"I have completely forgotten it." "Then I was sorry, and said I would have come off sooner if I had known it was a foot. You _must_ remember that?" The man half smiled as he shook a slow-disclaiming head--one that would have remembered so gladly, if it could. "Then," continues Sally, "I saw your thumb-ring for rheumatism." "My thumb-ring!" He presses his fingers over his closed eyes, as though to give Memory a better chance by shutting off the visible present, then withdraws them. "No, I remember no ring at all." "How extraordinary!" "I remember a violent concussion _somewhere_--I can't say where--and then finding myself in a cab, trying to speak to a lady whose face seemed familiar to me, but who she could be I had not the slightest idea. Then I tried to get out of the cab, and found I could not move--or hardly." "Look at mamma again! Here she is, come." For Mrs. Nightingale has come into the room, looking white. "Yes, mother dear, I have. Quite full up to the brim. Only it isn't ready to pour yet." This last concerns the tea. Mrs. Nightingale moves round behind the tea-maker, and comes full-face in front of her guest. One might have fancied that the hand that held the pocket-handkerchief that caused the smell of eau-de-Cologne that came in with her was tremulous. But then that very eau-de-Cologne was eloquent about the recent effect of the heat. Of course, she was a little upset. Nothing strikes either the doctor or Mademoiselle Sally as abnormal or extraordinary. The latter resumes: "Surely, sir! Oh, you must, you _must_ remember about the name Nightingale?" "This young gentleman said it just now. _Your_ name, madame?" "Certainly, my name," says the lady addressed. But Sally distinguishes: "Yes, but I didn't mean that. I meant when I took the ring from you, and was to pay for it. Sixpence. And you had no change for half-a-crown. And then I gave you my mother's card to send it to us here. One-and-elevenpence, because of the postage. Why, surely you can remember that!" She cannot bring herself to believe him. Dr. Vereker does, though, and tells him not to try recollecting; he will only put himself back. "Take the tea and wait a bit," is the doctor's advice. For Miss Sally is transmitting a cup of tea with studied equilibrium. He receives it absently, leaving it on the table. "I do not know if you will know what I mean," he says, "but I have a sort of feeling of--of being frightened; for I have been trying to remember things, and I find I can remember almost nothing. Perhaps I should say I cannot remember _at all_--can't do any recollecting, if you understand." Every one can understand--at least, each says so. Sally goes on, half _sotto voce_: "You can recollect your own name, I suppose?" She speaks half-way between soliloquy and dialogue. The doctor throws in counsel, aside, for precaution. "You'll only make matters worse, like that. Better leave him quite alone."