But presently I remembered. I beheld with my waking sense the whole vision afresh, and I said to myself, even as I lay trembling from head to foot, and even as my brains seemed thickened with bewilderment that was like madness itself—I said to myself, speaking aloud in the darkness, but calmly and with a gentle voice: ‘My name is Agnes Campbell. I have seen my husband John, I have seen my sister Mary, and my two little ones have come to me in my sleep. I remember that we took a house at Piertown—I remember that I went out sailing in a boat—I remember that the man who had charge of the boat fell into the water and was drowned. I remember—— I remember——’
And now the full realisation that my memory had returned to me swept into my soul. I sat up in my bed and gasped for breath. I believed I was dying, and that my memory had revisited me, sharp and vivid, in the last moments of my life. But the overwhelming emotions which possessed me mastered the hysteric condition, and leaping from my bed I cast myself down upon my knees. But I could not pray. My tongue was powerless to shape thoughts of appeal and impulses of thanks into words. I arose from my knees, lighted the candle, and began to pace the room.
Then all at once I was seized with a terrible fear: suppose my memory should forsake me again, even in the next minute! Suppose all that I could recollect of the vision I had beheld should in an instant perish off my mind, and leave me inwardly as blind as I had been during the past three years! I felt in the pocket of my dress that was hanging against the door and found a pencil; but not knowing where to lay my hand upon a piece of paper, unless I sought for it downstairs, and urged by a very passion of hurry lest my memory should in a moment fail me, I took Alice Lee’s Bible, carried it to the candle, and upon the fly-leaf wrote my name and the names of my husband and my sister and the children, also my address at Bath, together with the story, briefly related, of my husband leaving Piertown for a couple or three days, of my going out in a boat with a man named William Hitchens, of my pulling off my rings, amongst them my wedding-ring, that I might row without being inconvenienced by the pressure of them, of their being cast overboard by the hoisting of the sail, of William Hitchens’ sudden death by heart-disease or drowning, and of the horrible days and nights of misery, despair, madness, and unconsciousness which followed.
The mere writing of all this steadied my mind. I kissed the sacred Book when I had ended, gazed upwards with adoration, as though the sweet saint who had come to me with my children and restored my memory were gazing down upon me, and then I began to pace the room again, thinking and thinking, but no longer struggling with memory: for all was clear, all had wonderfully, by a miracle of God’s own working through the intercession of one of the sweetest of his angels, come back to me; and then my heart was filled with an impassioned yearning to be with my dear ones again, to return to them immediately, to write now, at this very instant, and tell them that I was alive, sending kisses and my heart’s love to my husband and sister, and kisses and blessings to my two little ones.
But then, too, arose the thought that it was three years since I had been torn away from them. Three years! How much may happen in three years! My little Johnny would now be five years old, my little baby Mary would be three years and eight months old! I clasped my hands, and paused in my walk and wondered.
What might not have happened in three years? Was my husband well—was my dear sister Mary living—were my children——? Oh, if you who are reading this are a mother and a wife, as you muse upon my situation at this time, your own heart will be telling more to you about me than ever I could convey of my own conflicts of mind, though I wrote with the most eloquent pen the world has ever known.
Whilst I paced the room the door was softly knocked upon, and Mrs. Lee’s voice exclaimed:
‘Are not you well, Agnes? Is your head still bad? I have heard you pacing the room for hours.’
‘My head is better,’ I answered, for, being taken unawares, I knew not what to say, and wished to think out the thoughts which besieged me before communicating my dream to her.
She was silent, as though in alarm, and cried nervously, ‘Who answered me? Is that you, Agnes?’