“Not know? But you must know where your home is. Who are you? What is your name?”
“I don’t know who I am or what is my name.”
Was she an imbecile? She did not look it. I never saw intellect more clearly marked upon a woman’s face. But the more attentively I regarded her the more distinctly I began to realise that there was something peculiar in her expression. She seemed mazed, as if she had recently been roused from sleep and had not yet had time to acquire consciousness of her surroundings. My original surmise was correct; she had been walking in her sleep, and had not yet recovered sufficient consciousness to enable her to recognise the actualities of existence, and comprehend what it was she had been doing.
While I told myself this I had never removed my glance from off her. And now my gaze fastened on something which had for me a dreadful fascination.
She was covered from head to foot in a voluminous garment, which set off her face and figure to perfection. I took it to be some sort of opera-cloak, though, more than anything else, it resembled a domino buttoned down the front. It was made of some bright plum-coloured material, which I afterwards learned was alpaca. A hood, which was attached to the garment, was half off, half on, her dainty head. The whole affair, cloak and hood, was lined with green silk. The front of the cloak was decorated with voluminous green ribbons; one of these caught my eye. It was a broad sash-ribbon, some six or eight inches wide, reaching from her neck almost to her toes.
For quite half its length the vivid green was obscured by what seemed to be a stain of another colour. The stain was apparently of such recent occurrence that the ribbon was still sopping wet. But it was not the broad ribbon only which was stained; I perceived that, here and there, the bright hues of the knots of narrower ribbon were also dimmed. More, there were splashes on the cloak itself. She had her hand up to her head. I glanced at it. How could the fact have previously escaped my notice? There were stains upon her uplifted hand, and upon the other hand which dangled loosely at her side. They were half covered with something red—and wet.
All at once there came back to me the extraordinary vision I had had of the strange happening in Lawrence’s room. I recalled the frenzied figure, clad in the woman’s robe, with the whirling skirts. Woman’s robe? Why, here it was in front of me, upon this woman, the very robe which I had seen. And here, too, now sufficiently quiescent, were the whirling skirts. I put my hand up to my eyes to shut out the horrid thought which seemed to rush at me; and I cried—
“Tell me who you are, and from where you come!”
There was silence. I repeated my inquiry. She answered with another.
“Why do you speak so strangely? And why do you put your hand before your eyes?”