“Yes, yes,” Lanfear assented, slowly, to gain time.  “I can assure you that Miss Gerald didn’t mean anything that could wound you.  She isn’t very well—­she’s rather odd—­”

“Do you mean that she’s out of her mind?  She can talk as well as any one—­better!”

“No, not that.  But she’s often in pain—­greatly in pain when she can’t recall a name, and I’ve no doubt she was trying to recall yours with the help of your card.  She would be the last in the world to be indifferent to your feelings.  I imagine she scarcely knew what she was doing at the moment.”

“Then, do you think—­do you suppose—­it would be any good my trying to see her again?  If she wouldn’t be indifferent to my feelings, do you think there would be any hope—­Really, you know, I would give anything to believe that my feelings wouldn’t offend her.  You understand me?”

“Perhaps I do.”

“I’ve never met a more charming girl and—­she isn’t engaged, is she?  She isn’t engaged to you?  I don’t mean to press the question, but it’s a question of life and death with me, you know.”

Lanfear thought he saw his way out of the coil.  “I can tell you, quite as frankly as you ask, that Miss Gerald isn’t engaged to me.”

“Then it’s somebody else—­somebody in America!  Well, I hope she’ll be happy; I never shall.”  He offered his hand to Lanfear.  “I’m off.”

“Oh, here’s the doctor, now,” a voice said behind them where they stood by the garden wall, and they turned to confront Gerald with his daughter.

“Why!  Are you going?” she said to the Englishman, and she put out her hand to him.

“Yes, Mr. Evers is going.”  Lanfear came to the rescue.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the girl said, and the youth responded.

“That’s very good of you.  I—­good-by!  I hope you’ll be very happy—­I—­” He turned abruptly away, and ran into the hotel.

“What has he been crying for?” Miss Gerald asked, turning from a long look after him.

Lanfear did not know quite what to say; but he hazarded saying:  “He was hurt that you had forgotten him when he came to see you this afternoon.”

“Did he come to see me?” she asked; and Lanfear exchanged looks of anxiety, pain, and reassurance with her father.  “I am so sorry.  Shall I go after him and tell him?”

“No; I explained; he’s all right,” Lanfear said.

“You want to be careful, Nannie,” her father added, “about people’s feelings when you meet them, and afterwards seem not to know them.”

“But I do know them, papa,” she remonstrated.

“You want to be careful,” her father repeated.

“I will—­I will, indeed.”  Her lips quivered, and the tears came, which Lanfear had to keep from flowing by what quick turn he could give to something else.