disintegrated....’ He broke off with a smile, as if of apology for his long, fantastic harangue. Lawford sat listening, his eyes fixed on Herbert’s colourless face. There was not a sound else, it seemed, than that slightly drawling scrupulous voice poking its way amid a maze of enticing, baffling thoughts. Herbert turned away with a shrug. ‘It’s tempting stuff,’ he said, choosing another cigarette. ‘But anyhow, the poor beggar failed.’ ‘Failed?’ ‘Why, surely; if he had succeeded I should not now be talking to a mere imperfect simulacrum, to the outward illusion of a passing likeness to the man, but to Sabathier himself!’ His eyes moved slowly round and dwelt for a moment with a dark, quiet scrutiny on his visitor. ‘You say a passing likeness; do you _mean_ that?’ Herbert smiled indulgently. ‘If one _can_ mean what is purely a speculation. I am only trying to look at the thing dispassionately, you see. We are so much the slaves of mere repetition. Here is life—yours and mine—a kind of plenum in vacuo_. It is only when we begin to play the eavesdropper; when something goes askew; when one of the sentries on the frontier of the unexpected shouts a hoarse “Qui vive?”_—it is only then we begin to question; to prick our aldermen and pinch the calves of our kings. Why, who is there can answer to anybody’s but his own satisfaction just that one fundamental question—Are we the prisoners, the slaves, the inheritors, the creatures, or the creators of our bodies? Fallen angels or horrific dust? As for identity or likeness or personality, we have only our neighbours’ nod for them, and just a fading memory. No, the old fairy tales knew better; and witchcraft’s witchcraft to the end of the chapter. Honestly, and just of course on that one theory, Lawford, I can’t help thinking that Sabathier’s raid only just so far succeeded as to leave his impression in the wax. It doesn’t, of course, follow that it will necessarily end there. It might—it may be even now just gradually fading away. It may, you know, need driving out—with whips and scorpions. It might, perhaps, work in.’ Lawford sat cold and still. ‘It’s no good, no good,’ he said, ‘I don’t understand; I can’t follow you. I was always stupid, always bigoted and cocksure. These things have never seemed anything but old women’s tales to me. And now I must pay for it. And this Nicholas Sabathier; you say he was a blackguard?’