Her mouth quivered. He sat down by her on the sofa. "Must you tell me now?" he asked, smiling. "Do you really think it matters?" "Yes--it does matter," she answered, tremulously, pressing her folded hands against her breast. "It's something I ought to have told you before you married me--but indeed, indeed I didn't know how dreadful it was--I didn't think it would happen again." He was puzzled a moment, then spoke, still smiling: "I suppose you mean the sleep-walking. Well, darling, it is a bit creepy, I admit, but I shall get used to it, if you won't do it too often." "Did I really walk?" she asked--and a look of horror was growing on her face. "Ah! I wasn't sure. No--it's not that--it is--oh, don't think me mad, Ian!" "Tell me, dearest. I promise I won't." "I've not been here at all since you've been living in this house. I've not seen you, my own precious husband, since I went to sleep in Switzerland, at the Hotel du Chalet--don't you remember--when we had been that long walk up to the glacier and I was so tired?" Stewart was exceedingly startled. He paused, and then said, very gently but very firmly: "That's nonsense, dearest. You have been here, you've been with me all the time." "Ah! You think so, but it was not _I_--no, don't interrupt me--I mean to tell you, I must, but I can't if you interrupt me. It was awfully wrong of me not to tell you before; but I tried to, and then I saw you wouldn't believe me. Do you remember a dinner-party at the Fletchers', the autumn before we were engaged--when Cousin David had just bought that picture?" "That portrait of Lady Hammerton, which is so like you? Yes, I remember it perfectly." "You know I wanted my First so much and I had been working too hard, and then I was told that evening that you had said I couldn't get it--" "Silly me!" "And I felt certain you didn't love me--" "Silly you!" "Don't interrupt me, please. And I wasn't well, and I cried and cried and I couldn't leave off, and then I allowed Tims to hypnotize me. We both knew she had no business to do it, it was wrong of us, of course, but we couldn't possibly guess what would happen. I went to sleep, and so far as I knew I never woke again for more than six months, not till the Schools were over." "But, my darling, I skated with you constantly in the Christmas Vacation, and took your work through the Term. I assure you that you were quite awake then." "I remember nothing about it. All I know is that some one got my First for me." "But, Mildred--" "Why do you call me Mildred? That's what they called me when I woke up last time; but my own name's Milly." Stewart rose and paced the room, then came back. "It's simply a case of collapse of memory, dear. It's very trying, but don't let's be fanciful about it."