s so distressing that I at once shifted the talk--deeply as I was
interested in his recovering the lost remembrance--to topics of local
interest.

Here, he got on glibly enough. Trumpery little scandals and quarrels in
the town, some of them as much as a month old, appeared to recur to his
memory readily. He chattered on, with something of the smooth gossiping
fluency of former times. But there were moments, even in the full flow
of his talkativeness, when he suddenly hesitated--looked at me for
a moment with the vacant inquiry once more in his eyes--controlled
himself--and went on again. I submitted patiently to my martyrdom (it is
surely nothing less than martyrdom to a man of cosmopolitan sympathies,
to absorb in silent resignation the news of a country town?) until the
clock on the chimney-piece told me that my visit had been prolonged
beyond half an hour. Having now some right to consider the sacrifice as
complete, I rose to take leave. As we shook hands, Mr. Candy reverted to
the birthday festival of his own accord.

"I am so glad we have met again," he said. "I had it on my mind--I
really had it on my mind, Mr. Blake, to speak to you. About the dinner
at Lady Verinder's, you know? A pleasant dinner--really a pleasant
dinner now, wasn't it?"

On repeating the phrase, he seemed to feel hardly as certain of having
prevented me from suspecting his lapse of memory, as he had felt on
the first occasion. The wistful look clouded his face again: and, after
apparently designing to accompany me to the street door, he suddenly
changed his mind, rang the bell for the servant, and remained in the
drawing-room.

I went slowly down the doctor's stairs, feeling the disheartening
conviction that he really had something to say which it was vitally
important to me to hear, and that he was morally incapable of saying
it. The effort of remembering that he wanted to speak to me was, but
too evidently, the only effort that his enfeebled memory was now able to
achieve.

Just as I reached the bottom of the stairs, and had turned a corner on
my way to the outer hall, a door opened softly somewhere on the ground
floor of the house, and a gentle voice said behind me:--

"I am afraid, sir, you find Mr. Candy sadly changed?"

I turned round, and found myself face to face with Ezra Jennings.

CHAPTER IX

The doctor's pretty housemaid stood waiting for me, with the street door
open in her hand. Pouring brightly into the hall, t