His hand trembled, and he gazed at them with devouring eyes; but no other idea was conveyed to him by Mr. Sherman’s assurance than the bare fact that they were his property. He could not remember having purchased or owned them. “It’s only a question of time, my man,” said Captain Duff, who stood by looking on at these strange ineffectual experiments. No mere effort of imagination can do justice to Holdsworth’s suffering. The feeling that he _ought_ to remember, coupled with his incapacity and the sense of the past holding, perhaps, memories of vital consequence to him to recall, created a mental torture more afflicting than it is in the power of any man, who has not suffered in this way, to conceive. Loss of memory, even in trifling matters, always partakes of the nature of pain. The fruitless effort to recall a name, a date, begets uneasiness, and is soon converted into a positive torment. But figure your mind haunted with a sense of the significance of the past, not one faintest glimpse of which it is permitted to you to obtain. Figure yourself groping in a dense gloom, saying: “There are things here which I _feel_ are precious to me, which are of deep consequence to my happiness and to the happiness of others, but I cannot recall their names or their aspect!” and meanwhile the subtlest of your instincts is driving you mad with importunities to prosecute your search and lay the store of memory open to the light! This is worse than blindness; it is death in life. The years that you have lived are cut away from your existence, and with them all the precious accumulations of experience--love, sorrow, and thought itself. God preserve us all from such an affliction! CHAPTER XVI. SAILORS’ SYMPATHY. The “Jessie Maxwell” was bound for Sydney, New South Wales, freighted with what is called a general cargo--pianos, nails, scents, and such matters. She carried only one passenger, Mr. Sherman, whose cabin was given him as a favour by Captain Duff, who partly owned the barque, and who had a great friendship for the gentleman, whose house he visited in Sydney. Mr. Sherman was a merchant, doing business in wool, tallow, and other Australian exports, and had been visiting London and Glasgow for agents and consignees, and also to benefit his health by a sea voyage. He was one of the most humane men in the colony, very well to do, but prosperous by his own efforts. He had a commanding figure, a large, mild, intellectual eye, and the kindliest smile that ever graced the human face. The strong benevolence of his character made his manner singularly fascinating; and before Holdsworth had known him a fortnight, he was bound to him by a feeling of affection, which, though it might have owed something of its depth to gratitude, must have existed in a complete form, without reference to the great kindness that had been shown him.