"I'm going, Johns."
"Just another month," Johns entreated. "You've been doing so well. Until that girl came. Just a month. I'll speak to the doctor. He'll let you have the papers again. Perhaps he'll even let her come. Only let me put it to him. I know the way. He's so sensitive: he takes offence."
"Johns," Digby asked gently, "why should you be afraid of my going?"
The unrimmed glasses caught the light and set it flickering along the wall. Johns said uncontrollably, "I'm not afraid of your going. I'm afraid -- I'm afraid of his not letting you go." Very far away they both heard the purr-purr of a car.
"What's wrong with the doctor?" Johns shook his head and the reflection danced again upon the wall. "There's something wrong," Digby pressed him. "Poor Stone saw something odd and so he's put away. . ."
"For his own good," Johns said imploringly. "Dr Forester knows. He's such a great man, Digby."
"For his own good be damned. I've been to the sick bay and talked to him. . ."
"You've been there!" Johns said.
"Haven't you -- ever?"
"It's forbidden," Johns said.
"Do you always do exactly what Dr Forester tells you?"
"He's a great doctor, Digby. You don't understand: brains are the most delicate mechanisms. The least thing to upset the equilibrium and everything goes wrong. You have to trust the doctor."
"I don't trust him."
"You mustn't say that. If you knew how skilful he is, the endless care he takes. He's trying to shelter you until you are really strong enough. . ."
"Stone saw something odd and Stone's put away."
"No, no." Johns put out a weak hand and laid it on the newspapers like a badgered politician gaining confidence from the dispatch box. "If you only knew, Digby. They've made him suffer so with their jealousies and misunderstandings, but he's so great and good and kind. . ."
"Ask Stone about that."
"If you only knew. . ."
A soft savage voice said, "I think he'll have to know." It was Dr Forester, and again that sense of possible and yet inconceivable sanctions set Digby's heart beating.
Johns said, "Dr Forester, I didn't give him leave. . ."
"That's all right Johns," Dr Forester said, "you are very loyal, I know. I like loyalty." He began to take off the gloves he had been wearing in the car; he drew them slowly off the long beautiful fingers. "I remember after Conway's suicide how you stood by me. I don't forget a friend. Have you ever told Digby about Conway's suicide?"
"Never," Johns protested.
"But he should know, Johns. It's a case in point. Conway also suffered from loss of memory. Life, you see, had become too much for him -- and loss of memory was his escape. I tried to make him strong, to stiffen his resistance, so that when his memory came back, he would be able to meet his very difficult situation. The time I spent, wasted on Conway. Johns will tell you I was very patient -- he was unbearably impertinent. But I'm human, Digby, and one day I lost my temper. I do lose my temper -- very seldom, but sometimes. I told Conway everything, and he killed himself that night. You see, his mind hadn't been given time to heal. There was a lot of trouble, but Johns stood by me. He realizes that to be a good psychologist you sometimes have to share the mental weaknesses of the patient: one cannot be quite sane all the time. That's what gives one sympathy -- and the other thing."
He spoke gently and calmly, as though he were lecturing on an abstract subject, but the long surgical fingers had taken up one of the newspapers and was tearing it in long strips.
Digby said, "But my case is different, Dr Forester. It was only a bomb that destroyed my memory. Not trouble."
"Do you really believe that?" Dr Forester said. "And I suppose you think it was just gunfire, concussion, which drove Stone out of his mind? That isn't how the mind works. We make our own insanity. Stone failed -- shamefully, so now he explains everything by treachery. But it wasn't anybody else's treachery that left his friend Barnes. . ."
"And you have a revelation up your sleeve for me too, Dr Forester?" He remembered the pencil-marks in the Tolstoy rubbed out by a man without the courage of his opinions and that heartened him. He asked, "What were you doing with Poole in the dark when Stone found you?" He had meant it only as a piece of impertinent defiance; he had believed that the scene existed only in Stone's persecuted imagination -- like the enemy digging on the island. He hadn't expected to halt Dr Forester in the middle of his soft tirade. The silence was disagreeable. He tailed weakly off, "And digging. . ."
The noble old face watched him, the mouth a little open: a tiny dribble ran down the chin.
Johns said, "Please go to bed, Digby. Let's talk in the morning."
"I'm quite ready to go to bed," Digby said. He felt suddenly ridiculous in his trailing dressing-gown and his heelless slippers; he was apprehensive too -- it was like turning his back on a man with a gun.
"Wait," Dr Forester said. "I haven't told you yet. When you know you can choose between Conway's method and Stone's method. There's room in the sick bay. . ."
"You ought to be there yourself, Dr Forester."
"You're a fool," Dr Forester said. "A fool in love. . . I watch my patients. I know. What's the good of you being in love? You don't even know your real name." He tore a piece out of one of the papers and held it out to Digby. "There you are. That's you. A murderer. Go and think about that."
It was the photograph he hadn't bothered to examine. The thing was absurd. He said, "That's not me."
"Go and look in the glass then," Dr Forester said. "And then begin to remember. You've got a lot to remember."
Johns protested. "Doctor, that's not the way. . ."
"He asked for it," Dr Forester said, "just like Conway did." But Digby heard no more of what Johns had to say: he was running down the pasage towards his room; half-way he tripped on his dressing-gown cord and fell. He hardly felt the shock. He got to his feet a little giddy -- that was all. He wanted a looking-glass.
The lean bearded face looked out at him in the familiar room. There was a smell of cut flowers. This was where he had been happy. How could he believe what the doctor had said? There must be a mistake. It didn't connect. . . At first he could hardly see the photograph; his heart beat and his head was confused. This isn't me, he thought, as that lean shaven other face with the unhappy eyes and the shabby suit came into focus. They didn't fit; the memories he had of twenty years ago and Arthur Rowe whom the police wanted to interview in connection with -- but Dr Forester had torn the paper too carelessly. In those twenty years he couldn't have gone astray as far as this. He thought: Whatever they say, this man standing here is me. I'm not changed because I lose my memory. This photograph and Anna Hilfe didn't fit, he protested, and suddenly he remembered what had puzzled him and he had quite forgotten, Anna's voice saying, "It's my job, Arthur." He put his hand up to his chin and hid the beard; the long twisted nose told its tale, and the eyes which were unhappy enough now. He steadied himself with his hands on the dressing-table and thought: Yes, I'm Arthur Rowe. He began to talk to himself under his breath, But I'm not Conway. I shan't kill myself.