s
words, 'he'll not be fool enough for that. What do you think,
Luscombe?'

I was silent, for in truth I did not know what to say. In one sense
Sir Thomas had reason on his side, for such an act would seem like
madness. But I was by no means sure. I had known Edgecumbe for more
than two years, and I did not believe that even the shock which led him
to recover his memory, could change his strong determined nature.

The ladies left the room just then, but a few seconds later Lorna
Bolivick returned and came straight towards me.

'He wants you,' she said, and I saw that her eyes burnt with excitement.

I made my way to the library, where my friend met me with a laugh.
'You mustn't keep away from me, old man,' he said, 'I want you--want
you badly.'

CHAPTER XXXV

AFTERWARDS

We were alone in the library, Lord Carbis, Lady Carbis, Edgecumbe and
myself, and certainly it was one of the strangest gatherings ever I
experienced.

The excitement was intense, and yet we spoke together quietly, as
though we lived in a world of commonplaces. But nothing was
commonplace. Never in my life did I realize the effect which joy can
have, as I realized it then. Years before, Lord and Lady Carbis had
received news that their son had died in India. What that news had
meant to them at the time I had no idea. He was their only son, and on
him all their hopes had centred. They had mourned for him as dead, and
his loss had meant a blank in their lives which no words can describe.

Then, suddenly and without warning, they had come into a strange house,
and found their son standing before them. As I think of it now, I
wonder that the shock did not do them serious harm, and I can quite
understand the incoherent, almost meaningless words they uttered.

To Edgecumbe the shock must have been still greater. For years the
greatest part of his life had been a blank to him. As I have set forth
in these pages, all his life before the time when he awoke to
consciousness in India had practically no meaning to him. And then,
suddenly, the thick, dark curtain was torn aside, and he woke to the
fact that his memory was restored, that he was not homeless or
nameless, but that his father and mother stood before him.'

'Jack has told me all about you,' Lord Carbis said, as I entered the
room; 'told me what you did for him, what a friend you have been to
him! God bless you, sir! I don't know how to express my feelings,
I--I hardly