Page:The Zeppelin Destroyer.djvu/138

 'I—I don't know,' was her blank reply. 'I can't tell you.'

'But surely you recollect something?' I urged eagerly. 'Those are not your own clothes that you are wearing. Where did you get them from?'

She looked quickly down at her jersey and at her skirt, and then raised her eyes to me in dismay. Apparently, for the first time, she now realized that she was dressed in some one else's clothes.

'That's curious!' she exclaimed, as though speaking to herself. 'That's very curious. That hat is not mine, either!'

'No, it isn't,' I said, handing it to her to examine, which she did critically.

Then, placing her hands idly upon her knees, she remained for a long time with brows knit in silence, apparently trying to recall the past.

'You lost your chatelaine—the one I gave you,' I said, hoping that the fact might, in some way, stir the chords of her blunted memory.

'My chatelaine!' she repeated, looking at me vacantly.

'Yes. You lost your purse and money, and other things,' I said. 'I think you must have lost it from a train.'

Suddenly she raised her face again to mine, and asked in a half-dazed kind of way:

'Are you—are you Claude?'

'Yes,' I replied. 'Surely you remember me!'

'Oh—yes! But—oh! my head—my poor head!' and she placed her hands to her temples and drew a long breath.

'Cannot you recollect—do try and tell me