Chapter 24 - Page 2

whole frame of mind correctly and wonderfully.

"Well, I went back to Babbicombe," Jack continued, "and, lest my
heart should break for want of human sympathy, I confided every word
of my terrible story to Elsie. Elsie can trust me; and Elsie
believed me. Gradually, as you began to recover, I realised the
soundness of your doctor's idea that you should be allowed to come
back to yourself by re-education from the very beginning, without
any too early intrusion of reminiscences from your previous life to
confuse and disturb you. But I couldn't go on with my profession,
all the same, while I waited. I couldn't attend as I ought to my
patients' wants and ailments: I was too concentrated upon you: the
strain was too great upon me. So I threw up my practice, came out to
Canada, bought a bit of land, and began farming here, and seeing a
few patients now and again locally, just to fill up my time with. I
felt confident in the end you would recover and remember me. I felt
confident you would come to yourself and marry me. But still, it was
very long work waiting. Every month, Elsie got news indirectly from
Minnie Moore or someone of your state of health; and I intended to
go back and try to see you as soon as ever you were in a condition
to bear the shock of re-living your previous life again.

"Unfortunately, however, the police got hold of YOU before I could
carry my plan into execution. As soon as I heard that, I made up my
mind at once to go home by the first mail and break it all gently to
you. So Elsie and I started for Quebec, meaning to sail by the
Dominion steamer for England. But at the hotel at Quebec we saw the
telegrams announcing that you were then on your way out to Canada.
Well, of course we didn't feel sure whether you came as a friend or
an enemy. We were certain it was to seek me out you were coming to
America; but whether you remembered me still and still loved me, or
whether you'd found out some stray clue to the missing man, and were
anxious to hunt me down as your father's murderer, we hadn't the
slightest conception. So under those circumstances, we thought it
best not to meet you ourselves at the steamer, or to reveal our
identity too soon, for fear of a catastrophe. I knew it would be
better to wait and watch--to gain your confidence, if possible--in
any case, to find out how you were affected on first seeing us and
talking with us.

"Well then, as the time came on for the Sarmatian to arrive, it
began to strike me by degrees that all Quebec was agog with
curiosity to see you. I dared not go down to meet you at the quay
myself; but the Chief Constable of Quebec, Major Tascherel, was an
old friend and fellow-officer of my father's; and when I explained