How this astounding gap in my life had been produced was absolutely beyond explanation. I tried to account for it, but the reader will readily understand that the problem was, to me, utterly inexplicable. I, the victim of the treachery of that man Hickman, had fallen unconscious one night, and had awakened to discover that six whole years had elapsed, and that I had developed into an entirely different person. It was unaccountable, nay, incredible. I think I should have grown confidential towards Gedge were it not that he apparently treated me as one whose mind was wandering. He believed, and perhaps justly so, that my brain had been injured by the accidental blow. To him, of course, it seemed impossible that I, his master, should know nothing of my own affairs. The ludicrousness of the situation was to me entirely apparent, yet what could I do to avert it? By careful questions I endeavoured to obtain from him some facts regarding my past. "You told me," I said, "that I have many friends. Among them are there any persons named Anson?" "Anson?" he repeated reflectively. "No, I've never heard the name." "Or Hickman?" He shook his head. "I lived once in Essex Street, Strand," I said. "Have I been to those chambers during the time--the five years you have been in my service?" Never, to my knowledge. "Have I ever visited a house in The Boltons, at Kensington?" "I think not," he responded. "Curious! Very curious!" I observed, thinking deeply of the graceful, dark-eyed Mabel whom I had loved six years before, and who was now lost to me for ever. "Among my friends is there a man named Doyle?" I inquired, after a pause. "Doyle? Do you mean Mr Richard Doyle, the war correspondent?" "Certainly," I cried excitedly. "Is he back?" "He is one of your friends, and has often visited here," Gedge replied. "What is his address? I'll wire to him at once." "He's in Egypt. He left London last March, and has not yet returned." I drew a long breath. Dick had evidently recovered from fever in India, and was still my best friend, although I had had no knowledge of it. What, I wondered, had been my actions in those six years of unconsciousness? Mine were indeed strange thoughts at that moment. Of all that had been told me I was unable to account for anything. I stood stunned, confounded, petrified. For knowledge of what had transpired during those intervening years, or of my own career and actions during that period, I had to rely upon the statements of others. My mind during all that time had, it appeared, been a perfect blank, incapable of receiving any impression whatsoever.