"A net. No means of escape from it. To escape--somehow. Jimmy---- Only wretchedness for Ambo--for us both. How can he care! Insufferably self-satisfied; childishly blind. I won't--I won't--not after this. No escape from it--my net. But the inner net--Ambo's--binding him, too. Some way out. A dead hand killing things. My own father. How he killed and killed--always--more than he knew. Blind. Never felt that before as part of me--of me. Wrong way round though--it enfolds--smothers. I'm tangled there--part of it--forever and ever. Setebos--God of my father--Setebos knows. Oh, how could I dream myself free of it like others--how could I! A net--all a net--no breaking it. Poor Ambo--and his love too--a net. It shan't hold me. I'll gnaw through--mouselike. I must. Fatal for Ambo now if it holds me. Fatal--Setebos--Jimmy will----" "Hum," said Doctor Askew quietly. "That doesn't help me much," I complained. "No," he responded; "but I can't see that all this has any bearing on the possible source of your vision." "I only thought that perhaps this revelation of a repressed inner revolt against me----" "Yes, I see. But there's no reasoning about the unthinkable. I've already said I can make nothing of your vision--nothing I'm yet prepared to believe." He handed the three sheets back to me with these words: "But I'm afraid your interpretation of this thing is correct. It's a little puzzling in spots--curious, eh, the references to Setebos?--still, if I were you, Mr. Hunt, I should quietly withdraw from a lost cause. It'll mean less trouble all round in the end." He shook his head impatiently. "These sexual muddles--it's better to see 'em out frankly! They're always the devil, anyway! What silly mechanisms we are--how Nature makes puppet-fools of us! That lovely child there--she admires you and wants to love you, because you love her. Why shouldn't she? What could be a happier arrangement--now? You've had your share of marital misfortune, I should say. But Nature doesn't give a damn for happy arrangements! God knows what she's after, I don't! But just at present she seems to be loading the dice for Jimmy--for Jimmy, who perhaps isn't even interested in the game! Well, such--for our misery or amusement--is life! And my cigarettes are gone.... How about yours----?" VI It did not take Susan long to make it perfectly clear to Doctor Askew and me that she had waked from her trance to complete lucidity, showing no traces of any of the abnormal after-effects we had both been dreading. Her first rather surprising words had been spoken just as she opened her eyes and before she had quite realized anything but my familiar presence beside her. They were soon followed by an entirely natural astonishment and confusion. What had happened? Where was she? She sat up in bed and stared about her, her eyes coming to rest on Doctor Askew's eager, observant face. "Who are you?" she asked.