The next question was asked with visible embarrassment. “You are not my brother, are you, or any relation?”
“No, only your friend,” he said, smiling.
She was troubled like a child, biting her lip, and turning her face from him to hide the threatening tears. There was evidently some question she could not bring herself to ask. He could not guess what it was. Certainly not the one she did ask.
“What time is it?”
“Past seven o’clock.”
“That means nothing to me,” she burst out bitterly. “It’s like the first hour to me. It’s so foolish to be asking such questions! I don’t know what’s the matter with me! I don’t even know my own name!”
That was it! “Your name is Clare Starling,” he said steadily.
“What am I doing in a shack in the woods?”
He hesitated before answering this. His first fright had passed. He had heard of people losing their memories, and knew that it was not necessarily a dangerous state. Indeed, now, this wiping-out of recollection seemed like a merciful dispensation, and he dreaded the word that would bring the agony back.
“Don’t ask any more questions now,” he begged her. “Just rest up for the moment, and take things as they come.”