ine of work, he understood. At the same time he wanted to save
David anything unpleasant. (The word "unpleasant" startled Bassett, by
its very inadequacy.) He knew now that David had built up for him an
identity that probably did not exist, but he wanted Bassett to know that
there could never be doubt of David's high purpose and his essential
fineness.

"Whatever I was before." he finished simply, "and I'll get that from you
now, if I am any sort of a man at all it is his work."

He stood up and braced himself. It had been clear to Bassett for ten
minutes that Dick was talking against time, against the period of
revelation. He would have it, but he was mentally bracing himself
against it.

"I think," he said, "I'll have that whisky now."

Bassett poured him a small drink, and took a turn about the room while
he drank it. He was perplexed and apprehensive. Strange as the story
was, he was convinced that he had heard the truth. He had, now and then,
run across men who came back after a brief disappearance, with a cock
and bull story of forgetting who they were, and because nearly always
these men vanished at the peak of some crisis they had always been open
to suspicion. Perhaps, poor devils, they had been telling the truth
after all. So the mind shut down, eh? Closed like a grave over the
unbearable!

His own part in the threatening catastrophe began to obsess him. Without
the warning from Gregory there would have been no return to Norada, no
arrest. It had all been dead and buried, until he himself had revived
it. And a girl, too! The girl in the blue dress at the theater, of
course.

Dick put down the glass.

"I'm ready, if you are."

"Does the name of Clark recall anything to you?"

"Nothing."

"Judson Clark? Jud Clark?"

Dick passed his hand over his forehead wearily.

"I'm not sure," he said. "It sounds familiar, and then it doesn't. It
doesn't mean anything to me, if you get that. If it's a key, it doesn't
unlock. That's all. Am I Judson Clark?"

Oddly enough, Bassett found himself now seeking for hope of escape in
the very situation that had previously irritated him, in the story he
had heard at Wasson's. He considered, and said, almost violently:

"Look here, I may have made a mistake. I came out here pretty well
convinced I'd found the solution to an old mystery, and for that matter
I think I have. But there's a twist in it that isn't clear, and until
it is clear I'm not going to saddle you wi