But, MY GOD!  Willis did not know me!

An instant has shown me Willis’s face, his form, his red hair, as he attacked me at the close of the day at second Manassas!  That look of relenting, when his powerful arm refused to strike me; that look of astonishment,—­all now show that, in the supreme moment preceding death, he knew my face and was thunderstruck to find me a Confederate!

Willis had never known me as a Confederate; then why should the Doctor have known me as such?

Yet I am sure that Dr. Khayme has been to me much nearer than Willis ever was, and much more important to my life.  And, besides, I feel that Willis could have been more easily deceived.  I know that Willis did not know me, but the Doctor knew me, for he helped me return to the Confederates.

...  Poor Willis! ... he refused to strike! ...

But why did Willis relent?  Even after he knew that I was a rebel, he had refused to strike!  Refused to strike a traitor?  Why?  Why?

I fear for my reason....

* * * * *

I must cease to follow these horrible thoughts.  I must try another line.  So far as I know, I have never given the Confederates the information gained from the Yankees:  why?  Because I could not.  My wound had caused me to forget.  Now, had the Doctor been able to read the future?  If he had such power, his course in regard to me could be understood.  He knew that I should become unable to reveal anything to injure his cause, therefore he was willing to help me return to the Confederate army.  There, at last, was a third alternative, but a bare possibility only.  Was it even that?

To assume that the Doctor, even with all his wonderful insight, knew what would become of me, was nonsense.  To suppose he could read the future was hardly less violent than to suppose he could control the future.  Mind is powerful, but there are limits.  What are the limits?  Had not the Doctor spoken to me of this very subject?  He had reasoned against there being limits to the power of the mind ... notwithstanding my resistance to the thought I still think it; I am still thinking of the possibility that the Doctor controlled me, and caused me to lose the past in order that thus he might not be accessory to a betrayal of his own cause.

This view explains—­but how can I grant the impossible?  Yet how can I place a limit to the power of mind?  God is mind ... and if there is a man on earth who can do such miracles, that man is Dr. Khayme.

But, another thought—­why should the Doctor have been willing for me to suffer so?  If he knew that I should be hurt—­and that I should endure mortification—­and be without friends—­and long hopeless of all good—­why should he do me such injury?  Would it not have been better for me to remain in the Union army?  I could not see any reason for his subjecting me to so bitter an experience—­but wait—­did he not contend that every human being must go through an infinity of experience?  That being true—­or true to his thought—­he might be just in causing me to endure what I have endured.