"Go on, please, father!" urged the girl.
"What came after was even more curious. Mrs. Colebrook got up quite unaided, sat down in a chair before the fire and fell fast asleep. Sault sat down, too. I gave him some brandy and he seemed to recover. But he did not speak again, not even to answer my questions. He sat bolt upright in a wooden chair by the side of the kitchen table—all this happened in the kitchen. He didn't move for a long time and then his hands began to stray along the table. There was a big work basket at the other side and presently his hands reached it and he drew it toward him. I watched him. He took out some garment, I think it was a night dress belonging to one of the girls. It was unfinished and the needle was sticking into it—he began to sew!"
"Good God!" cried Maxton. "Do you suggest that on the touching of hands the two identities changed?"
"I suggest that—I assert that," said the doctor quietly, and drank his wine.
"Rubbish!" growled Steppe. "What did Sault say about it?"
"I will tell you. Exactly an hour after this extraordinary transference had been made, I saw Mrs. Colebrook going pale. She opened her eyes and looked at me in a puzzled way, then at the daughter, a pretty child who had been present all the time. 'I always 'ave these attacks, sir,' she said, 'a haneurism the doctors call it!'"
"And Sault?"
"He was himself again, but distressingly tired and wan."
"Did he explain?"
The doctor shook his head.