She shut her eyes again at that.  Possibly the young doctor’s expression was rather more un-professionally eloquent than he knew.

“Tired?” he asked.

“Not much—­tired of wondering.  Maybe my name isn’t Ruth at all.”

“Maybe it isn’t.  But it is a name anyway, and you may as well use it for the present until you can find your own.  I think Ruth Annersley is a pretty name myself,” added the young doctor seriously.  “I like it.”

“Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley,” corrected the girl.  “That is rather pretty too.”

Larry agreed somewhat less enthusiastically.

Ruth lifted her hand and fell to twisting the wedding ring which was very loose on her thin little finger.

“Think of being married and not knowing what your husband looks like.  Poor Geoffrey Annersley!  I wonder if he cares a great deal for me.”

“It is quite possible,” said Larry Holiday grimly.

He had taken an absurd dislike to the very name of Geoffrey Annersley.  Why didn’t the man appear and claim his wife?  Practically every paper from the Atlantic to the Pacific had advertised for him.  If he was any good and wanted to find his wife he would be half crazy looking for her by this time.  He must have seen the newspaper notices.  There was something queer about this Geoffrey Annersley.  Larry Holiday detested him cordially.

“You don’t suppose he was killed in the wreck, do you?” Ruth’s mind worked on, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

“You were traveling alone.  Your chair was near mine.  I noticed you because I thought—­” He broke off abruptly.

“Thought what?”

“That you were the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life,” he admitted.  “I wanted to speak to you.  Two or three times I was on the verge of it but I never could quite get up the courage.  I’m not much good at starting conversations with girls.  My kid brother, Ted, has the monopoly of that sort of thing in my family.”

“Oh, if you only had,” she sighed.  “Maybe I would have told you something about myself and where I was going when I got to New York.”

“I wish I had,” regretted Larry.  “Confound my shyness!  I don’t see why anybody ever let you travel alone from San Francisco to New York anyway,” he added.  “Your Geoffrey ought to have taken better care of you.”

“Maybe I haven’t a Geoffrey.  The fact that there was an envelope in my bag addressed to Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley doesn’t prove that I am Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley.”

“No, still there is the ring.”  Larry frowned thoughtfully.  “If you aren’t Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley you must be Mrs. Somebody Else, I suppose.  And the locket says Ruth from Geoffrey.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose I am Mrs. Geoffrey Annersley.  It seems as if I must be.  But why can’t I remember?  It seems as if any one would remember the man she was married to—­as if one couldn’t forget that, no matter what happened.  But if there is a Geoffrey Annersley why doesn’t he come and get me and make me remember him?”