“Providence!” she repeated significantly.
“I’ll say fate, to please you. Fate must have had a hand in bringing her and Lord Courtenay under this roof.”
“You are not answering my question. How can we keep him from learning her name, if she chooses to reveal it?”
“There’s the point, the very point in our favour. She can’t reveal it.”
“In heaven’s name, why not?”
“Because, though her intellect be otherwise as clear and as bright as your own—and that’s saying a good deal, Baroness—it is accompanied by one defect. The awful shock occasioned by her sudden plunge into the waters of the Neva has had the effect of depriving her, not of her whole memory, but of a part of it—that part relating to her personal identity. She cannot recall her own name. You don’t believe it, I see,” smiled the doctor, noting her look of scepticism, “but you can soon test my words. Go and see your rival. She won’t know you!”
CHAPTER XXVI
WITHOUT A MEMORY!
While Pauline repaired to the Princess’s chamber, the doctor went off to Wilfrid’s room to acquaint him with the strange news.
Being new to mental phenomena of this sort, Wilfrid received the announcement with every token of unbelief.