First, I hated to be stared at. But that was not all. His persistent way of watching me filled me with alarming thoughts. I believed that he was rehearsing some extraordinary scheme to restore my memory. He seldom addressed me but that he would affirm the only remedy for my affliction was a shock, and whenever I observed him staring at me I would think that man may be scheming to give me a shock. Dare he attempt such a thing alone? The grave and serious Captain Ladmore was not likely to listen to such a remedy, nor was it probable that Mr. Harris would take the doctor into his confidence. Therefore single-handed he might attempt some desperate trick upon my nerves, not doubting--for of course he could not doubt--that the result would justify his expectations and earn him the reputation of a very clever man throughout the ship.
These were my fears, begotten of a low nervous condition. But I held my peace lest I should be laughed at. Not to Mrs. Lee, nor even to her daughter, did I utter a word on the subject; and yet it came to this, that I never went to my lonely berth of a night without slipping the bolt of the door, and peeping under the bunk that was high enough from the deck to conceal the body of a man.
Captain Ladmore I occasionally conversed with. Once he gave me his arm and together we paced the deck for nearly an hour; but he was a reserved man, somewhat austere, grave and slow in speech, and the expression of his face made one know that the memory of his bereavement was always with him. For the most part he held aloof from us all, walking a space of the deck from the wheel to the aftermost of the skylights with his hands behind him, his tall figure very upright, his eyes sometimes glancing seawards, sometimes up at the vessel. It was hard to associate him with his calling. He had the air of a clergyman rather than of a bluff sea-captain.
During this time, that is to say until we had reached some parallel of latitude to the south of Madeira, Alice Lee kept her cabin. She had slowly read the list of names she had made out, wistfully pausing after each delicate utterance, and gazing earnestly at me with her sweet affectionate eyes; but to no purpose. Name after name was pronounced, but it was like whispering into deaf ears. How could it have been otherwise? Alice was now always calling me by the name of Agnes; her mother also called me by that name; it was my own--yet I knew it not. How then could it have been otherwise than as it was with Alice Lee’s list of names? Having given me the name of Agnes, she omitted it from the list which we went through together; but even if she had lighted upon my name in full--by happy conjecture contriving it _Agnes Campbell_--it would have been all the same; I should not have known it.