Amnesiacs -- Fiction; New York (State) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Trials -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Squeezing out a sponge, Colter stood there without answering. He looked
at the dripping sponge so dazedly that Sard thought he had not heard.
"You know how to manage a canoe?" she asked. "We could get along with
one boat, going up-stream toward the big race above West Morris. Why,
Colter, what is the matter?"
"Going up-stream in a boat," repeated Colter thickly. "That's all over;
going up a woodland stream in a boat. No--coming down--with him--dead!"
The man did not look at her. "Where--where was it?" he asked. He stood
clenching his hands, his eyes staring; he turned, not seeing the girl,
though his deep fire-blue eyes burnt into hers. "Where was it?" he
asked tensely.
The thing was so strange in its utter irrelevance that Sard, though
she had seen him like this before, could hardly keep from rubbing her
eyes. As in a dream she saw Colter's hand go out; it was as if he tried
to push something away. "A boat," he muttered, "a boat and a stream
that was walled with vines. Wait--wait!" He breathed rapidly, his head
lifted as if he desperately tried to recall something; then he suddenly
turned his eyes on the girl, shook his head and groaned. He passed his
hand over his eyes and looked at her, smiling very gently.
"I couldn't get it," he said simply, half apologetically; "sometimes a
little of it comes in parts. Did I startle you?" he asked with a look
of concern.
"No--no----" she stammered. He had been like that the day she had found
him sitting with his feet in the gutter muttering to himself. She
waited with self-possession that surprised her, then asked quietly,
"Was it something you wanted to tell me, something that you remembered?"
The man looked at her, his eyes now clear and rational. "No," gently,
"I did not remember. You see that is my trouble, I do not know. I can
remember nothing, nothing connected, not even who I am."
"You do not know who you are?" asked the girl awed. "Isn't there a book
or a watch or something with your name?"
But he seemed not to hear her. He stood there lost in thought; finally,
with a sigh, he seemed to give it up and turned to her. "What time
shall I have the car around, Miss Bogart?"
"At four." The girl watched him for a moment and she said, "We wanted
you to go with us. We wanted you to take charge of the expedition." She
was a little uncertain.
"Certainly, Miss Sard." Colter said it gravely, cheerfully, with the
machine-like acquiescence of the trained gardener or chauffeur. Sard
turned and walked away, and he as quietly went back to his work, but
through the young being, in that strange phase of a woman's mind and
body that we call "intuition," went the baffling cadence of a man's
voice, a cadence of doubt, terror and then the patient and controlled,
"Very well, Miss Sard."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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