of fear came into her face, and its strangely luminous
eyes travelled around the room with a look as of some trapped creature
seeking escape.

There was an awkward pause.

"I'm not mad," affirmed Milly, swallowing with a dry throat. "I'm
perfectly sensible, but any one would be odd and excited too who
was--was as I am--with a number of words and ideas floating in my mind
without my having the least idea where they spring from. Please, Tims
dear, tell me how I am to behave. I should so hate to be thought queer,
wanting in any way."

Tims considered.

"For one thing, you mustn't talk such a lot. You never have been one for
chattering; and lately, of course, with your overwork, you've been
particularly quiet. Don't talk, M., that's my advice."

"Very well," replied Milly, gloomily.

Tims hesitated and went on:

"But I don't see how you're going to hide up this business about your
memory. I wish you'd let me tell old B., anyhow."

"I won't have any one told," cried Milly. "Not a creature. If only
you'll help me, dear, dear Tims--you will help me, won't you?--I shall
soon be all right, and no one except you will ever know. No one will be
able to shrug their shoulders and say, whatever I do, 'Of course she's
crazy.' I should hate it so! I know I can get on if I try. I'm much
cleverer than you and that silly old Stewart think. Promise me, promise
me, darling Tims, you won't betray me!"

Tims was not weak-minded, but she was very tender-hearted and
exceedingly susceptible to personal charms. She ought not, she knew she
ought not, to have yielded, but she did. She promised. Yet in her
friend's own interest, she contended that Milly must confess to a
certain failure of memory from over-fatigue, if only as a pretext for
dropping her work for a while. It was agreed that Milly should remain in
bed for several days, and she did so; less bored than might have been
expected, because she had the constant excitement of this or that bit of
knowledge filtering back into her mind. But this knowledge was purely
intellectual. With Tims's help she had recovered her reading powers, and
although she felt at first only a vague recognition of something
familiar in the sense of what she read, it was evident that she was fast
regaining the use of the treasures stored in her brain by years of
dogged and methodical work. But the facts and personalities which had
made her own life seemed to have vanished, leaving "not a wrack behind."

Ti