duty laid upon me from without. I dared not shirk it.

On the way out to Quebec, the sea seemed to revive strange memories.
I had never crossed it before, except long, long ago, on my way home
from Australia. And now that I sat on deck, in a wicker-chair, and
looked at the deep dark waves by myself, I began once more, in vague
snatches, to recall that earlier voyage. It came back to me all of
itself. And that was quite in keeping with my previous recollections.
My past life, I felt sure, was unfolding itself slowly to me in
regular succession, from childhood onward.

Sitting there on the quarter-deck, gazing hard at the waves, I
remembered how I had played on a similar ship years and years
before, a little girl in short frocks, with my mamma in a long
folding-chair beside me. I could see my mamma, with a sort of
frightened smile on her poor pale face; and she looked so unhappy.
My papa was there too, somewhat older and greyer--very unlike the
papa of my first Australian picture. His face was so much hairier.
Mamma cried a good deal at times, and papa tried to comfort her.
Besides, what struck me most, there was no more baby. I wasn't even
allowed to speak about baby. That subject was tabooed--perhaps
because it always made mamma cry so much, and press me hard to her
bosom. At any rate, I remembered how once I spoke of baby to some
fellow-passenger in the saloon, and papa was very angry, and caught
me up in his arms and took me down to my berth; and there I had to
stop all day by myself (though it was rolling hard) and could have
no fruit for dinner, because I'd been naughty. I was strictly
enjoined never to mention baby to anyone again, either then or at
any time. I was to forget all about her.