Left alone, he pondered. What had they told this doctor? Would he also rise, a familiar figure, from the well of sub-conscious memory?
The door opened again. The old butler entered, closing it carefully behind him.
“Thomas, come here. I have been talking to Mary.”
“So I hear, Sir Nigel.”
“She tells me the foresters carried me up from the shore. Do they know me, Thomas?”
“No, Sir Nigel. They are young men, sons of Fergusson and Graem.”
“I see. How about this doctor?”
“He has been her ladyship’s medical attendant for a matter of twenty-five years, Sir Nigel.”
“Twenty-five years? Ah! What did you say to him? How did you explain my presence here?”
“We told him you were an old friend of her ladyship’s whom she had met abroad.”