“Ah! That is where the Christs are. All come there at last--you, me, everybody.” “And after that?” “Too much question, Mr. Mailey. Poor old Chang not know so much as that. Now good-bye! God bless you! I go.” It was the end of the sitting of the rescue circle. A few minutes later Terbane was sitting up smiling and alert, but with no apparent recollection of anything which had occurred. He was pressed for time and lived afar, so that he had to make his departure, unpaid save by the blessing of those whom he had helped. Modest little unvenal man, where will he stand when we all find our real places in the order of creation upon the further side? The circle did not break up at once. The visitors wanted to talk and the Maileys to listen. “What I mean,” said Roxton, “it’s doosed interestin’ and all that, but there is a sort of variety-show element in it. What! Difficult to be sure it’s really real, if you take what I mean.” “That is what I feel also,” said Malone. “Of course on its face value it is simply unspeakable. It is a thing so great that all ordinary happenings become commonplace. That I grant. But the human mind is very strange. I’ve read the case Moreton Prince examined, and Miss Beauchamp and the rest; also the results of Charcot, the great Nancy hypnotic school. They could turn a man into anything. The mind seems to be like a rope which can be unravelled into its various threads. Then each thread is a different personality which may take dramatic form, and act and speak as such. That man is honest, and he could not normally produce these effects. But how do we know that he is not self-hypnotised, and that under those conditions one strand of him becomes Mr. Chang and another becomes a sailor and another a society lady, and so forth?” Mailey laughed. “Every man his own Cinquevalli,” said he, “but it is a rational objection and has to be met.” “We have traced some of the cases,” said Mrs. Mailey. “There is not a doubt of it--names, addresses, everything.” “Well, then we have to consider the question of Terbane’s normal knowledge. How can you possibly know what he has learned? I should think a railway-guard is particularly able to pick up such information.” “You have seen one sitting,” Mailey answered. “If you had been present at as many as we and noted the cumulative effect of the evidence you would not be sceptical.” “That is very possible,” Malone answered. “And I daresay my doubts are very annoying to you. And yet one is bound to be brutally honest in a case like this. Anyhow, whatever the ultimate cause, I have seldom spent so thrilling an hour. Heavens! If it only _is_ true, and if you had a thousand circles instead of one, what regeneration would result?” “That will come,” said Mailey in his patient, determined fashion. “We shall live to see it. I am sorry the thing has not forced conviction upon you. However, you must come again.”