phe in which we were entangled.

It never once occurred to us that my brother might still be
alive--until a long shuddering groan sounded above us. In combined
horror and joy we sprang up. He was twisting weakly in the belts,
muttering deliriously. We unfastened him and pulled him to the ground,
where I sat on his knees while she pressed down on his shoulders, and
so kept him recumbent, both horrified at the insistent lift of his
body under us.

She kissed him frantically and stroked his cheeks, I feeling utterly
without resource. He grew stronger, muttered wildly, and his eyes
opened, staring upward through the tree limbs. He became silent, and
stiffened, gazing fixedly upward with a horror in his wild blue gaze
which chilled our blood. What did he see there--what dire other-world
thing dragging him into the depths of space? Shortly his eyes closed,
and he ceased to mutter.

* * * * *

I took his legs under my arms--the storm was clearing now--and we set
out for home with gruesomely buoyant steps, the insistent pull
remaining steady. Would it increase? We gazed upward with terrified
eyes, becoming calmer by degree as conditions remained unchanged.

When the country house loomed near across the last field, Alice
faltered:

"Jim, we can't take him right in like this!"

I stopped.

"Why not?"

"Oh, because--because--it's too ridiculously awful. I don't know just
how to say it--oh, can't you see it yourself?"

In a dim way, I saw it. No cultured person cares to be made a center
of public interest, unless on grounds of respect. To come walking in
in this fashion, buoyed balloon-like by the body of this loved one,
and before the members of a frivolous, gaping house party--ah, even I
could imagine the mingled horror and derision, the hysterics among the
women, perhaps. Nor would it stop there. Rumors--and heaven only knows
what distortions such rumors might undergo, having their source in the
incredible--would range our social circle like wildfire. And the
newspapers, for our families are established and known--no, it
wouldn't go.

I tied Tristan to a stile and called up Jack Briggs, our host, from a
neighboring house, explained briefly that Tristan had met with an
accident, asked him to say nothing, and explained where to bring the
machine. In ten minutes he had maneuvered the heavy sedan across the
rough wet fields. And then we had another problem on our hands: to let
Jack into