, Presto!--this hearthrug will be vacant, the room will be blank
amazement, and a respectably dressed gentleman of fifteen stone will
plump into the world of shades. I'm certain. So will you be. I decline
to argue further. Let the thing be tried."

"NO," said Wish, and made a step and ceased, and Clayton raised his
hands once more to repeat the spirit's passing.

By that time, you know, we were all in a state of tension--largely
because of the behaviour of Wish. We sat all of us with our eyes on
Clayton--I, at least, with a sort of tight, stiff feeling about me as
though from the back of my skull to the middle of my thighs my body had
been changed to steel. And there, with a gravity that was imperturbably
serene, Clayton bowed and swayed and waved his hands and arms before us.
As he drew towards the end one piled up, one tingled in one's teeth. The
last gesture, I have said, was to swing the arms out wide open, with the
face held up. And when at last he swung out to this closing gesture I
ceased even to breathe. It was ridiculous, of course, but you know that
ghost-story feeling. It was after dinner, in a queer, old shadowy house.
Would he, after all--?

There he stood for one stupendous moment, with his arms open and his
upturned face, assured and bright, in the glare of the hanging lamp. We
hung through that moment as if it were an age, and then came from all
of us something that was half a sigh of infinite relief and half a
reassuring "NO!" For visibly--he wasn't going. It was all nonsense. He
had told an idle story, and carried it almost to conviction, that was
all!... And then in that moment the face of Clayton, changed.

It changed. It changed as a lit house changes when its lights are
suddenly extinguished. His eyes were suddenly eyes that were fixed, his
smile was frozen on his lips, and he stood there still. He stood there,
very gently swaying.

That moment, too, was an age. And then, you know, chairs were scraping,
things were falling, and we were all moving. His knees seemed to give,
and he fell forward, and Evans rose and caught him in his arms....

It stunned us all. For a minute I suppose no one said a coherent thing.
We believed it, yet could not believe it.... I came out of a muddled
stupefaction to find myself kneeling beside him, and his vest and shirt
were torn open, and Sanderson's hand lay on his heart....

Well--the simple fact before us could very well wait our convenience;
there was no hur