wards the end, weak and hungry. By day--by
our earthly day, that is--the ghostly vision of the old familiar scenery
of Sussexville, all about him, irked and worried him. He could not see
where to put his feet, and ever and again with a chilly touch one of these
Watching Souls would come against his face. And after dark the multitude
of these Watchers about him, and their intent distress, confused his mind
beyond describing. A great longing to return to the earthly life that was
so near and yet so remote consumed him. The unearthliness of things about
him produced a positively painful mental distress. He was worried beyond
describing by his own particular followers. He would shout at them to
desist from staring at him, scold at them, hurry away from them. They were
always mute and intent. Run as he might over the uneven ground, they
followed his destinies.

On the ninth day, towards evening, Plattner heard the invisible footsteps
approaching, far away down the gorge. He was then wandering over the broad
crest of the same hill upon which he had fallen in his entry into this
strange Other-World of his. He turned to hurry down into the gorge,
feeling his way hastily, and was arrested by the sight of the thing that
was happening in a room in a back street near the school. Both of the
people in the room he knew by sight. The windows were open, the blinds up,
and the setting sun shone clearly into it, so that it came out quite
brightly at first, a vivid oblong of room, lying like a magic-lantern
picture upon the black landscape and the livid green dawn. In addition to
the sunlight, a candle had just been lit in the room.

On the bed lay a lank man, his ghastly white face terrible upon the
tumbled pillow. His clenched hands were raised above his head. A little
table beside the bed carried a few medicine bottles, some toast and water,
and an empty glass. Every now and then the lank man's lips fell apart,
to indicate a word he could not articulate. But the woman did not notice
that he wanted anything, because she was busy turning out papers from an
old-fashioned bureau in the opposite corner of the room. At first the
picture was very vivid indeed, but as the green dawn behind it grew
brighter and brighter, so it became fainter and more and more transparent.

As the echoing footsteps paced nearer and nearer, those footsteps that
sound so loud in that Other-World and come so silently in this, Plattner
perceived about him a great m