I could not help watching him anxiously, for after all he had just gone through an experience which happens to but one man in a million. It seemed to me as though I dimly understood the strange processes through which his brain must have gone in order to bring about the present state of things. During the earlier part of the day, all his past had been a blank, now much of it was real to him. He had been like a man with his life cut in two, one half being unknown to him; and now, as if by a miracle, that half was restored. I wondered how he felt. I feared he would not be able to stand the shock, and that he would suffer a terrible reaction afterwards. 'You are all right, aren't you, old man?' I said. 'You--you don't feel ill or anything of that sort?' 'Right as a skylark,' he said gaily, 'except that I am a bit tired.' 'You are sure, Jack, my darling?' said his mother, looking at him anxiously. 'Sure there is nothing we can do for you? Oh, I wish we were home!' 'Do you?' he said. 'I am not sure I agree with you.' 'Oh, but I do. You see, we don't know the Bolivicks very well, and--and--we didn't come expecting anything like this, did we, John?' 'Anything like this!' ejaculated Lord Carbis, 'anything like this! Why--why,--Jack, my boy!'--and he rubbed his eyes vigorously. 'I am sure Sir Thomas and Lady Bolivick are only too glad to have you here,' I said, 'and nothing will be regarded as a trouble. Besides, I am not sure that your son does not want to be here. But tell me, old fellow, don't you think you ought to get to bed?' A look of fear came into his eyes. 'No, not yet, not yet,' he said. 'I think I am afraid to go to sleep; afraid lest when I wake up I shall find that great black cloud lying at the back of my mind again.' 'Then wouldn't it be wise to send for a doctor? The man who lives here is not at all a bad chap;--you know that.' Again he laughed gaily. 'I want no doctor. The little mother is all the doctor I want.' Lady Carbis leant over him and kissed him, just as I have seen young mothers kiss their firstborn babies. 'I will sit by your bed all the night, my darling,' she said, 'and no harm shall come to you while you are asleep.' 'But I don't want to sleep just yet,' went on Edgecumbe. 'I feel as though I must tell you all I can tell you, for fear,--that is, suppose when I wake the old black cloud is there? I--I want you to know things'; and there was a look in his eyes which suggested that wistful expression I had noticed at Plymouth Harbour when we first met. 'You felt something was going to happen, you know,' I said.