twenty-two or twenty-three years old. And, to me, he never was younger than that.”

[47]

“Why, I can’t understand you at all!” exclaimed the girl.

“It’s very difficult to understand,” he said in low tones. “But when I was about eight years old, they tell me, something happened to me. It seems that I got a crack on the noodle while playing and lost my memory. I remained in that condition from the age of eight until I was perhaps between eleven and twelve. It was Doctor Shonto, who had just been graduated from a medical college and was already making a big name for himself, who treated me and brought me out of my coma. But, strange to say, it left me with a weak heart. I have to take treatment for it right along, and the doctor tells me that, if I neglect this treatment, my old condition will come back, or I may suddenly drop dead. For all that, I’m fit as a fiddle and strong as an ox. It seems funny to think that I may bump off at any moment—hard to believe. But nobody ever doubts Doctor Shonto. However, he has assured me again and again that I have nothing whatever to worry about, so long as I take my medicine diligently. I guess I haven’t missed a day since he began his treatment.”

“Why, how strange!” was Charmian’s only comment.

“It is strange—mighty strange. Now and then I get a faint glimmering of something that took place[48] before I was eight years of age, but it’s so hazy that it seems like it happened to some one else instead of me. And it seemed that, when I gradually regained my memory, I was being born all over again. I had the mind of a child of two or three, though I was over twelve years old. I remembered nothing of what had been taught me in the private school that they told me I had once attended. I had to begin my schooling at the very bottom again. Lord, how they made me cram! I studied night and day, and seemed eager enough to learn. They tell me that I have caught up because of my perpetual digging—that I now have the mentality of a normal man of my age. And so for the past year I have studied very little, and have been catching up on the physical end. I have lived in the open months at a time, and frequently Doctor Shonto has been with me. He likes it himself, and he likes to be with me. And I can tell you right here and now that I think Doctor Inman Shonto the greatest man alive!”

[48]

“I’ll bet you do,” said Charmian warmly. “But it strikes me as rather strange that you should never call him 

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