Chapter 20

THE STRANGER FROM THE SEA

I held his hand tight. It was so pleasant to know I could love him
now with a clear conscience, even if I had to give myself up to the
police to-morrow. And indeed, being a woman, I didn't really much
care whether they took me or not, if only I could love Jack, and
know Jack loved me.

"You must tell me everything--this minute--Jack," I said, clinging
to him like a child. "I can't bear this suspense. Begin telling me
at once. You'll do me more harm than good if you keep me waiting any
longer."

Jack took instinctively a medical view of the situation.

"So I think, my child," he said, looking lovingly at me. "Your
nerves are on the rack, and will be the better for unstringing. Oh,
Una, it's such a comfort that you know at last who I am! It's such a
comfort that I'm able to talk to you to-day just as we two used to
talk four years ago in Devonshire!"

"Did I love you then, Jack?" I whispered, nestling still closer to
him, in spite of my horror. Or rather, my very horror made me feel
more acutely than ever the need for protection. I was no longer
alone in the world. I had a man to support me.

"You told me so, darling," he answered, smoothing my hair with his
hand. "Have you forgotten all about it? Doesn't even that come back?
Can't you remember it now, when I've told you who I am and how it
all happened?"

I shook my head.

"All cloudy still," I replied, vaguely. "Some dim sense of
familiarity, perhaps,--as when people say they have a feeling of
having lived all this over somewhere else before,--but nothing more
certain, nothing more definite."

"Then I must begin at the beginning," Jack answered, bracing himself
for his hard task, "and reconstruct your whole life for you, as far
as I know it, from your very childhood. I'm particularly anxious you
should not merely be TOLD what took place, but should remember the
past. There are gaps in my own knowledge I want you to eke out.
There are places I want you to help me myself over. And besides,
it'll be more satisfactory to yourself to remember than to be told
it."

I leaned back, almost exhausted. Incredible as it may seem to you,
in spite of that awful photograph, I couldn't really believe even so
I had killed my father. And yet I knew very well now that Jack, at
least, hadn't done it. That was almost enough. But not quite. My
head swam round in terror. I waited and longed for Jack to explain
the whole thing to me.

"You remember," he said, watching me close, "that when you lived as
a very little girl in Australia you had a papa who seems different