‘I have an idea!’ said Mr. McEwan; ‘why must the lady have been blown from a port at all? And why should the boat in which she was discovered _necessarily_ have been a pleasure-boat? Who’s to say that she is not the sole survivor of some disastrous shipwreck? In that case she may have been coming home from the other side of the world. There’s more happened to her, Captain Ladmore,’ said he, speaking with his eyes fixed upon me, ‘than is to be occasioned by misadventure during a pleasure cruise.’ ‘Cannot you describe the boat?’ said the captain to me. ‘The Frenchman told me that she was an open boat and that she had two masts,’ I answered. ‘Did they notice no more of her than that?’ ‘No. She was entangled with the rigging and drove along with the brig for a short distance. She broke away after I had been taken out of her, and the Frenchman let her go. It was a little before daybreak, and there was scarcely any light to see by.’ ‘You remember all that!’ exclaimed Mr. McEwan. ‘I remember everything that the Frenchman told me,’ I answered; ‘and I can remember everything that has happened from the hour of my returning to consciousness on board the brig.’ ‘Would not a ship’s quarter-boat have two masts, captain?’ said Mr. McEwan. ‘Ye must know it is my theory that ’tis a case of shipwreck, and that this lady may be the only survivor. Who can tell?’ ‘I have known a ship’s long-boat with two masts,’ answered Captain Ladmore, ‘but I never heard of a quarter-boat so rigged.’ ‘Then the boat that the Frenchman fell in with may have been a long-boat,’ said the surgeon. ‘I wish to find out all about you,’ said the captain gravely and quietly, glancing at my bare hands and then running his eyes over my dress, ‘that I may be able to send you home. A home you must have--but where? Cannot you tell me that it is in England?’ I looked at him, and my swimming eyes sank. I could not speak. ‘This is sad indeed,’ said he. ‘Did you ever hear of so complete a failure of memory, McEwan?’ ‘Oh yes,’ answered the surgeon. ‘I’ll show you fifty examples of utter failure in a book on the brain which I have in my cabin, and I can give you half a dozen instances at least out of my own experience. At the same time,’ he continued, speaking as though I were not present, ‘this case is peculiar and impressive. But I should regard it as hopeful on the whole because, ye see, there’s the capacity of recollecting everything on this side of whatever it may be that occasioned the loss.’ ‘Did the Frenchman find nothing in the boat?’ asked the captain gently. ‘Nothing,’ I replied, ‘except a straw hat that was crushed by the fall of the mast, and stained by my wounds.’ ‘It was your hat?’ ‘They thought so,’ I answered. ‘Nothing more?’ said he, ‘merely a straw hat? But then to be sure it was in the dark of the morning, and they were able to see nothing more.’