“That’s just as it should be,” said Stonor, much relieved.
“Isn’t it funny, I can’t remember anything that ever happened to me, yet I haven’t forgotten everything I knew. I know the meaning of things. I still seem to talk like a grown-up person. Words come to me when I need them. How do you explain that?”
“Well, I suppose it’s because just one little department of your brain has stopped working for a while.”
“Well, I’m not going to worry. The world is beautiful.”
The journey up-stream was a toilsome affair. Though the current between the rapids was not especially swift, it made a great difference when what had been added to their rate of paddling on the way down, was deducted on the way back. Stonor foresaw that it would take them close on ten days to make the Horse-Track. He and Mary took turns tracking the canoe from the bank, while the other rested. Clare steered. Ascending the rapids presented no new problems to a river-man, but it was downright hard work. All hands joined in pulling and pushing, careless of how they got wet.
The passing days brought no change in Clare’s mental state, and in Stonor the momentary dread of some thought or word that might bring recollection crashing back, was gradually lulled. Physically she showed an astonishing improvement, rejoicing in the hard work in the rapids, eating and sleeping like a growing boy. To Stonor it was enchanting to see the rosy blood mantle her pale cheeks and the sparkle of bodily well-being enhance her eyes. With this new tide of health came a stouter resistance to imaginative terrors. Away with doubts and questionings! For the moment the physical side of her was uppermost. It was Nature’s own way of effecting a cure. Towards Stonor, in this new character of hers, she displayed a hint of laughing boldness that enraptured him.
At first he would not let himself believe what he read in her new gaze; that the natural woman who had sloughed off the burdens of an unhappy past was disposed to love him. But of course he could not really resist so sweet a suggestion. Let him tell himself all he liked that he was living in a fool’s paradise; that when recollection returned, as it must in the end, she would think no more of him; nevertheless, when she looked at him like that, he could not help being happy. The journey took on a thousand new delights for him; such delights as his solitary youth had never known. At least, he told himself, there was no sin in it, for the only man who had a better claim on her was dead and buried.
One night they were camped beside some bare tepee poles on a point of the bank. Mary had gone off to set a night-line in an eddy; Stonor lay on his back in the grass smoking, and Clare sat near, nursing her knees.
“You’ve forbidden me to ask questions about myself,” said she; “but how about you?”
“Oh, there’s nothing to tell about me.”