The little brig groaned and pitched and tossed; the skylight glass overhead lay in panes of ebony, and duskily and gleamingly reflected the figures of the two domino players; through the open hatch that conducted to the deck came the roaring and hissing noise of conflicting waters and the whistling of the wind in the rigging. It was raining hard; the rain-drops lashed the glass of the skylight. I gazed at the two men, but I did not know that I watched them. All the while I was asking myself, What can the letters ‘A. C.’ stand for? And I tried to recollect the names of women, but in vain. Then I said to myself, Am I English, or is it likely that the young Frenchman was right when he said that I might be a German who spoke English with a perfect accent, and who now, by some caprice of the reason cruelly afflicted by suffering, is compelled to speak in the English tongue, forgetting her own? Many extraordinary thoughts or fancies of this kind visited me as I lay watching those two domino players. Imagine yourself without memory, not merely unable to recollect in this or in that direction: no. But imagine your mind without power to suggest a single idea to you, to submit a single image to you that had existence previous to an hour comparatively recent! At nine o’clock I withdrew to my berth. By this hour the two men had finished with their dominos. Alphonse replaced the mattress and bolster in my sleeping-shelf, and whilst he was thus occupied I said to him: ‘I feel a strange horror upon me to-night. There is a sense of loneliness in me that seems to be breaking my heart.’ ‘Madame must cheer up. She will find her memory at Toulon.’ ‘My mind is hopelessly dark and silent. I have been all this evening trying to think, and the struggle has made me ill.’ ‘I will fetch you some brandy and water.’ ‘No, thank you. What you gave me half an hour ago is sufficient. It is not that--I dread the darkness of the long night--the fearful solitude--oh, the fearful solitude! Will not Captain Regnier permit me to burn a light.’ ‘He is timid, and very properly timid,’ answered Alphonse. ‘Conceive a fire breaking out. A fire at sea, and on such a night as this!’ He shuddered, and then looked up at the strange globular lamp that depended from the centre of the ceiling of my cabin. We conversed with the door open, and the lamp that burned in the living room shed a faint light upon the interior of my berth. ‘But it _is_ lonely,’ the young Frenchman continued in a voice of pity. ‘I dare say my uncle will not mind--at all events he need not know.’ He raised his hand to the lamp, and with a twist removed the metal bowl or compartment for the oil and mesh out of the globe. ‘I will fill this, and bring it back to you,’ said he.