That wasn't altogether a comforting reflection, however. My loss of memory made it impossible to expose her, for the simple reason that any story she might choose to tell could not be contradicted.
"Now I should like to know what all this means," I began when we were free from inquisitive lookers-on.
"Do you pretend you don't recognize me?" she asked, turning her big blue eyes on me with a pathetic wistfulness.
"Do you pretend that I ought to?"
"Why did you desert me? Oh, how could you, Johann?" she wailed.
"I don't even know what you mean."
"Oh, but you must; you must. You loved me so; at least you swore you did, over and over again," she cried. "Oh, don't tell me you've forgotten me. I could bear anything but that."
This suggested von Gratzen. It was just the sort of scheme which would appeal to such a wily old beggar to trap me into admission. "Who are you?" I asked.
She clapped her hands to her face and looked like starting hysterics again. "Oh, you must know. You must. You can't have forgotten me! You can't!"
"Perhaps your name will help me."