d to pat him on the back,
and... my confounded hand went through him! By that time, you know,
I wasn't nearly so--massive as I had been on the landing. I got the
queerness of it full. I remember snatching back my hand out of him, as
it were, with a little thrill, and walking over to the dressing-table.
'You pull yourself together,' I said to him, 'and try.' And in order to
encourage and help him I began to try as well."

"What!" said Sanderson, "the passes?"

"Yes, the passes."

"But--" I said, moved by an idea that eluded me for a space.

"This is interesting," said Sanderson, with his finger in his pipe-bowl.
"You mean to say this ghost of yours gave away--"

"Did his level best to give away the whole confounded barrier? YES."

"He didn't," said Wish; "he couldn't. Or you'd have gone there too."

"That's precisely it," I said, finding my elusive idea put into words
for me.

"That IS precisely it," said Clayton, with thoughtful eyes upon the
fire.

For just a little while there was silence.

"And at last he did it?" said Sanderson.

"At last he did it. I had to keep him up to it hard, but he did it at
last--rather suddenly. He despaired, we had a scene, and then he got up
abruptly and asked me to go through the whole performance, slowly, so
that he might see. 'I believe,' he said, 'if I could SEE I should spot
what was wrong at once.' And he did. '_I_ know,' he said. 'What do you
know?' said I. '_I_ know,' he repeated. Then he said, peevishly, 'I
CAN'T do it if you look at me--I really CAN'T; it's been that, partly,
all along. I'm such a nervous fellow that you put me out.' Well, we had
a bit of an argument. Naturally I wanted to see; but he was as obstinate
as a mule, and suddenly I had come over as tired as a dog--he tired me
out. 'All right,' I said, '_I_ won't look at you,' and turned towards
the mirror, on the wardrobe, by the bed.

"He started off very fast. I tried to follow him by looking in the
looking-glass, to see just what it was had hung. Round went his arms
and his hands, so, and so, and so, and then with a rush came to the last
gesture of all--you stand erect and open out your arms--and so, don't
you know, he stood. And then he didn't! He didn't! He wasn't! I wheeled
round from the looking-glass to him. There was nothing, I was alone,
with the flaring candles and a staggering mind. What had happened? Had
anything happened? Had I been dreaming?... And then, with an absurd note
of finality a