He said those few common-place words with
needless hurry and eagerness, and with a
curiosity to know what had brought me to
Yorkshire, which he was perfectly—I might say
childishly—incapable of concealing from notice.

With the object that I had in view, I had of
course foreseen, the necessity of entering into
some sort of personal explanation, before I could
hope to interest people, mostly strangers to me,
in doing their best to assist my inquiry. On the
journey to Frizinghall I had arranged what my
explanation was to be—and I seized the
opportunity now offered to me of trying the effect of
it on Mr. Candy.

"I was in Yorkshire, the other day, and I
am in Yorkshire again now, on rather a
romantic errand," I said. "It is a matter,
Mr. Candy, in which the late Lady Verinder's
friends all took some interest. You remember
the mysterious loss of the Indian Diamond, now
nearly a year since? Circumstances have lately
happened which lead to the hope that it may
yet be found—and I am interesting myself, as
one of the family, in recovering it. Among the
obstacles in my way, there is the necessity of
collecting again all the evidence which was
discovered at the time, and more if possible.
There are peculiarities in this case which make
it desirable to revive my recollection of everything
that happened in the house, on the evening
of Miss Verinder's birthday. And I
venture to appeal to her late mother's friends who
were present on that occasion, to lend me the
assistance of their memories——"

I had got as far as that in rehearsing my
explanatory phrases—when I was suddenly
checked by seeing plainly in Mr. Candy's face
that my experiment on him was a total failure.

The little doctor sat restlessly picking at the
points of his fingers all the time I was speaking.
His dim watery eyes were fixed on my face
with an expression of vacant and wistful
inquiry very painful to see. What he was thinking
of, it was impossible to divine. The one
thing clearly visible was that I had failed, after
the first two or three words, in fixing his attention.
The only chance of recalling him to
himself appeared to lie in changing the subject.
I tried a new topic immediately.

"So much," I said gaily, "for what brings
me to Frizinghall! Now, Mr. Candy, it's your
turn. You sent me a message by Gabriel Bet-
teredge——"

He left off picking at his fingers, and
suddenly brightened up.

"Yes! yes! yes!" he exclaimed eagerly.
"That's it! I sent you a message!"

"And Betteredge duly communicated it by
letter," I went on. "You had something to
say to me, the next time I was in your
neighbourhood. Well, Mr. Candy, here I am!"

"Here you are!" echoed the doctor. "And
Betteredge was quite right. I had something
to say to you. That was my message.
Betteredge is a wonderful man. What a memory!
At his age, what a memory!"

He dropped back into silence, and began
picking at his fingers again. Recollecting what
I had heard from Betteredge about the effect
of the fever on his memory, I went on with the
conversation, in the hope that I might help
him at starting.

"It's a long time since we met," I said.
"We last saw each other, at the last birthday
dinner my poor aunt was ever to give."

"That's it!" cried Mr. Candy."The birthday
dinner!" He started impulsively to his
feet, and looked at me. A deep flush suddenly
overspread his faded face, and he abruptly sat
down again, as if conscious of having betrayed
a weakness which he would fain have concealed.
It was plain, pitiably plain, that he was aware of
his own defect of memory, and that he was bent
on hiding it from the observation of his friends.

Thus far, he had appealed to my compassion
only. But the words he had just said—few as
they were—roused my curiosity instantly to the
highest pitch. The birthday dinner had already
become the one event in the past at which I
looked back with strangely mixed feelings of
hope and distrust. And here was the birthday
dinner unmistakably proclaiming itself as the
subject on which Mr. Candy had something
important to say to me!

I attempted to help him out once more.
But, this time, my own interests were at the
bottom of my compassionate motive, and they
hurried me on a little too abruptly to the end
that I had in view.

"It's nearly a year now," I said, "since we
sat at that pleasant table. Have you made any
memorandum—in your diary, or otherwise—of
what you wanted to say to me?"

Mr. Candy understood the suggestion, and
showed me that he understood it, as an insult.

"I require no memorandums, Mr. Blake," he
said, stiffly enough. "I am not such a very old
man, yet—and my memory (thank God) is to
be thoroughly depended on!"

It is needless to say that I declined to
understand that he was offended with me.

"I wish I could say the same of my memory,"
I answered. "When / try to think of matters
that are a year old, I seldom find my
remembrance as vivid as I could wish it to be. Take
the dinner at Lady Verinder's, for instance——"

Mr. Candy brightened up again, the moment
the allusion passed my lips.

"Ah! the dinner, the dinner at Lady
Verinder's!" he exclaimed more eagerly than
ever. "I have got something to say to you
about that."

His eyes looked at me again with the painful
expression of inquiry, so wistful, so vacant, so
miserably helpless to see. He was evidently
trying hard, and trying in vain, to recover the
lost recollection. "It was a very pleasant
dinner," he burst out suddenly, with an air of
saying exactly what he had wanted to say. "A
very pleasant dinner, Mr. Blake, wasn't it?"
He nodded and smiled, and appeared to think,
poor fellow, that he had succeeded in concealing
the total failure of his memory, by a well-
timed exertion of his own presence of mind.

It was so distressing that I at once shifted
the talk—deeply as I was interested in his