personality?"

"Utterly! As though some one else had written it--"

"Ah!"

"And shocking!" He passed his hand over his eyes a moment and let the
breath escape softly through his teeth. "Yet most damnably clever in the
consummate way the vile suggestions are insinuated under cover of a kind
of high drollery. My stenographer left me, of course--and I've been
afraid to take another--"

John Silence got up and began to walk about the room leisurely without
speaking; he appeared to be examining the pictures on the wall and
reading the names of the books lying about. Presently he paused on the
hearthrug, with his back to the fire, and turned to look his patient
quietly in the eyes. Pender's face was grey and drawn; the hunted
expression dominated it; the long recital had told upon him.

"Thank you, Mr. Pender," he said, a curious glow showing about his fine,
quiet face, "thank you for the sincerity and frankness of your account.
But I think now there is nothing further I need ask you." He indulged in
a long scrutiny of the author's haggard features, drawing purposely the
man's eyes to his own and then meeting them with a look of power and
confidence calculated to inspire even the feeblest soul with courage.
"And, to begin with," he added, smiling pleasantly, "let me assure you
without delay that you need have no alarm, for you are no more insane
or deluded than I myself am--"

Pender heaved a deep sigh and tried to return the smile.

"--and this is simply a case, so far as I can judge at present, of a
very singular psychical invasion, and a very sinister one, too, if you
perhaps understand what I mean--"

"It's an odd expression; you used it before, you know," said the author
wearily, yet eagerly listening to every word of the diagnosis, and
deeply touched by the intelligent sympathy which did not at once
indicate the lunatic asylum.

"Possibly," returned the other, "and an odd affliction too, you'll
allow, yet one not unknown to the nations of antiquity, nor to those
moderns, perhaps, who recognize the freedom of action under certain
pathogenic conditions between this world and another."

"And you think," asked Pender hastily, "that it is all primarily due to
the _Cannabis_? There is nothing radically amiss with myself--nothing
incurable, or--?"

"Due entirely to the overdose," Dr. Silence replied emphatically, "to
the drug's direct action upon your psychical being. It rendered you
ultra-sensitive and made you