"Never mind! Don't try to think about it. You'll come to rights presently. Let this good lady get that thing off your head. The best thing you can do is to lie still."
So Challis lay still and listened to the conversation. And this is what he heard:
"I hadn't flattered myself you would remember your humble servant, Mr. Taylor, but I felt pretty sure you wouldn't have forgotten the incident."
"I wasn't likely to do that. Faugh!—I've got the flavour of the place upon me still. That antiseptic sack and rubber gloves!—all the horror of it! But apart from that, the story the creature told was such a queer one."
"Seal of confession, I suppose?"
"Hardly that! But not, perhaps, to be repeated except to serve some special end. I understood he left it to my discretion."
"I had no motive but curiosity. Don't tell me!"
"How came you to remember my name?"
"I didn't. Miss Arkroyd told it me. I remembered your look when I showed you into the ward. But I ought to have remembered your name, because I posted Dr. Crumpton's letter to you...."
"I remember. It was to ask which of his aliases this man had given me. They didn't know what name to bury him under."