l, and get to know where things are kept. I'll be back in ten
minutes, and we'll have a good talk before lunch as to all who'll
be there. It'll all go perfectly smoothly, I promise you."

(IV)

When the door closed Monsignor Masterman looked round him slowly
and carefully. He had an idea that the mist must break sooner or
later and that all would become familiar once again. It was
perfectly plain, by now, to his mind, what had happened to him;
and the fact that there were certain things which he recognized,
such as the Cathedral, and Hyde Park, and a friar's habit, and
Archbishop's House--all this helped him to keep his head. If he
remembered so much, there seemed no intrinsic reason why he
should not remember more.

But his inspection was disappointing. Not only was there not one
article in the room which he knew, but he did not even understand
the use of some of the things which he saw. There was a row of
what looked like small black boxes fastened to the right-hand
wall, about the height of a man's head; and there was some kind
of a machine, all wheels and handles, in the corner by the nearer
window, which was completely mysterious to him.

He glanced through into the bedroom, and this was not much
better. Certainly there was a bed; there was no mistake about
that; and there seemed to be wardrobes sunk to the level of the
walls on all sides; but although in this room he thought he
recognized the use of everything which he saw, there was no
single thing that wore a familiar aspect.

He came back to his writing-table and sat down before it in
despair. But that did not reassure him. He took out one or two of
the books that stood there in a row--directories and
address-books they appeared chiefly to be--and found his name
written in each, with here and there a note or a correction, all
in his own handwriting. He took up the half-written letter again
and glanced through it once more, but it brought no relief. He
could not even conjecture how the interrupted sentence on the
third page ought to end.

Again and again he tried to tear up from his inner consciousness
something which he could remember, closing his eyes and sinking
his head upon his hands, but nothing except fragments and
glimpses of vision rose before him. It was now a face or a scene
to which he could give no name; now a sentence or a thought that
owned no context. There was no frame at all--no unified scheme in
which these fragments found cohesi