some mistake--I must make it understood. I am here. It is
I, Dr. Thorne; Dr. Esmerald Thorne. I am in this office. Gentlemen!
Listen to me! Look at me! Look in this direction! For God's sake,
_try_ to see me--some of you!"...

"He drove too fast a horse," said the customer. "He always has."

"I must answer Mrs. Thorne's message," said the broker sadly, rising
and pushing back the office chair.

...I shrank, and tried no more. I bowed my head, and said no other
word. The truth, incredible and terrible though it were, the truth
which neither flesh nor spirit can escape, had now forced itself upon
my consciousness.

I looked across the broker's office at those five warm human beings as
if I had looked across the width of the breathing world. Naught had I
now to say to them; naught could they communicate to me. Language was
not between us, nor speech, nor any sign. Need of mine could reach
them not, nor any of their kind. For I was in the dead, and they the
living men.

..."Here is your dog, sir," said Jason. "He has followed you in. He
is trying to speak to you, in his way."

The broker stooped and patted the dumb brute affectionately. "I
understand, Lion," he said. "Yes, I understand you."

The dog looked lovingly up into his master's face, and whined for joy.

CHAPTER VIII.

This incident, trifling as it was, I think, did more than anything
which had preceded it to make me aware of the nature of that which had
befallen me. The live brute could still communicate with the living
man. Skill of scientist and philosopher was as naught to help the
human spirit which had fled the body to make itself understood by one
which occupied it still. More blessed in that moment was Lion, the
dog, than Esmerald Thorne, the dead man. I said to myself:--

"I am a desolate and an outcast creature. I am become a dumb thing in
a deaf world."

I thrust my hands before me, and wrung them with a groan. It seemed
incredible to me that I could die; that was more wonderful, even, than
to know that I was already dead.

"It is all over," I moaned. "I have died. I am dead. I am what they
call a dead man."

Now, at this instant, the dog turned his head. No human tympanum in
the room vibrated to my cry. No human retina was recipient of my
anguish. What fine, unclassified senses had the highly-organized
animal by which he should become aware of me? The dog turned his noble
head--he was a St. Bernard,