"Years of friendship," he stumbled, thick-voiced, through broken phrases. "Wouldn't take that from any one else.... Not yourself.... Question of viewpoint, really.... I'd be the last to blame either of you, if---- However----" "Maltby," I said, "you're what I never thought you--a common or garden cad. That's my deliberate opinion. I've nothing more to say to you." For an instant I supposed he was going to strike me. It is one of the major disappointments of my life that he did not. My fingers ached for his throat. Later, with the undertaker efficiently in charge of all practical arrangements, and while Susan still hid from us behind her mysterious veil, I talked things out with Doctor Askew, giving him the whole story of Susan as clearly and unreservedly as I could. My purpose in doing so was two-fold. I felt that he must know as much as possible about Susan before she woke again to what we call reality. What I feared was that this shock--which had so profoundly and so peculiarly affected her--might, even after the long and lengthening trance had passed, leave some mark upon her spirit, perhaps even some permanent cloud upon her brain. I had read enough of these matters to know that my fear was not groundless, and I could see that Doctor Askew welcomed my information--felt as keenly as I did that he might later be called upon to interpret and deal with some perplexing borderland condition of the mind. It was as well at least to be prepared. That was my major purpose. But connected with it was another, more self-regarding. My own vision, my psychic reel, greatly disturbed me. It was not orthodox. It could not be explained, for example, as something swiftly fabricated from covert memories by my unconscious mind, and forced then sharply into consciousness by some freak of circumstance, some psychic perturbation or strain.