“I think not,” he responded.
“Curious! Very curious!” I observed, thinking deeply of the graceful, dark-eyed Mabel whom I had loved six years before, and who was now lost to me for ever.
“Among my friends is there a man named Doyle?” I inquired, after a pause.
“Doyle? Do you mean Mr Richard Doyle, the war correspondent?”
“Certainly,” I cried excitedly. “Is he back?”
“He is one of your friends, and has often visited here,” Gedge replied.
“What is his address? I’ll wire to him at once.”
“He’s in Egypt. He left London last March, and has not yet returned.”
I drew a long breath. Dick had evidently recovered from fever in India, and was still my best friend, although I had had no knowledge of it.
What, I wondered, had been my actions in those six years of unconsciousness? Mine were indeed strange thoughts at that moment. Of all that had been told me I was unable to account for anything. I stood stunned, confounded, petrified.