r her. Doesn't it seem improbable, then, to say the
least of it, that my vision could have come from that direction?"

He was reading the pages through again, more slowly. "Jimmy?" he queried
to himself. "Oh, yes--Jimmy's the boy you spoke of. I see--I see." He
looked up, and I did my best to smile.

"That's a bitter dose of truth for me, doctor; but thank God it came in
this way--came in time!"

Except for the punctuation, which I have roughly supplied, the three
pages read as follows:

"A net. No means of escape from it. To escape--somehow. Jimmy---- Only
wretchedness for Ambo--for us both. How can he care! Insufferably
self-satisfied; childishly blind. I won't--I won't--not after this. No
escape from it--my net. But the inner net--Ambo's--binding him, too.
Some way out. A dead hand killing things. My own father. How he killed
and killed--always--more than he knew. Blind. Never felt that before as
part of me--of me. Wrong way round though--it enfolds--smothers. I'm
tangled there--part of it--forever and ever. Setebos--God of my
father--Setebos knows. Oh, how could I dream myself free of it like
others--how could I! A net--all a net--no breaking it. Poor Ambo--and
his love too--a net. It shan't hold me. I'll gnaw through--mouselike. I
must. Fatal for Ambo now if it holds me. Fatal--Setebos--Jimmy will----"

"Hum," said Doctor Askew quietly.

"That doesn't help me much," I complained.

"No," he responded; "but I can't see that all this has any bearing on
the possible source of your vision."

"I only thought that perhaps this revelation of a repressed inner revolt
against me----"

"Yes, I see. But there's no reasoning about the unthinkable. I've
already said I can make nothing of your vision--nothing I'm yet prepared
to believe." He handed the three sheets back to me with these words:
"But I'm afraid your interpretation of this thing is correct. It's a
little puzzling in spots--curious, eh, the references to
Setebos?--still, if I were you, Mr. Hunt, I should quietly withdraw from
a lost cause. It'll mean less trouble all round in the end." He shook
his head impatiently. "These sexual muddles--it's better to see 'em out
frankly! They're always the devil, anyway! What silly mechanisms we
are--how Nature makes puppet-fools of us! That lovely child there--she
admires you and wants to love you, because you love her. Why shouldn't
she? What could be a happier arrangement--now? You've had your share of
marital misfor