d looked around, but could see
nothing. I started to read again, but I hadn't read more
than a page, or say a page and a half--or no, not more
than a page, when again all of a sudden I felt an
overwhelming sense of--something. I can't explain just
what the feeling was, but a queer sense as if there was
something somewhere.

Well, I'm not of a timorous disposition naturally--at
least I don't think I am--but absolutely I felt as if I
couldn't stay in the room. I got up out of my chair and
walked down the stairs, in the dark, to the dining-room.
I felt all the way as if some one were following me. Do
you know, I was absolutely trembling when I got into the
dining-room and got the lights turned on. I walked over
to the sideboard and poured myself out a drink of whisky
and soda. As you know, I never take anything as a rule
--or, at any rate, only when I am sitting round talking
as we are now--but I always like to keep a decanter of
whisky in the house, and a little soda, in case of my
wife or one of the children being taken ill in the night.

Well, I took a drink and then I said to myself, I said,
"See here, I'm going to see this thing through." So I
turned back and walked straight upstairs again to my
room. I fully expected something queer was going to happen
and was prepared for it. But do you know when I walked
into the room again the feeling, or presentiment, or
whatever it was I had had, was absolutely gone. There
was my book lying just where I had left it and the reading
lamp still burning on the table, just as it had been,
and my chair just where I had pushed it back. But I felt
nothing, absolutely nothing. I sat and waited awhile,
but I still felt _nothing_.

I went downstairs again to put out the lights in the
dining-room. I noticed as I passed the sideboard that
I was still shaking a little. So I took a small drink of
whisky--though as a rule I never care to take more than
one drink--unless when I am sitting talking as we are
here.

Well, I had hardly taken it when I felt an odd sort of
psychic feeling--a sort of drowsiness. I remember, in a
dim way, going to bed, and then I remember nothing till
I woke up next morning.

And here's the strange part of it. I had hardly got down
to the office after breakfast when I got a wire to tell
me that my mother-in-law had broken her arm in Cincinnati.
Strange, wasn't it? No, _not_ at half-past two during
that night--that's the inexplicable part of it. She had
br