“I am not delirious, Mr. Fairchild,” she put in, hastily. “But either you are, or you are a most clever actor, and have missed your vocation in failing to go upon the stage. As I said before, I cannot see the point of your mummery; but you do it uncommonly well. Why do you pretend not to recognise me? Surely, I can't have changed beyond recognition in two years.”
“Not recognise you? Not recognise you, Miriam, my wife! Oh, what dreadful insanity has come upon her?”
“I? Miriam? Your wife?” She laughed. “Come, Mr. Fairchild, a truce to this mystery.”
Fairchild sank upon a chair, and pressed his brow between his hands. “She is out of her senses. But how comes she to know those names?” he said, as if speaking to himself. Then, turning to me: “Perhaps you, Dr. Benary, can clear this puzzle up?”
“This is hardly a fitting time or place for attempting to,” I replied. “If you had only respected my desires, there would have been no such occasion.”
“Will you answer me this one question? Do you understand what she means by her reference to Louise Massarte?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Explain that meaning to me.”
“Not now, Fairchild. Not now. Later I will tell you everything. I have not the heart nor the wit to explain anything just now.”
“But the relation, the connection, between that woman and my wife? Were they sisters?”