picture at Jane's; and how one scene in that way had gradually
suggested another; and how I could often think ahead from a given
fact but never go back behind it and discover what led up to it.

Jack drew his hand over his chin and reflected silently.

"That's odd," he said, after a pause. "Yet very comprehensible. I
might almost have thought of that before: might have arrived at it
on general principles. Psychologically and physiologically it's
exactly what one would have expected from the nature of memory. And
yet it never occurred to me. Set up the train of thought in the
order in which it originally presented itself, and the links may
readily restore themselves in successive series. Try to trace it
backward in the inverse order, and the process is very much more
difficult and involved.--Well, we'll try things just so with you,
Una. We'll begin by reconstructing your first life as far as we can
from the very outset, with the aid of these stray hints of yours;
and then we'll see whether we can get you to remember all your past
up to the day of the accident more easily."

I gazed up at him with gratitude.

"Oh, Jack," I said, trembling, "in spite of this shock, I believe I
can do it now. I believe I can remember. The scales are falling from
my eyes. I'm becoming myself again. What you've said and what you've
shown me seems to have broken down a veil. I feel as if I could
reconstruct all now, when once the key's suggested to me."

He smiled at me encouragingly. Oh, how could I ever have doubted
him?