Madame le Claire looked with a fixed and unwavering calmness at Miss Waldron, and answered in a tone of perfect reassurance.
"There is nothing in it which can't be easily explained. You have known Mr. Brassfield a long time?"
"Since I was seventeen. He did my aunt and me a great favor, which lifted us out of poverty—about some land we had, and oil discoveries—I went away soon after this, but he has always been very kind and good—until—until this——"
Elizabeth walked to the window and looked out for a long time, during which Madame le Claire regarded her fixedly and tried not to hate her.
"Did he tell you much of his past?"
"No, he said it was a very ordinary past, and that he would tell us all about it some time; and then the subject never came up again. I never really cared!"
"Let me tell it to you," said Madame le Claire. "He was, all his life, a man of wealth and standing. He was a scholar and a student of the fine arts and letters. He was the pride of his town and his university. Then, all at once, nearly six years ago, came on him one of those strange experiences of which I, through my profession, am able to speak to you as one having knowledge. He became another man. His mind had drawn across it a dead line cutting off everything back of a certain date. He did not tell you of his life, because he did not remember it himself."
Elizabeth gasped, and turned pale.
"This life of his——" she began.
"—was a life which was in every way better—which will add to your pride in him. But you must be prepared for some strange and unexpected things. Now, for instance, a name—a name seems important; but what is it? This loss of personality—of self-consciousness relating to the past—it was loss of name, of mode of life, of all memory, except certain blind, unconscious reflexes, in which the brain had no part. How the name of Brassfield was suggested to this new-born personality of his, no one can tell, he least of all. But——"