There was none other. He moved uneasily, changing the crossing of his legs, and threw a freshly rolled and lighted cigarette into the grate. It was a case of psychic obsession. Otherwise he was a barefaced liar, a worm to be despised by his fellow-men. How else to account for the original lie direct, unreserved, to the publisher? Up to then he had no thought of sailing through the world under false colours. He had to give the mysterious dead man some identity. His own unconscious creative self clamoured for expression. He had woven the dead man and himself into a personality to which he had given the name of Alexis Triona. Naturally, for verisimilitude, he had assumed “Alexis Triona” as a pen-name. Besides, who would read a new book by one John Briggs? The publisher’s first direct question was a blow between the eyes under which he reeled for a few seconds. Then the romantic, the psychic, the whatever you will of the artist’s touch of lunacy asserted itself, and John Briggs was consumed in ashes and the Phœnix Alexis Triona arose in his stead. And when the book appeared and the Phœnix leaped into fame, what could the Phœnix do, for the sake of its ordinary credit, but maintain its Phœnixdom? Until now it had been the simplest matter in the world, seeing that he half believed in it himself, seeing that the identification of the dead man with himself was so complete, that his lies, even to himself, had the generous air of conviction. But now, in the uncompromising John Briggs-dom of his surroundings, things were different. The obsession which still lingered when he bade Olivia adieu had vanished from his spirit. He saw himself naked, a mere impostor. If his past found absolution in the theory of psychic domination, his present was none the less in a parlous state.