ur memories?" he asked abruptly. "You don't
find yourself in doubt: did this happen or did it not?"

"Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. I
suppose few people do."

"Does _he_ say----" he indicated the book.

"Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about intensity
of impression and the like to account for its not happening as a rule. I
suppose you know something of these theories----"

"Very little--except that they are wrong."

His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I
prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next
remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me.

"Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on night
after night?"

"I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental
trouble."

"Mental trouble! Yes. I daresay there are. It's the right place for them.
But what I mean----" He looked at his bony knuckles. "Is that sort of
thing always dreaming? _Is_ it dreaming? Or is it something else?
Mightn't it be something else?"

I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn
anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the
lids red stained--perhaps you know that look.

"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said. "The thing's
killing me."

"Dreams?"

"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid ... this--"
(he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window) "seems
unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I am
on ..."

He paused. "Even now--"

"The dream is always the same--do you mean?" I asked.

"It's over."

"You mean?"

"I died."

"Died?"

"Smashed and killed, and now so much of me as that dream was is dead. Dead
for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living in a different part
of the world and in a different time. I dreamt that night after night.
Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes and fresh
happenings--until I came upon the last--"

"When you died?"

"When I died."

"And since then--"

"No," he said. "Thank God! that was the end of the dream..."

It was clear I was in for this dream. And, after all, I had an hour before
me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has a dreary way with
him. "Living in a different time," I said: "do you mean in some different
age?"

"Yes."

"Past?"

"N