hing happened for more than a year. Then one evening in
May he burst into my rooms in high excitement. You understand quite
clearly that there was no suspicion of horror or fright or anything
unpleasant about this world he had discovered. It was simply a series
of interesting and difficult problems. All this time Hollond had been
rather extra well and cheery. But when he came in I thought I noticed
a different look in his eyes, something puzzled and diffident and
apprehensive.

"'There's a queer performance going on in the other world,' he said.
'It's unbelievable. I never dreamed of such a thing. I--I don't
quite know how to put it, and I don't know how to explain it, but--but
I am becoming aware that there are other beings--other minds--moving
in Space besides mine.'

"I suppose I ought to have realised then that things were beginning to
go wrong. But it was very difficult, he was so rational and anxious to
make it all clear. I asked him how he knew. 'There could, of course,
on his own showing be no CHANGE in that world, for the forms of Space
moved and existed under inexorable laws. He said he found his own mind
failing him at points. There would come over him a sense of
fear--intellectual fear--and weakness, a sense of something else, quite
alien to Space, thwarting him. Of course he could only describe his
impressions very lamely, for they were purely of the mind, and he had
no material peg to hang them on, so that I could realise them. But the
gist of it was that he had been gradually becoming conscious of what he
called 'Presences' in his world. They had no effect on Space--did not
leave footprints in its corridors, for instance--but they affected his
mind. There was some mysterious contact established between him and
them. I asked him if the affection was unpleasant and he said 'No, not
exactly.' But I could see a hint of fear in his eyes.

"Think of it. Try to realise what intellectual fear is. I can't, but
it is conceivable. To you and me fear implies pain to ourselves or
some other, and such pain is always in the last resort pain of the
flesh. Consider it carefully and you will see that it is so. But
imagine fear so sublimated and transmuted as to be the tension of pure
spirit. I can't realise it, but I think it possible. I don't pretend
to understand how Hollond got to know about these Presences. But there
was no doubt about the fact. He was positive, and he wasn't in the
least m