led.

"It's all right, Margaret," Victor Quink said. "He was just a bit upset.
You get all kinds in here. This one claimed there's something abnormal
with his _wife_. Better leave an hour free tomorrow. He'll come back."

But he didn't.

* * * * *

He didn't come back during the following three weeks, then one afternoon
Margaret ushered him through the doorway. He walked to the chair before
the desk, looking neither at the doctor nor to the right nor left, and
sat down, holding his hat in his hands.

"My wife believes she's just," he waved his hat vaguely toward the
shielded window, "just like everybody else here."

"And isn't she?" Doctor Quink queried, with the patience due his
profession.

"No, she isn't. But she's forgotten. She hasn't _really_ forgotten. I
don't know your technical terminology; she refuses to remember. Oh,
_you_ know. Her subconscious, or unconscious, or whatever, is blinding
her. She won't face reality. And it's time for us to go back. But she
won't budge. She claims she's normal, and I'm the one who's crazy. In
fact, she was very happy that I was coming to see you today. I _told_
her I was going to see you, but she persisted in insisting that I was
coming here because _I_ needed help. She said I'm coming to you because
subconsciously I know I need you. Well, enough of that. I'm here because
we have to go home, and if you could just make her face life long enough
to admit that, I'm sure that when we do get home our doctors will have
no difficulty with her case. It won't be so bizarre to them, of course,
as it must seem to you."

"Frankly, Mr. Fairfield," Dr. Quink said, "you're not being entirely
clear in this matter. First of all, you say you have to go home. You're
not a native of New York then?"

"A native? How quaintly you put it, Doctor. You might better say a
savage, mightn't you? But that's neither here nor there. I am, of
course, a native, as you say, of New York. I thought I explained last
time. I am simply not of this _time_."

* * * * *

Doctor Quink slowly shook his shaggy head. "I'm afraid the precise
meaning of your phrase escapes me, Mr. Fairfield."

"I am not of this _time_, Doctor. Nor is my wife. We are from ... well,
from the future."

"From very _far_ in the future?" Quink asked quietly.

"Quite far. I'm not sure just exactly _how_ far. Systems of time
measurement have changed, you understand, betwe