‘Yes, Winnie,’ I said; ’you are going to tell me how, and where, and when you were restored to life—­regained your consciousness, I mean—­unless it will too deeply agitate you to tell me.’

’It would not agitate me in the least, Henry, to tell you all about it.  But it is a long story, and this seems a strange place in which to tell it, surrounded by these glorious peaks and covered by this roof of sunrise.  But do you tell me all about yourself, all about your illness, which seems to have been a dreadful one.’

My story, indeed!  What was there in my story that I could or dare tell her?  My story would have to be all about herself, and the tragedy of the supposed curse, and the terrible seizures from which she had recovered, and of which she must never know.  I set to work to persuade her to tell me all she knew.

At last she yielded, and said, ’Well, I awoke as from a deep sleep, and found myself lying on a couch, with a man’s face bending over mine.  I could not help exclaiming, “Henry!’”

‘Then did he resemble me?’ I asked.

’Only in this—­that in his eyes there was the expression which has always appealed to me more than any other expression, whether in human eyes or in the eyes of animals.  I mean the pleading, yearning expression of loneliness that there was in your eyes when they were the eyes of a little, lame boy who could not get up the gangways without me.’

‘Ah, the egotism of love!’ I exclaimed.  ’You mean, Winnie, that expression which my unlucky eyes had lost when we met upon the sands after our childhood was passed.’

‘But which love,’ said she, ’love of Winnie, sorrow for the loss of Winnie, have brought back, increased a thousandfold, till it gives me pain and yet a delicious pain to look into them.  Oh, Henry, I can’t go on; I really can’t, if you look—­’

She burst into tears.

When she got calmer she proceeded.

’It was only in the expression of your eyes that he resembled you.  He was much older, and wore spectacles.  He, on his part, gave a start when he looked into my eyes.  It seemed to me that he had been expecting to see something in them which he did not find there, and was a little disappointed.  I then heard voices in the room, which was evidently, from the sound of the voices, a large room, and I looked round.  I saw that there was another couch close to mine, but nearly hidden from view by a large screen between the two couches.  Evidently a woman was lying on the other couch, for I could see her feet; she was a tall woman, for her feet reached out much beyond my own.’

‘Good heavens, Winnie,’ I exclaimed, ’what on earth is coming?  But I promised not to interrupt you.  Pray go on, I am all impatience.’

’Well, at the sound of the voices the gentleman started, and seemed much alarmed—­alarmed on my account, I thought.

’I then heard a voice say, “A most successful experiment.  Look at the face of this other patient, and see the expression on it.”