"Oh, you're tiresome!... In plain English, then: are you suggesting that when he came to me this morning, the only reason he didn't mention my note was that he had forgotten all about it in the night?" I shrugged my shoulders. It all happened in the night. That was why he went to bed early. That was why I had given him a spirit-kettle for tea--or shaving. Something might have happened during the night of which she spoke. Something might be happening in my house at that very moment. "_Do_ you mean his memory's cracking up?" she demanded. "I think we could find out." "How?" "By getting him to talk about his book. To write that book he must draw on both his memories, experiences, or whatever you like to call it. That's his whole equipment for it--two conscious experiences, with himself balanced in the middle making the most of both. We might find out that way." "Oh, there's a shorter way than that," she said. "What?" "To ask him." I shrugged my shoulders again. "Yes...." And then I took her entirely off her guard. Outside the pink had turned to peach, and the amber star had become a diamond. Suddenly, as they do, the trout had ceased to rise, and a single short squawk came from the moorhens' nest. I rose and stood before her. "Julia," I said without warning, "_would_ you marry him?" She might not have heard. I thought she was never going to reply. She drew the shawl a little more closely about her shoulders, and I crossed the room and closed the windows. Then I returned to my place in front of her. At last she spoke. "I suppose you may ask that," she said. "The answer is--Yes." "You've considered it?" "Yes." "Everything it would mean?" "Yes." "And you think you've--the right?" She stared at me. "The right?" "Yes, the right. Look at it this way. There's no doubt at all about one thing; he isn't the same man to-day, or at any rate he isn't in the same mood, that he was two days ago. He may be just deliberately putting his work aside for a day, or--he may be the other thing. He may be going on with his book on Monday morning--or he may be quite past it already. It makes a good deal of difference to you which of these two men he is." "It makes no difference." "Oh yes it does. In the one case you'd be simply his secretary, and things would be more or less as they were before. But for the other he wouldn't want a secretary. That mad book would be all over and done with. You saw him as he was to-day: one quick brilliant impression after another. That man might write a few vivid short stories, but never that appalling book.... Look here, Julia, I didn't want to tell you, because the whole idea gives me a shudder; but this is the way he explained it himself." And without any more ado I told her of his demonstration with the electric torch and of my own additions thereto.