if to
himself, 'she thinks I am an imposter. Goodness knows what she does
think. I can't think much myself--for long!'

The vicar rubbed busily on. 'I have found, Lawford,' he said smoothly,
'that in all real difficulties the only feasible plan is--is to face the
main issue. The others right themselves. Now, to take a plunge into your
generosity. You have let me in far enough to make it impossible for me
to get out--may I hear then exactly the whole story? All that I know
now, so far as I could gather from your wife, poor soul, is of course
inconceivable: that you went out one man and came home another. You will
understand, my dear man, I am speaking, as it were, by rote. God has
mercifully ordered that the human brain works slowly; first the
blow, hours afterwards the bruise. Oh, dear me, that man Hume--"on
miracles"--positively amazing! So that too, please, you will be quite
clear about. Credo--not quia impossible est, but because you, Lawford,
have told me. Now then, if it won't be too wearisome to you, the whole
story.' He sat, lean and erect in his big chair, a hand resting
loosely on each knee, in one spectacles, in the other a dangling pocket
handkerchief. And the dark, sallow, aquiline, formidable figure, with
its oddly changing voice, re-told the whole story from the beginning.

'You were aware then of nothing different, I understand, until you
actually looked into the glass?'

'Only vaguely. I mean that after waking I felt much better, more alert.
And my thoughts--'

'Ah, yes, your thoughts?'

'I hardly know--oh, clear as if I had had a real long rest. It was just
like being a boy again. Influenza dispirits one so.'

Mr Bethany gazed without stirring. 'And yet, you know,' he said, 'I can
hardly believe, I mean conceive, how--You have been taking no drugs, no
quackery, Lawford?'

'I never dose myself,' said Lawford, with sombre pride.

'God bless me, that's Lawford to the echo,' thought his visitor. 'And
before--?' he went on gently; 'I really cannot conceive, you see, how
a mere fit could... Before you sat down you were quite alone?' He stuck
out his head. 'There was nobody with you?'

'With me? Oh no,' came the soft answer.

'What had you been thinking of? In these days of faith-cures, and
hypnotism, and telepathy, and subliminalities--why, the simple old world
grows very confusing. But rarely, very rarely novel. You were thinking,
you say; do you remember, perhaps, just the drift?'

'Well,' beg