suspicion as your father's murderer. And in any case we were
uncertain which attitude you might adopt towards me. But I see I
must explain a little more even now. I haven't told you yet why I
came at all to Canada."

"Tell me now," I answered. "I must know everything to-day. I can
never rest now till I've heard the whole story."

"Well," Jack went on more calmly, "after the first excitement wore
off in the public mind, there came after a bit a lull of languid
interest; the papers began to forget the supposed facts of the
murder, and to dwell far more upon your own new role as a
pyschological curiosity. They talked much about your strange new
life and its analogies elsewhere. I was anxious to see you, of
course, to satisfy myself of your condition; but the doctors who had
charge of you refused to let you mix for a while with anyone you had
known in your First State; and I now think wisely. It was best you
should recover your general health and faculties by slow degrees,
without being puzzled and distracted by constant upsetting
recollections and suggestions of your past history.

"But for me, of course, at the time, the separation was terrible.
Each morning, I read with feverish interest the reports of your
health, and longed, day after day, to hear of some distinct
improvement. And yet at the same time, I was terrified at every
approach to complete convalescence: I feared that if you got better
at all, you might remember too quick, and that then the sudden rush
of recollection might kill you or upset your reason. But by-and-by,
it became clear to me you could remember nothing of the actual shot
itself. And I saw plainly why. It was the firing of the pistol that