Here he paused for some others to recount their experience, but as all were looking to him to continue, he proceeded,—“For several weeks past, when I have been intent on some work and completely absorbed, I have suddenly looked aside to find close by me, one or two, or perhaps half a dozen or more, strange beings, not human and not inhuman but a kind of glorified ‘essence’—a ‘nebula’—out of focus, tangible and yet ethereal—and I have looked, lost in amazement, thinking our hard work and close application had upset my nerves, and to be frank with you all, I began to wonder if I was going mad!” He looked round, and Coombes rejoined,—“I have had similar visions and I wondered what was the import of it, judging it was my imagination, purely and simply”; and most of the others said the same. “Have any of you ever seen these beings except when completely engrossed in other matters?” asked Reeve. “No!” no one had. “Then it seems to me,” continued Reeve, “that these beings are not under our influence, or we under theirs unless our minds are blank, so to speak.” “Something like that,” agreed Rutherford. “I should say the people are much better than ourselves—angels, in fact—for they have a kind of ‘glory’ round them, and when addressed they become fainter and die away.” “It’s a strange thing,” observed Godfrey, “if in the future life we have to become nebulous and float about doing nothing particular except frighten any folk who chance to come along by turning up when they’re not expecting us, and vanish when they ask us what the deuce we mean by it—as I did several lots of them. The idea is rather thin and unsatisfactory to my mind, and I should have thought there would be something better for us to do!” “We ought to get to the bottom of this mystery!” remarked Farrant, seriously. “When we look for beings they are not there; we none of us see them, unless our minds are, not a blank, but entirely preoccupied to _their_ total exclusion; when we accost them they begin to fade. All this seems to me to point to hallucinations, brought on by our experiences, close application, and the perhaps somewhat morbid influence of this inhabited, but unpeopled world.” “I think the same,” assented Ingle; “and the fact that we have been so eager to find man has, in some mysterious way, stamped itself on our minds to such an extent that when strained or much preoccupied, there comes a reaction in a vision of the things desired.” “Yes, that may be granted in an isolated case, perhaps,” argued Field, “but when _all_ have the same experience, I fail to see how you obtain your case.” “To me that seems its strongest point,” responded Ingle, “for though we experience no strain, as a physical sensation, there is no possible doubt that the tension of the last few months must have told on us, and made us fanciful.” “But all seeing the same?” repeated Field.