“Who am I?” she asked.

“Unorna,” answered the powerless man promptly, but with a strange air of relief.

“Are you asleep?”

“No.”

“Awake?”

“No.”

“In what state are you?”

“I am an image.”

“And where is your body?”

“Seated upon that stone.”

“Can you see your face?”

“I see it distinctly.  The eyes in the body are glassy.”

“The body is gone now.  You do not see it any more.  Is that true?”

“It is true.  I do not see it.  I see the stone on which it was sitting.”

“You are still in my eyes.  Now”—­she touched his head again—­“now, you are no longer an image.  You are my mind.”

“Yes.  I am your mind.”

“You, my Mind, know that I met to-day a man called the Wanderer, whose body you saw when you were in my eyes.  Do you know that or not?”

“I know it.  I am your mind.”

“You know, Mind, that the man was mad.  He had suffered for many years from a delusion.  In pursuit of the fixed idea he had wandered far through the world.  Do you know whither his travels had led him?”

“I do not know.  That is not in your mind.  You did not know it when I became your mind.”

“Good.  Tell me, Mind, what was this man’s delusion?”

“He fancied that he loved a woman whom he could not find.”

“The man must be cured.  You must know that he was mad and is now sane.  You, my Mind, must see that it was really a delusion.  You see it now.”

“Yes.  I see it.”

Unorna watched the waking sleeper narrowly.  It was now night, but the sky had cleared and the starlight falling upon the snow in the lonely, open place, made it possible to see very well.  Unorna seemed as unconscious of the bitter cold as her subject, whose body was in a state past all outward impressions.  So far she had gone through all the familiar process of question and answer with success, but this was not all.  She knew that if, when he awoke, the name he loved still remained in his memory, the result would not be accomplished.  She must produce entire forgetfulness, and to do this, she must wipe out every association, one by one.  She gathered her strength during a short pause.  She was greatly encouraged by the fact that the acknowledgment of the delusion had been followed by no convulsive reaction in the body.  She was on the very verge of a complete triumph, and the concentration of her will during a few moments longer might win the battle.

She could not have chosen a spot better suited for her purpose.  Within five minutes’ walk of streets in which throngs of people were moving about, the scene which surrounded her was desolate and almost wild.  The unfinished building loomed like a ruin behind her; the rough hewn blocks lay like boulders in a stony desert; the broad gray ice lay like a floor of lustreless iron before her under the uncertain starlight.  Only afar off, high up in the mighty Hradschin, lamps gleamed here and there from the windows, the distant evidences of human life.  All was still.  Even the steely ring of the skates had ceased.