He hung silent for a space as if he sought words. "Yes," he said, at last, "but they tell you nothing." I did not catch his meaning for a second. "They don't know," he added. I looked a little more attentively at his face. "There are dreams," he said, "and dreams." That sort of proposition I never dispute. "I suppose----" he hesitated. "Do you ever dream? I mean vividly." "I dream very little," I answered. "I doubt if I have three vivid dreams in a year." "Ah!" he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts. "Your dreams don't mix with your memories?" he asked abruptly. "You don't find yourself in doubt: did this happen or did it not?" "Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. I suppose few people do." "Does _he_ say----" he indicated the book. "Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening as a rule. I suppose you know something of these theories----" "Very little--except that they are wrong." His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me. "Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on night after night?" "I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental trouble." "Mental trouble! Yes. I daresay there are. It's the right place for them. But what I mean----" He looked at his bony knuckles. "Is that sort of thing always dreaming? _Is_ it dreaming? Or is it something else? Mightn't it be something else?" I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the lids red stained--perhaps you know that look. "I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said. "The thing's killing me." "Dreams?" "If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid ... this--" (he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window) "seems unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I am on ..." He paused. "Even now--" "The dream is always the same--do you mean?" I asked. "It's over." "You mean?" "I died." "Died?" "Smashed and killed, and now so much of me as that dream was is dead. Dead for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living in a different part of the world and in a different time. I dreamt that night after night. Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes and fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--" "When you died?" "When I died." "And since then--" "No," he said. "Thank God! that was the end of the dream..." It was clear I was in for this dream. And, after all, I had an hour before me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has a dreary way with him. "Living in a different time," I said: "do you mean in some different age?" "Yes." "Past?"