think that made them
good again? Would it seem so to you? Tell me!"

"Yes, surely; but it isn't necessary they should forget, so long us
they're sorry."

"But supposing they had forgotten too?"

"Yes, surely, it would be as if it had never been."

"Henry," she said, her voice dropping to a low, hushed tone of wonder,
while her eyes were full of mingled awe and exultation, "what if I were
to forget it, forget that you know, forget it all, everything, just as if
it had never been?"

He stared at her with fascinated eyes. She was, indeed, beside herself.
Grief had made her mad.. The significance of his expression seemed to
recall her to herself, and she said--

"You don't understand. Of course not. You think I'm crazy. Here, take it.
Go somewhere and read it. Don't stay here to do it. I couldn't stand to
look on. Go! Hurry! Read it, and then come back."

She thrust the magazine into his hand, and almost pushed him out of the
door. But he went no further than the hall. He could not think of leaving
her in that condition. Then it occurred to him to look at the magazine.
He opened it by the light of the hall lamp, and his eyes fell on these
words, the title of an article: "The Extirpation of Thought Processes. A
New Invention."

If she were crazy, here was at least the clue to her condition. He read
on; his eyes leaped along the lines.

The writer began with a clear account of the discoveries of modern
psychologists and physiologists as to the physical basis of the
intellect, by which it has been ascertained that certain ones of the
millions of nerve corpuscles or fibres in the grey substance in the
brain, record certain classes of sensations and the ideas directly
connected with them, other classes of sensations with the corresponding
ideas being elsewhere recorded by other groups of corpuscles. These
corpuscles of the grey matter, these mysterious and infinitesimal
hieroglyphics, constitute the memory of the record of the life, so that
when any particular fibre or group of fibres is destroyed certain
memories or classes of memories are destroyed, without affecting others
which are elsewhere embodied in other fibres. Of the many scientific and
popular demonstrations of these facts which were adduced, reference was
made to the generally known fact that the effect of disease or injury at
certain points in the brain is to destroy definite classes of
acquisitions or recollections, leaving others untouched. The articl