She shook her head sadly.
“I can’t tell you,” she said at last, speaking quite rationally. “I really can’t.”
“But you must recollect something, dear?” I asked. “Your chatelaine was found dropped from a train on the line near Welwyn station, on the Great Northern Railway.”
“On the railway?” she repeated slowly. “Ah!”
“That brings back something to your memory, dearest, does it not?” I inquired anxiously, for I now felt convinced that she remembered something regarding her loss.
“Yes—but—but—well, I can’t tell you about it, Claude.”
“You can’t, dearest—or do you mean that you decline to tell me! Which?”
For a few moments she was again silent. Her blank white face had become almost as its own self, with that sweet, calm smile I had known so well.
“I must decline to tell you,” she slowly answered at last. “I’m sorry—but I—I only ask your forgiveness, Claude.”
“What is there for me to forgive?” I cried dismayed. “You disappeared. Everybody feared foul play—and—”