Abruptly, after a long pause, he did now manage to say:

"It was--very good of you to--to write me that letter." He told me
he had only just got it, and he drifted away into otiose explanations of
this fact. I thought he might at least say it was a remarkable letter; and
you can imagine my annoyance when he said, after another interval, "I
was very much touched indeed." I had wished to be convincing, not
touching. I can't bear to be called touching.

"Don't you," I asked, "think it IS quite possible that your
brain invented all those memories of what--what happened before that
accident?"

He drew a sharp sigh.

"You make me feel very guilty."

"That's exactly what I tried to make you NOT feel!"

"I know, yes. That's why I feel so guilty."

We had paused in our walk. He stood nervously prodding the hard
wet sand with his walking-stick.

"In a way," he said, "your theory was quite right. But--it didn't go
far enough. It's not only possible, it's a fact, that I didn't see those signs
in those hands. I never examined those hands. They weren't there.
_I_ wasn't there. I haven't an uncle in Hampshire, even. I never
had."