‘I fell asleep—or something of that sort,’ came the stubborn reply. ‘Yes,’ said Mr Bethany, brightly, ‘so your wife was saying. “Fell asleep,” so have I too—scores of times’; he beamed, with beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. ‘And then? I’m not, I’m not persisting?’ ‘Then I woke; refreshed, I think, as it seemed—I felt much better and came home.’ ‘Ah, yes,’ said his visitor. And after that there was a long, brightly lit, intense pause; at the end of which Lawford raised his face and again looked firmly at his friend. Mr Bethany was now a shrunken old man; he sat perfectly still, his head craned a little forward, and his veined hands clutching his bent, spare knees. There wasn’t the least sign of devilry, or out-facingness, or insolence in that lean shadowy steady head; and yet he himself was compelled to sidle his glance away, so much the face shook him. He closed his eyes, too, as a cat does after exchanging too direct a scrutiny with human eyes. He put out towards, and withdrew, a groping hand from Mrs Lawford. ‘Is it,’ came a voice from somewhere, ‘is it a great change, sir? I thought perhaps I may have exaggerated—candle-light, you know.’ Mr Bethany remained still and silent, striving to entertain one thought at a time. His lips moved as if he were talking to himself. And again it was Lawford’s faltering voice that broke the silence. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I have never... no fit, or anything of that kind before. I remember on Tuesday... oh yes, quite well. I did feel seedy, very. And we talked, didn’t we?—Harvest Festival, Mrs Wine’s flowers, the new offertory-bags, and all that. For God’s sake, Vicar, it is not as bad as—as they make out?’ Mr Bethany woke with a start. He leaned forward, and stretched out a long black wrinkled sleeve, just managing to reach far enough to tap Lawford’s knee. ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry,’ he said soothingly. ‘We believe, we believe.’ It was, none the less, a sheer act of faith. He took off his spectacles and took out his handkerchief. ‘What we must do, eh, my dear,’ he half turned to Mrs Lawford, ‘what we must do is to consult, yes, consult together. And later—we must have advice—medical advice; unless, as I very much suspect, it is merely a little quite temporary physical aberration. Science, I am told, is making great strides, experimenting, groping after things which no sane man has ever dreamed of before—without being burned alive for it. What’s in a name? Nerves, especially, Lawford.’ Mrs Lawford sat perfectly still, absorbedly listening, turning her face first this way, then that, to each speaker in turn. ‘That is what I thought,’ she said, and cast one fleeting glance across at the fireplace, ‘but—’