He pushed open the door, and came in without any surprise in his face or greeting on his tongue; came in and went straight to the fire, and sat down in a chair before it, just as though he had not been gone away an hour--he who had once been David Dundyke. Was it David Dundyke still--_was_ it? He looked thin and shabby, and his hair was cut close to his head, and he was altogether altered. Mrs. Dundyke was gazing at him with a fixed, unnatural stare, like one who has been seized with catalepsy. He saw her standing there, and turned his head, looking at her for a full minute. "Betsey!" She went forward then; it _was_ her husband, and in life. What the mystery could have been she did not know yet--did not glance at in that wild moment--but she fell down at his knees and clasped him to her, and wept delirious tears of joy and agony. It seemed--when the meeting was over, and the marvelling servants had shaken hands with him, and he had been refreshed with dinner, and the time came for questions--that he could not explain much of the mystery either. He had evidently undergone some great change, physically and mentally, and it had left him the wreck of what he was, with his faculties impaired, and a hesitating speech. More especially impaired in memory. He could recollect so little of the past; indeed, their sojourn at the hotel at Geneva seemed to have gone from his mind altogether. Mrs. Dundyke saw that he must have had some sort of brain attack; but, what, she could not tell. "David, where have you been all this while?" she said, soothingly, as he lay on the sofa she had drawn to the fire, and she sat on a stool beneath and clasped his hand. "All this while? I came back directly." She paused. "Came back from where?" "From the bed." "The bed!" she repeated; and her heart beat with a sick faintness as she felt, for the twentieth time, that henceforth he could only be questioned as a child. "From the bed you lay in when you were ill?" "Yes." "Were you ill long?" "No. I lay in it after I got well: my head and my legs were not strong. They turned. It was the bed in the kitchen with the large white pillows. They slept in the back room." "Who did?" "Paul and Marie. She's his wife." "Did they take care of you?" "Yes, they took care of me. Little Paul used to fetch the water. He's seven." "Do you remember----" (she spoke the words with trembling, lest the name should excite him) "Mr. Hardcastle?" It did in some degree. He lay looking at his wife, his face and thoughts working. "Hardcastle! It was him that--that--was with me when I fell down." "Where did you fall?" she asked, as quietly as she could. "In the sun. We walked a long, long way, and he gave me something to drink out of a bottle, and I was giddy, and he told me to go to sleep." "Did he stay with you?" Mr. Dundyke stared as though he did not understand the question.