rned away
irritably. "You wouldn't understand. Say I was drunk. I was, for that
matter. I'm not over it yet."

Bassett watched him.

"I see," he said quietly. "It was last night, was it, that this thing
happened?"

"You know it, don't you?"

"And, after it happened, do you remember what followed?"

"I've been riding all night. I didn't care what happened. I knew I'd run
into a whale of a blizzard, but I--"

He stopped and stared outside, to where the horses grazed in the upland
meadow, knee deep in mountain flowers. Bassett, watching him, saw the
incredulity in his eyes, and spoke very gently.

"My dear fellow," he said, "you are right. Try to understand what I am
saying, and take it easy. You rode into a blizzard, right enough. But
that was not last night. It was ten years ago."

XXIX

Had Bassett had some wider knowledge of Dick's condition he might have
succeeded better during that bad hour that followed. Certainly, if he
had hoped that the mere statement of fact and its proof would bring
results, he failed. And the need for haste, the fear of the pursuit
behind them, made him nervous and incoherent.

He had first to accept the incredible, himself--that Dick Livingstone no
longer existed, that he had died and was buried deep in some chamber of
an unconscious mind. He made every effort to revive him, to restore him
into the field of consciousness, but without result. And his struggle
was increased in difficulty by the fact that he knew so little of Dick's
life. David's name meant nothing, apparently, and it was the only name
he knew. He described the Livingstone house; he described Elizabeth as
he had seen her that night at the theater. Even Minnie. But Dick only
shook his head. And until he had aroused some instinct, some desire to
live, he could not combat Dick's intention to return and surrender.

"I understand what you are saying," Dick would say. "I'm trying to get
it. But it doesn't mean anything to me."

He even tried the war.

"War? What war?" Dick asked. And when he heard about it he groaned.

"A war!" he said. "And I've missed it!"

But soon after that he got up, and moved to the door.

"I'm going back," he said.

"Why?"

"They're after me, aren't they?"

"You're forgetting again. Why should they be after you now, after ten
years?"

"I see. I can't get it, you know. I keep listening for them."

Bassett too was listening, but he kept his fears to himself.

"Why did you do i