"What!" she wailed. "You--you can't really stand there and coolly tell me that you don't know me?" "I certainly assert, madam, that I have absolutely no knowledge whatever of whom you may be," I said with some dignity. "Is your brain so affected, then, that you actually fail to recognise me--Mary, your wife!" "You!" I gasped, glaring at her, dumbfounded. "You, my wife! Impossible!" CHAPTER NINETEEN. MY UNKNOWN WIFE'S STORY. "My dear Wilford!" exclaimed the thin-faced, angular woman. "I really think you must have taken leave of your senses." "My dear madam," I cried excitedly, "I haven't the slightest notion of your name. To the best of my knowledge, I've never had the pleasure of meeting you before this moment. Yet you have the boldness to assert that you are my wife! The thing is absolutely preposterous!" I laughed cynically. "You must be mad to talk like this!" the woman answered with some asperity. "I tell you that I'm not mad, madam," I protested, "and further, I declare that I have never married." "What rubbish you talk!" she said. "This accident to your head has evidently affected your intellect. You must rest, as Doctor Britten has ordered." "The doddering old idiot thinks, like yourself, that I'm not quite responsible for my actions," I laughed. "Well, we shall see." "If you were in your right senses you would never deny that I am your wife," answered the overdressed woman. "The thing's too absurd." "My dear madam," I cried, growing angry, "your allegations are utterly ridiculous, to say the least. All this is either some confounded conspiracy, or else you mistake me for somebody else. I tell you that I am Wilford Heaton, of Essex Street, Strand, a bachelor who has neither thought nor inclination of marrying." "And I tell you that you are Wilford Heaton, my husband, and owner of this house," she answered, her face growing redder with excitement. The situation was certainly stranger than any other in which a man could possibly be placed. That it was no dream, but a stern reality, was entirely plain. I glanced around the comfortable library, and saw there evidences of wealth and refinement, while through the window beyond my gaze fell upon the wide park sloping away to a large lake glistening in the sunshine, and through the trees beyond could be seen a distant glimpse of the blue waters of the English Channel. I stood utterly nonplussed by the startling declaration of this artificial-looking person, who aped youth so ridiculously, and yet spoke with such an air of confidence and determination. "And you actually expect me to believe this absurd story of yours, that I am your husband, when only last night I dined at The Boltons, and was then a bachelor? Besides, madam," I added with a touch of sarcasm, for I confess that my anger was now thoroughly aroused, "I think the--well, the difference in our ages is sufficient to convince any one that--"