time, nor had we noticed that the clouds had been gathering for a summer shower.  Suddenly the rain fell heavily; although we ran to the house, we were quite wet by the time we got in.

’We found poor Mrs. Titwing in a great state of excitement on account of the rain, and also because the dinner had been waiting for nearly an hour.  That scamper in the rain, and the laughing and joking at our predicament, seemed to bring us closer together than anything else could have done.  Mr. D’Arcy told Mrs. Titwing to take me to my room to change my dress for dinner, and he seemed quite disappointed when I told him that I could eat no dinner, and would like to retire to my room for the night.  The fact was that the events of that wonderful day had exhausted all my powers; every nerve within me seemed crying out for sleep.

’I went to my room, dismissed Mrs. Titwing, and went to bed at once.  But no sooner had I got into bed than I began to perceive that, instead of sleep, a long wakeful night was before me.  Mr. D’Arcy’s story about finding me in a London studio took entire possession of my mind.  How did I get there?  Where had I been and what had been my adventures before I got there?  Why did the painter, in whose studio Mr. D’Arcy found me, believe that I had been super-naturally sent to him?  I shuddered as a thousand dreadful thoughts flowed into my mind.  “Mr. D’Arcy,” I said to myself, “must know more than he has told me.”  Then, of course, came thoughts about you.  I wondered why you had allowed me to drift away from you in this manner.  True, I was probably removed from Raxton immediately after my illness, when you were very ill, as I knew; but then you had recovered!’

VII

When Winifred reached this point in her story, I said,

’And so you wondered what had become of me from your last seeing me down to your waking up in Mr. D’Arcy’s house?’

‘Yes, yes, Henry.  Do tell me what you were doing all that time.’

As she said these words the whole tragedy of my life returned to me in one moment, and yet in that moment I lived over again every dreadful incident and every dreadful detail.  The spectacle on the sands, the search for her in North Wales, the meeting in the cottage, the frightful sight as she leapt away from me on Snowdon, the heart-breaking search for her among the mountains, the sound of her voice, singing by the theatre portico in the rain, the search for her in the hideous London streets, the scenes in the studios, the soul-blasting drama in Primrose Court—­all came upon me in such a succession of realities that the beautiful radiant creature now talking to me seemed impossible except as a figure in a dream.  And she was asking me to tell her what I had been doing during all these months of nightmare.  But I knew that I never could tell her, either now or at any future time.  I knew that to tell her would be to kill her.