‘Four days ago.’
‘Yes—you have told me so. I forgot. My head is not clear, there is singing and spinning in it. To-day is——?’
‘To-day is Monday.’
‘What day was that—four days ago?’
‘Thursday.’
‘Yes, Thursday. I cannot think to reckon backwards. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I can go on, but not backward. It pains me. I can recall Thursday.’ He sighed and turned his head to the wall. ‘Thursday night—yes. I remember no more.’
After a while he turned his head round to Barbara and asked, ‘Where am I now?’
‘At Morwell House.’
He asked no more questions for a quarter of an hour. He was taking in and turning over the information he had received. He lay on his back and closed his eyes. His face was very pale, like marble, but not like marble in this, that across it travelled changes of expression that stirred the muscles. Do what she would Barbara could not keep her eyes off him. The horrible mystery about the man, the lie given to her thoughts of him by his face, forced her to observe him.
Presently he opened his eyes, and met hers; she recoiled as if smitten with a guilty feeling at her heart.