certainty. I don't question the veracity of Mr.--"

"Newton," the stranger suggested.

"Newton's experience," Wanhope continued, "but we must wait for a good
many cases of the kind before we can accept what I may call
metaphantasmia as being equally established with thought-transference.
If we could it would throw light upon a whole series of most curious
phenomena, as, for instance, the privity of a person dreamed about to
the incident created by the dreamer."

"That would be rather dreadful, wouldn't it?" I ventured. "We do dream
such scandalous, such compromising things about people."

"All that," Wanhope gently insisted, "could have nothing to do with the
fact. That alone is to be considered in an inquiry of the kind. One is
never obliged to tell one's dreams. I wonder"--he turned to the
stranger, who sat absently staring into the fire--"if you happened to
speak to your friend about his nightmare in the morning, and whether he
was by any chance aware of the participation of the others in it?"

"I certainly spoke to him pretty plainly when we got into New York."

"And what did he say?"

"He said he had never slept better in his life, and he couldn't remember
having a trace of nightmare. He said he heard _me_ groaning at one time,
but I stopped just as he woke, and so he didn't rouse me as he thought
of doing. It was at Hartford, and he went to sleep again, and slept
through without a break."

"And what was your conclusion from that?" Wanhope asked.

"That he was lying, I should say," Rulledge replied for the stranger.

Wanhope still waited, and the stranger said, "I suppose one conclusion
might be that I had dreamed the whole thing myself."

"Then you wish me to infer," the psychologist pursued, "that the entire
incident was a figment of your sleeping brain? That there was no sort of
sleeping thought-transference, no metaphantasmia, no--Excuse me. Do you
remember verifying your impression of being between Worcester and
Springfield when the affair occurred, by looking at your watch, for
instance?"

The stranger suddenly pulled out his watch at the word. "Good Heavens!"
he called out. "It's twenty minutes of eleven, and I have to take the
eleven-o'clock train to Boston. I must bid you good-evening, gentlemen.
I've just time to get it if I can catch a cab. Good-night, good-night. I
hope if you come to Boston--eh--Good-night! Sometimes," he called over
his shoulder, "I've thought it might have been that girl