Rain splattered in his face. There was a sulphurous, metallic odor. Her hand touched his shoulder. She stared out blankly, her eyes still asleep. It stood there, propped against the wall, solid and inert as only the inorganic can be. In some places the cement was darkened and fused. "And of all mad coincidences," he gasped, "the lightning had to go and strike it!" On an impulse, he reached out his hand, and touched it. At the feel of the rough, unyielding surface, still hot from the lightning flash, his laughter died, and a grim lucidity flooded his mind. "_Eppur si muove_," he murmured to himself, so low that even Tansy, standing beside him, might not have heard. "_Eppur si muove._" VII. Next day he went around campus like a man in a daze. He had had a long and heavy sleep, but he looked as if he were stupefied by weariness. Even Harold Gunnison remarked on it. "It's nothing," he replied. "I'm just lazy." Gunnison smiled skeptically. "You've been working too hard. That's the temptation we're all up against. But it butchers efficiency. Better ration your hours of work. Your jobs won't go hungry if you feed them ten hours a day. "Trustees are queer cusses," he continued with apparent irrelevance. "And Pollard's more a politician than an educator. But he brings in the money, and that's what college presidents are for." Norman indicated that he appreciated the sympathy, but he felt as far removed from Gunnison as from the hordes of gayly dressed students who filled the walks and socialized in clusters. As if there were a wall of faintly clouded glass between. His only aim--and even that was blurred--was to prolong his present state of fatigued reaction from last night's events, and to avoid all thoughts. Thoughts were dangerous. He felt their presence here and there in his brain, like pockets of poison, harmless as long as you left them encysted and did not prick them. One was more familiar than the others. It had been there last night. He felt vaguely thankful that he could not longer see inside of it. Another was concerned with Tansy, and why she had seemed so cheerful and forgetful this morning. Another--a very large one--was sunk so deeply in his mind that he could only perceive a small section of its globular surface. He knew it was connected with an unfamiliar emotion that he had sensed yesterday more than once, and he knew that it must under no circumstances be disturbed. He could feel it pulsate slowly and rhythmically, like a monster asleep in mud. Another had to do with knots and lightning. Another--tiny but prominent--was somehow concerned with cards. And there were more, many more. His situation was akin to that of the legendary hero who must travel through a long and narrow corridor, without once touching the morbidly enticing, poisoned walls. He knew he could not avoid contact with them indefinitely, but in the meantime the thought-cysts might shrink and disappear.