"Raise your arm and try your muscles."
"I can raise my arm," I said, doing so.
"How's your memory?"
"If you'll give me a hint or two, I'll see."
He looked at me very earnestly and with much kindness in the expression of his jovial face, and debated some matter in his own mind.
"I'll send you in some beef-tea," he said, "by a person who'll be able to do you more good than I can. But don't excite yourself. Converse calmly, and don't talk too much."
So saying he went away.
I lay quite still and my memory remained as helpless as though I had just been born.
After an interval of about ten minutes the door was again opened and Mary came in. She closed the door and approached me, holding a cup of beef-tea in her hand, but however she had schooled herself to behave, her resolution forsook her; she put the cup down, threw her arms round my neck, and sobbed with her cheek against mine.
With my recognition of her my memory returned to me.