DID I imagine it, or was I awakened by a kiss, which fell upon my forehead with the gentleness of a snowflake?

      There was an interval of several moments before I could open my eyes, and when I did so there was not a soul beside myself in the room.

      For some time I lay in a languid state, my brain too indolent even to trouble itself about the person who kissed me — if it were a kiss. But at length I was aroused by the opening of a door, and a moment after a woman stood by my bedside, bending upon me a look of kind solicitude. She was young, and there was an indescribable charm about her presence. Yet even in my indolent state I realised that she was not handsome.

      "You are better," she said, in a sweet, firm voice. The hand which she placed upon my forehead as she spoke was firm in its touch also, and I instinctively realised that the owner possessed a resolute nature in spite of her gentleness.

      "I — I have been very ill?" I inquired, in a voice which somehow sounded to me as strange and new as her own.

      "You had a fall and were injured," she said, adding with an eager look which I did not then understand: "but I suppose you do not yet recall your adventure?"

      "I do not remember," was my indifferent response.

      "I would not try. It doesn't matter at all. Here is something you were to drink when you awoke to consciousness — if you did awake. Then you were to go to sleep directly."

      With her strong, experienced arm, my unknown friend raised my head to drink the cordial, which I accepted submissively. Afterwards I slept, I know not how long, and upon again awakening my plain-faced, sweet-voiced nurse was still at my bedside. Her firm, gentle hand again rested upon my head, while she spoke in a quiet, reassuring voice:

      "The doctor says you will soon be about again, you are so much better. He is here, and wishes to speaking with you."

      She paused, and a short, gray-bearded man, whose presence had not before been noticed, advanced, and I felt the power of his gaze upon me. I say power, because he was unquestionably a man of great magnetic force, aside from his skill in medical practice.

      "Doctor Barlow," said my nurse, and then, in her quiet way, she withdrew.

      "You will be all right again in a few days, sir," were his first words, spoken with an assurance that quieted the slight flutter in. my mind which threatened to confuse me.

      "I am glad to hear you say so," I replied.

      "You are aware that your illness was the result of an injury?" he continued, speaking in a careless tone.

      I contracted my brows in a sudden spasm of thought.

      A strange, wild flood of questions rushed in upon my mind, and I believe the doctor's cool hand laid upon my head at that moment saved me from going mad.

      "You cannot recall the event, so do not try," he quietly said.

      "You may get up and dress to-morrow," he calmly added.

      "Tell me how it happened?" I exclaimed, the impulse to know the cause of my illness growing strong upon me.

      "You were found upon the road and were picked up for dead. They brought you here and I attended you."

      Again I started up in bed, and this time the doctor restrained me only partially. He regarded me with deep interest, but betrayed not the slightest sign of anxiety, although he must have been intensely anxious all the while. The flood of queries which, half incoherently, had already shaped themselves in my mind now rushed to my lips.

      "How came I in the road?" I demanded, and before Doctor Barlow could have uttered a reply had he tried to do so I continued:

      "And when was I found there? and whose house is this? And my pleasant-voiced nurse — who is she? My God, doctor! tell me — who am I?"

      My brain was in a whirl as I uttered these queries, and I shivered as with the ague. But Doctor Barlow listened as impassively as though it were all the most commonplace matter in the world. His persistent calmness in a measure communicated itself to me, and his answers were given with such a reassuring voice and air that the shock to me was greatly lessened. There are few men who could have conveyed the truth to one in my excited state with such tact and gentleness.

      "You met with your misfortune some three weeks ago," he said in his even tones. "This is my house and the young nurse is my daughter. It is nothing so very unusual for a person, under some violent shock, either physical or mental, to lose for a time all recollections of past events, and even of one's own identity. You will recover in time. There was nothing upon your person to give us a clue to your name, but for the sake of convenience, since we must call you something, my daughter has called you Paul Conway. If you do not fancy the name you may adopt any other, until your memory recalls the one to which you are entitled."

      Somehow, his candid statement of the situation instead of exciting, calmed me. I lay back upon my pillow, and overcome by the exertion, I soon fell asleep.

      My physical recovery from that day was rapid. Within a week I was dressed and able to walk about my room; in another week I was strolling about the doctor's tasteful grounds, listening to the songs of birds, enjoying the luxury of the fresh verdure and June sunshine. Miss Barlow was with me frequently, and I was presently puzzled by a conviction that she watched my movements, studied my countenance, and even appeared to wish to keep me under constant surveillance. And yet she was otherwise so courteous, and in all ways so gentle and unselfish in her intentions, that as the weeks passed the sweet episode of love crept into the new life I was living. For as yet the past remained as a sealed book to me.

      One day as we were strolling down the garden path I abruptly said to her:

      "I think I am quite well and strong now, and it is time for me to go to work - at something." For it had more than once occurred to me that, with other things, I had forgotten the means of gaining a livelihood which I must once have possessed.

      "Perhaps you do not need to work if you could only remember who you are. Perhaps you are a man of wealth?" said Miss Barlow, with one of her smiles which always made her plain face so beautiful.

      "It will do mo little good if I am, since I do not know it," I replied.

      "You must remain here until you recover your memory," she said, so decisively that I looked at her in surprise.

      "You wish me to stay as a charity patient?"

      "No, no. You will pay my father sometime. You are under his care, you know, and he is ambitious to effect a cure."

      As she said this she laid one hand in an eager, earnest way upon my arm. I felt that, looking into my eyes as she did then, she could not fail to read my heart, and in impassioned words I essayed to tell her of the deep pure love which I felt for her. But she checked me in a hurried anxious manner.

      "No, no!" she cried. I could see that her face had grown deathly pale, and she glanced, involuntarily as it seemed, at a ring which I had more than once seen upon her finger. And I was convinced then, of what I had painfully suspected before — it was an engagement ring.

      "You have an attachment already?" I exclaimed, unable to keep the pain of disappointment from showing itself in my face and voice.

      "Do not ask me now," was her reply, with a glance that I could not understand, while it thrilled me strangely. "Wait until you are well," she falteringly continued, "and I will tell you all. How do I know that you are free to love me? You may have a wife already. Even you do not know."

      She smiled again and hurried into the house, leaving me alone to ponder upon the strangeness of my situation. As I stood under the shadow of a high-growing hedge, I heard the sound of voices upon the other side.

      "All I want is a good, square look at him," said one, in a velvety voice. "I can spot him easily enough. You say this invalid guest of the Barlows is of dark complexion? And not over tall?"

      "That is his description," declared the other.

      "And that he came here about ten weeks ago?"

      "Yes."

      "You have seen him strolling about the grounds you say? And did you notice one hand — his left one, I believe?"

      "It has a red scar across the back of it. Yes I noticed that."

      "Good! Then there remains scarce the shadow of a doubt but he is the man. But I must make haste slowly. We detectives have to keep our eyes open. It is possible the Barlow girl —"

      He paused abruptly, and the two men walked away leaving me to conjecture, with my mind in a tumult, their meaning. For a long time I remained there, thinking and gazing at my left hand with the scar across the back of it. Oh! The missing link in my memory. I began to suspect that it contained a horrible episode that would unseat my reason if it were ever recalled.

      I could not quite make up my mind to tell Alice Barlow that night of the conversation which I had overheard.

      Retiring early to my room, I was overcome by a sense of drowsiness, and fell asleep in an easy chair. I was awakened by a hurried knocking at my door. Flinging it open, I was confronted by Alice, who seemed clad for a journey, while her countenance was a picture of womanly strength and resolution.

      "Come, Mr Conway," she said, in a low, imperative voice. "My father is at the door with his carriage, and wishes us to go with him. Hasten, if you would spare me calamity!"

      "Whither are we to go?" I asked while I obediently donned a light overcoat and hat and followed her down the stairs.

      "To the railway station," was her answer.

      "And thence?"

      "I do not know."

      I was silent until we were all three in the carriage and speeding along the quiet road, the wheels rumbling faintly, the chirp of crickets and distant croak of frogs being the only audible sounds.

      "I suppose this is an attempt to prevent me from falling into the hands of the detectives?" I then asked.

      "Then you know?" the doctor quickly asked, looking intently into my face.

      "I know from something overheard, that I am under surveillance; but why I have not the remotest idea."

      "Your memory is still silent, then?"

      "Yes."

      "Well, well, I cannot enlighten you, except that the officers are after a man of your description. They will arrest you if you stay here, and they refuse to accept even my assurance that you have no recollection of the past. Your only course is in flight."

      "But it does not devolve upon you to become a partner in my misfortunes," I remonstrated.

      "You are my patient, and I shall not allow anything to happen to deprive me of the glory of curing you, if I can help it," he decisively said.

      We reached the station barely in time for a passing train which, it being an unimportant place, had to be signalled. Alice was the first to ascend the car steps. I waited an instant for the doctor, who had shopped to procure tickets. I saw him coming at a run, and in pursuit followed a lank, shrewd-faced man, who shouted a voice which was the same as that I had overheard inquiring about me that afternoon.

      "Hold on, doctor — I've got a case for you. And a big fee!" said the detective.

      The train had already started, and I sprang aboard. Doctor Barlow, at the risk of his life, followed. The detective caught at the handrail the car sped past him, but a hand thrust him back that he missed it, and he was thrown with some violence upon the station platform. It was my hand that baulked his attempt.

      This was not a telegraph station, so were not intercepted at the larger town where we changed. Doctor Barlow had shrewdly bought through tickets to a point which he had not thought of making our destination, and here he obtained others, this time for — but it does not matter where, across the Canada line.

      For a day and two nights rode on and on. Of that journey I have now only vague recollection, for before it had ended I was again ill, and very ill. The past weeks had been fraught with a constant struggle on my part to recall past events — a struggle the intensity of which even I did not realize. And now the discovery that was wanted for crime, and the excitement of our escape, not unmingled with an undercurrent of love for the purest, strongest, most devoted of women, with conflicting hopes and fears and threatened disappointment, altogether made a crisis which I was not able withstand. And for weeks I was ill with brain fever.

*       *       *       *       *      *

      Again in langour and weakness I revoke to a sense of my surroundings. Again Alice Barlow, calm, gentle, faithful, attended my slightset wants. What passed in my thoughts during succeeding days and weeks would fill a volume if I were to write it out. We talked of many things, in a light, placid vein. Doctor Barlow told me quaint stories and we all laughed at them, but my strength came back very slowly.

      One evening I fell into a half-doze, from which I was awakened by someone coming softly into my room. I knew it was Alice, and did not open my eyes, until — softly as a snowflake again — a kiss fell upon my forehead. Then I looked up into the dearest of faces bending over me, and in a moment held one of her hands in mine — the one that wore the ring. Did I say she was plain-looking? Ah! she was positively beautiful then!

      "May I remove that, Alice?" I asked, touching the ring.

      "No, no," she quickly cried.

      "Then you still love the one that placed it there?"

      She was silent, but her face answered so plainly that it was strange that I could remain so calm.

      "You promised to tell me about it, some time," I persisted.

      "When you were well," she answered. As she spoke her eyes met mine, and for one lingering moment she gazed, and then this strong, placid young woman was sobbing joyfully in my arms.

      For days the memory of my past life had been coming back to me, and I remembered the occurrence which had caused the paralyzing shock to my brain, and ended in my becoming a fugitive from the authorities. I had an enemy, who, in a moment of frenzy, attacked me, and partly in self-defence and partly by inadvertence, I had taken his life. There were no witnesses, but circumstances would have convicted me of a wilful crime. In my heart, and before God, I was blameless. Should I give myself up and suffer a penalty I did not deserve? Conscience, prayer, Alice Barlow, her father, all counselled me against doing so.

      "And you believed me innocent from the first?" I asked, when I had told Alice all the details.

      "Yes. But I should have clung to you the same had you been guilty."

      For Alice and I were betrothed before the cloud came upon my memory.

      It was I who gave her the ring.

(THE END)