ern and
color scheme of the Chinese rug beside the _chaise-longue_. As an
amateur in such matters I could easily, in advance of physically looking
at it, have catalogued that rug and have estimated its value to a
collector. How then to account for this astounding clairvoyance? I could
not account for it without widening my whole conception of what was
psychically possible. Seated with Doctor Askew in the room where Susan
lay withdrawn from us, from our normal world of limited concrete
perceptions, I was oppressed as never before by the immensity and
deluding vagueness of the unknown. What were we, we men and women?
Eternal forces, or creatures of an hour? An echo, from days long past
returned to me, Phil's quiet, firm voice demanding--of Maltby, wasn't
it? Yes, yes, of course--demanding of Maltby: "_What is the world, may I
ask? And what is Susan?_"

Doctor Askew cross-questioned me closely as we sat there, a little off
from Susan, our eyes seldom leaving her face. "You must have patience,"
he kept assuring me in the midst of his questioning. "It will be much
better for her to come out of this thing tranquilly, by herself. We're
not really wasting time." When his cross-questioning was over he sat
silent for a long time, biting at his upper lip, tapping one
foot--almost irritably, I thought--on the parquet floor.

"I don't like it," he said finally, in his abrupt way. "I don't like it
because I believe you're telling the truth. If I could only persuade
myself that you are either lying or at least drawing a long bow"--he
gave a little disgusted snort of laughter--"it would be a great relief
to me!"

"Why?"

"Why? Because you're upsetting my scientific convictions. My mind was
all tidied up, everything nicely in order, and now you come raging
through it with this ridiculous tale of a sudden hallucinating
vision--of seeing things that you'd never seen, never heard
described--whose very existence you were completely unaware of! Damn it!
I'd give almost anything to think you a cheerful liar--or self-deceived!
But I can't."

"Still, you must have met with similar cases?"

"Never, as it happens, with one that I couldn't explain away to my own
satisfaction. That's what irritates me now. I can't explain you away,
Mr. Hunt. I believe you had that experience just as you describe it.
Well, then, if you had--what follows?" He pulled for a moment or two at
a stubby end of red mustache.

"What does?" I suggested.

"One of t