Strange Recompense Read Free

with surprising clarity, “and then she lapsed back again. I tried twice,” she added more nervously, “with the same result.”
    “Thank you.”
    She could see that he was preoccupied and she signalled to Miss Melford that she had left the girl’s possessions on the table beside the settee.
    Ruth nodded.
    “You were going off duty, Nurse,” she said. “Thank you for your help. Matron is sending someone across from the wards.” Almost thankfully the little probationer stole away, forgetful of the ring, forgetful of everything but the fact that the Superintendent had actually spoken to her and, what was more, took it for granted that she knew what she was doing. It might be embellished just a little, she thought, when repeating her triumph in the nurses’ common-room across the way!
    Ruth Melford stood watching her brother anxiously as he made his examination of their patient, feeling a responsibility out of all proportion to her obligation for the girl she had picked up off the moor, trying to read his verdict in his steady grey eyes even before they were turned in her direction.
    He dropped the girl’s wrist and moved towards the window.
    “We must get her to bed,” he announced. “I don’t want to take the risk of moving her over to the hospital right away, Ruth, and I know you will cope. Let her have the spare room for an hour or two, and I’ll get Matron to send someone over to help. I will be able to keep my eye on her for the next hour or so and I believe that will be all-important.”
    “What do you think could have happened?” Ruth asked, still p erplexed by the events of the past hour, but quite sure that she h a d done the right thing by bringing the girl home with her. “She was completely bewildered when I found her, and she seems to be a stranger to the district.”
    “We’ll have to report it to the police, of course,” he said, “but for the present I propose to wait. You say she told you that she couldn’t remember anything?” he added. “Where she had come from—who she was?”
    “Not a thing, as far as I could gather. She was terribly upset about it and seemed almost reluctant to come with me until I insisted,” Ruth explained, speaking automatically as she thought of something else. “When you say you are prepared to wait, does it mean that she is all right—that she is going to live?”
    “Of course she’s going to live!” Noel replied without any hesitation whatever. “She’s strong enough to pull through a possible bout of pneumonia, and that’s as near to a diagnosis as I can make at the moment.”
    He straightened, his lean, dark face still thoughtful, and Ruth crossed the room to pick up the girl’s personal effects from the table beside the settee.
    “This must be all she had in her pockets,” she said. “Powder compact, purse and a handkerchief. Not much, really, to go on, and very little with which to establish an identity. Oh! but look here! There’s a name embroidered on the handkerchief in blue ‘Anna’!” Her thin face flushed excitedly. “Do you think that will be her own name, and will it help?” she asked eagerly.
    Her brother took the fragment of linen from her, stretching it out between his strong hands to reveal the embroidered name.
    “It’s possible,” he agreed, answering her first question. “And every little thing helps if this is a case of true amnesia. We shall find that out when she regains full consciousness, but I don’t propose to trouble her with too many questions until she has slept for at least twelve hours.”
    He glanced down at the settee to find his patient’s eyes wide and full upon him, quietly thoughtful eyes, gently inquiring as they lingered on his strong face, and a surging pity welled in him as he recognized her utter helplessness.
    “Can you tell me where I am—who I am?” she asked unsteadily, still with those wide eyes fixed on his. “I have lost my memory. I know that someone brought me here in a car,