The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1925-01-15
CHAPTER VIII
While Memory Slept

No, the girl had not completely for
gotten, for it was not exactly a blank
TO her. She had a vague recollection
of a number of things, but everything
appeared to be shadowy and con
fused, and when she tried to piece it
together, the fragments slipped out
Of her grasp.
It was in m and places that the
lapse chiefly occurred, including her
own identity. and it vas this fact that
gave Lee cause for meditation.
She mad lived in the forests in child
hood, she seemed to recall a visit to
them of recent years; at any rate.
she had all the %woodcraft Of one tC
whom the forest was home. She had
been educated in a convent, she
thought. and had been living for sew
eral years in a large city, studying.
She thought she had been studying
to be a medical missionary among the
Indians.
Thus she was not cut off from thai
association of habits, tastes, and ex
pcriencCs that goes to make the per
sonaiity she did not feel that she haC
lost very much, and it was always as
If she were upon the point of remem-
boring everything.
Out of this vague, blurred dream she
had awakened to find herself in the
woods with Lee, without the knowl-
edge of how or why she had come
there.
1t might have been the conclusion
from the fall, but Lee, after bordering
yer the case, decided that it was
much more like a case of shell-shock,
and that the injury to her head had
been only a contributing cause.
He made her a crutch next morning
and by the afternoon, she felt well
enough to hObble a few steps about
the camp. The accident which had
temporarily ungeared her memory,
seemed to have wrought & strange
change in her nature. She was no
longer wildly anxious to push on to
her destination she accepted Lee as a
fact in her lie, @nd showed how com
pletely she trusted him, despite the
intimacy in which they were both
living.
He was sure that her memory
would suddenly come back to her com
pletely. And, memory did come back
in dreams, as with shell-shocked pa
tients, but only to vanish with the
waking.
At night Lee, lying near her beneath
another rough shelter of boughs that
he had made for himself, would heal
her tossing and moaning, and occas-
ionally uttering fragments of unlntel-
ligible sentences.
Day merged into day. Lees rib was
healing well, and the girl was begin
ming to set her foot to the ground. AT
first she was dependent upon him IN
nearly everything. He helped her to
take her first steps without the crutch,
leaning upon his shoulder. They were
always together.
IT was so wonderful q companion
shin. 1t was that comradeshlp OF
which Lee had always dreamed. anu
If was the more wonderful, perhaps
hecause the girls severance from the
mast gave 1t a sort of unreality, as II IL
were a little piece of paradise when
they had snatched for themselves out
of the sum total of human happiness.
Soon she began to assume charge OF
the camp and the cooking. n Lee
living at her feet, listening while she
talked. or lying awake at night be
meath his shelter, in the dread OF near
ing her moan, came at last to reallz'
hat his feeling for her was becoming
something more than the mere ENJOY
ment of her companionship.
He loved her, he sometimes ADMIT
ted to himself; and when a word O
glance of his would send the oloo'
mantling into her cheek, he dared t
think that his love was returned
And now he cared no longer whethe
her memory of the past ever cam
hack to her. Almost better to let he
live In ignorance of all that had dis
tressed her.
He began to dread the inevitabl
day when remembrance would com
TO blot out their paradise. Only
little incident would be needed, som
little shock that would knit the ra'
eled ends of memory, and then
Then what would lie before them
Another thing to be apprehende
was the day. so near now, when the
must leave their woodland paradis
Autumn had returned wonderfully, b'
/, there was a sharper tang in the a
each morning, everything was dea
'! and Ice formed every night upon Il
pool beneath their little spring.