“I suppose you are my physician, and I am probably indebted to you for my life,” he said feebly.
The doctor looked puzzled. “You don’t seem to recall my face.”
“No, I suppose I was knocked senseless. The last thing I can remember is going down the embankment. I tried to jump, but my foot caught, and I struck my head against something. There was a young woman in the opposite berth—was she killed, I wonder? She had two little children. I suppose I have been unconscious for sometime. It must have happened yesterday, didn’t it?”
“It was several days ago,” said the doctor, soothingly. “You had better rest a while, and then you can tell us more, and about yourself.”
“This lady can tell you all about me. She has known me all my life,” and he closed his eyes wearily.
The doctor looked at me significantly, and I followed him into the hall.
“What in the world does this mean? That young man is no more Charlie Reynolds than I am. I can only account for the case in one way, and that is a very unusual one. The operation I performed last week restored his skull to its normal shape. There was quite a deep indenture and a consequent pressure upon the brain, which undoubtedly affected, probably suspended, his memory. Now this young man—minister, did you say?——”
“Yes,” I interrupted. “But this is the awful part of it. He is dead—buried—five years ago. I saw him buried, have gone to his grave many times, and now he lies there and talks to me. And Charlie Reynolds, drunkard and robber. Oh, no! no!”
“You say your friend was killed in a railroad accident on his vacation trip? How was the body identified? Who saw it after it was sent home?”
“None of his family saw the remains, he was so badly burned. I see. It must have been the wrong body.”