“But I am extremely glad that we have met at last,” I assured her. “I have, times without number, hoped to have an opportunity of thanking you for the great services you once rendered me.”
“I find with satisfaction that although six years have gone by you have not forgotten your promise made to me,” she said, her large serious eyes fixed upon mine.
“I gave you that promise in exchange for my life,” I remarked, as, at her suggestion, we turned and walked out of the station.
“And as acknowledgement of the service you rendered by preserving secret your knowledge of the events of that terrible night I was enabled to render you a small service in return,” she said. “Your sight was restored to you.”
“For that, how can I sufficiently thank you?” I exclaimed. “I owe it all to you, and rest assured that, although we have not met until this evening, I have never forgotten—nor shall I ever forget.”
She smiled pleasantly, while I strolled slowly at her side across the station-yard.
To me those moments were like a dream. Edna, the woman who had hitherto been but a strange ghost of the past, was now actually beside me in the flesh.
“I have received other notes making appointments—the last, I think, a couple of years ago,” I observed after a pause. “Did you not meet me then?”
She glanced at me with a puzzled expression. Of course she knew nothing of those lost years of my life.
“Meet you?” she repeated. “Certainly not.”