As I see it, one of the most intriguing features of Strickland’s experience is the fact that he had ceased to probe his son’s future when the vision came. The boy was seven years old then, and had a little sister of two and a half who had partly diverted her father’s attention. And Strickland had probably outgrown the fear of his own premature death; though it may be that his passionate longing for assurance as to the glory of his boy’s career had not so much spent itself as been thrust back into his sub-consciousness. Superficially the difference in him was quite obvious. The change of his tone, for example, when he spoke of his son. Even the manner of reference. The tender enunciation of “My little boy” had altered to “That young rascal of mine,” just the proudly modest description of the ordinary father. And when the vision came, neither he nor I related it in any way to his ancient search.... He came to my rooms one evening after dinner, produced the crystal from his pocket, and tossed it over to me. “A present for a sceptic,” he said. “I’ve finished with it.” I might have thought that he was clearing up the lumber of his old fancies if it had not been for his manner; but the garment of his initiation still clung to him and affected me with the strangeness of its mystery. I shuddered. “What did you see?” I asked. “Oh! don’t say you believe in it,” he said; “after all your jeers at me.” “Did you see anything?” I insisted, nursing the crystal in the cave of my two hands. I stared into it and saw the faint pink of my magnified palm. No vision came to me; yet I was aware of some potency in the thing. “Perhaps some reflection, some translation of one’s sub-consciousness....” I ventured. Strickland sneered. “By God, I hope not,” he said. “What were you--looking for?” I asked. “For nothing. I wasn’t looking for anything,” he said. “I picked the thing up by the merest accident. I was going to give it to the little girl--as a plaything.” “And then....” I prompted him. “I saw a picture in it. It snatched my attention. I wasn’t thinking....” “And the picture?” “Hell. Just hell. The real thing; none of your picturesque flames and torture. It came out at me, as it were, and it was--well, the abomination of desolation, nothing more nor less than that.” “But....” I began. He interrupted me. His eyes were fixed on the vision of a future that had become a fragment of his past. “A waste,” he said, in a low, thoughtful voice. “A dead, horrible waste ... all black and pitted and furrowed ... it looked as if there had been some awful, blasting eruption ... or as if the whole earth had been scorched and blighted by some unimaginably vast fire. But, oh! the terrible gauntness and death of it all.”