He awoke to find Clare's wide-open eyes wonderingly fixed on him.
It struck a chill to his breast. Was she mad? This was a more dreadful horror than he had foreseen. Yet there was nothing distraught in her gaze, merely that same look of perplexed annoyance. It was an appreciable moment before he could collect his wits sufficiently to answer.
"Your friend," he said, forcing himself to smile.
"Yes, I think you are," she said slowly. "But it's funny I don't quite know you."
She raised herself a little, and looked around. The puzzled expression deepened. "What a strange-looking room! What am I doing in such a place?"
To Stonor it was like a conversation in a dream. It struck awe to his breast. Yet he forced himself to answer lightly and cheerfully. "This is a shack in the woods where we are camping temporarily. We'll start for home as soon as you are able."
"Home? Where is that?" she cried like a lost child.
A great hard lump rose in Stonor's throat. He could not speak.
After a while she said: "I feel all right. I could eat."
"That's fine!" he cried from the heart. "That's the main thing. Supper will soon be ready."
The next question was asked with visible embarrassment. "You are not my brother, are you, or any relation?"
"No, only your friend," he said, smiling.
She was troubled like a child, biting her lip, and turning her face from him to hide the threatening tears. There was evidently some question she could not bring herself to ask. He could not guess what it was. Certainly not the one she did ask.
"That means nothing to me," she burst out bitterly. "It's like the first hour to me. It's so foolish to be asking such questions! I don't know what's the matter with me! I don't even know my own name!"
That was it! "Your name is Clare Starling," he said steadily.
"What am I doing in a shack in the woods?"
He hesitated before answering this. His first fright had passed. He had heard of people losing their memories, and knew that it was not necessarily a dangerous state. Indeed, now, this wiping-out of recollection seemed like a merciful dispensation, and he dreaded the word that would bring the agony back.
"Don't ask any more questions now," he begged her. "Just rest up for the moment, and take things as they come."