"It's all a mystery," I said; and added madly, because nobody had ever been cross with Kitty, "You didn't help to clear it up."
"Oh, I know you think I was rude," she petulantly moaned; "but you're so slow you don't see what it means. Either it means that he's mad, our Chris, our splendid, sane Chris, all broken and queer, not knowing us--I can't bear to think of that. It can't be true. But if he isn't--Jenny, there was nothing in that telegram to show he'd lost his memory. It was just affection--a name that might have been a pet name, things that it was a little common to put in a telegram. It's queer he should have written such a message, queer that he shouldn't have told me about knowing her, queer that he ever should have known such a woman. It shows there are bits of him we don't know. Things may be awfully wrong. It's all such a breach of trust! I resent it."
I was appalled by these stiff, dignified gestures that seemed to be plucking Chris's soul from his body, tormented though it was by this unknown calamity.
Indeed, there seemed no better words than those Mrs. Grey had used. I repeated:
She laid her face against her arms again.
"What does that matter?" she wailed. "If he could send that telegram, he is no longer ours."
I was sorry the next morning that the post comes too late at Harrowweald to be brought up with the morning tea and waits for one at the breakfast table; for under Kitty's fixed gaze I had to open a letter which bore the Boulogne postmark and was addressed in the writing of Frank Baldry, Chris's cousin, who is in the church. He wrote:
You will have to break it to Kitty and try to make her take it as quietly as possible. This sentence will sound ominous as a start, but I'm so full of the extraordinary thing that has happened to Chris that I feel as if every living creature was in possession of the facts. I don't know how much you know about it, so I'd better begin at the beginning. Last Thursday I got a wire from Chris, saying that he had had concussion, though not seriously, and was in a hospital about a mile from Boulogne, where he would be glad to see me. It struck me as odd that it had been sent to Ollenshaws, where I was curate fifteen years ago. Fortunately, I have always kept in touch with Sumpter, whom I regard as a specimen of the very best type of country clergymen, and he forwarded it without unnecessary delay. I started that evening, and looked hard for you and Kitty on the boat; but came to the conclusion I should probably find you at the hospital.