“No. He has always been as you saw him this morning. His memory was a blank as to the past. Your coming and the sound of your voice must have revived it all.”
“But he made not the faintest sign of recognition.”
“No; but we cannot understand the workings of the brain. It was, perhaps, the expiring effort of his reason, for look at him now.”
“Expiring!” cried Stratton. “Yes; but how many more flashes of reason may spring up before the light goes right out?”
Brettison gazed at the man in a perplexed way, and bent over and touched him, but there was no sign.
“This settles it,” said Stratton at last. “We must act at once.”
“Yes. What shall we do?”
“You see, he may have a hundred returns of his memory, and come here again and again threatening and making demands; and if he has reason enough at these times to come here, what is to prevent his going up to the admiral’s and making a terrible scene there?”
Brettison nodded.
“Yes,” he said hopelessly. “What, indeed! Malcolm, my dear lad. I thought by going into hiding with him, and devoting myself to his care, I was doing you a great service; but I’m getting old and weak, I suppose. I will go by all you say now. I haven’t an opinion of my own.”