“Of course I knew nothing about all this. I was lying dangerously ill of brain fever all the while, not knowing where I was, or what was happening. When we reached Melbourne at last, and I was conveyed to their luxurious house on the outskirts of the town, I was still in the same state, relapse following relapse, every time till I gained a little ground, till for months my life was despaired of. I was either raving in delirium, or lying in a sort of unconscious stupor, and without all the skill and care lavished upon me, I suppose I must have died. But I did not die. Gradually, very gradually, the fever abated, and I began to come to myself: that is to say, I began to know the faces around me and to recognise my surroundings; but for myself, I knew no more who I was, nor whence I had come, than the infant just born into the world. My memory had gone, had been wiped clean away; I had no idea of my own identity, no recollection of the past. The very effort to remember brought on such pain and distress that I was imperatively commanded to relinquish the attempt. Gradually some things came back to my mind: I could read, write, understand the foreign tongues I had mastered, and the sciences I had studied in past days. As my health slowly improved this kind of knowledge came back spontaneously and without effort; but my personal history was as a blank wall, against which I flung myself in vain. It would yield to no efforts of mine. Distressed and confused, I was obliged to give up, and wait with what patience I might for the realisation of the hope held out cheerfully by the clever doctor who attended me. He maintained that if I would but have patience, some strong association of ideas would some day bring all back in a flash, and meantime all I had to do was to get strong and well, so as to be ready for action when that day should come. I was restless sometimes, but less so than one would fancy, for the blank was too complete to be distressing. My good friends and protectors were unspeakably kind and good, and did everything in their power to ensure my mental and physical well-being; I recovered my health rapidly, soon my memory was to come back too.” Randolph passed his hand across his eyes. No one spoke, every eye was fixed upon his face. “It did so very strangely: it was one hot afternoon in November—our summer, you know”—he named the date and the hour, and Monica heard it with a sudden thrill. Allowing for the discrepancy of time, it was during the moments that she watched by Conrad Fitzgerald’s dying bed that her husband’s memory was given back to him.