I was angry with the man with the long white beard: I fired at him
hastily, it is true, but with malice prepense and deliberate intent
to wound and hurt him.

Jack went on, however, undeterred, in a low and quiet voice,
soothing my hand with his as he spoke, and very kind and gentle. My
spirit rebelled at the thought that I could ever for one moment have
imagined him a murderer. I said so in one wild burst. Jack held my
hand, and still reasoned with me. I like a man's reasoning; it's so
calm and impartial. It seems to overcome one by its mere display of
strength. If I'd changed my mind once, Jack said, I might change it
again, when further evidence on the point was again forthcoming. I
mustn't give myself up to the police till I understood much more. If
I did, I would commit a very grave mistake. There were reasons that
had led to the firing of the shot. Very grave reasons too. Couldn't
I restore and reconstruct them, now I knew the last stage of the
terrible history? If possible, he'd rather I should arrive at them
by myself than that he should tell me.

I cast my mind back all in vain.

"No, Jack," I said trustfully. "I can't remember anything one bit
like that. I can remember forward, sometimes, but never backwards. I
can remember now how I flung down the pistol, and how the servants
burst in. But not a word, not an item, of what went before. That's
all a pure blank to me."

And then I went on to tell him in very brief outline how the first
thing I could recollect in all my life was the Australian scene with
the big blue-gum-trees; and how that had been recalled to me by the