ration in that
story she told--an idea that if anything she underplayed it."

"I, too," I replied somberly. "And to me it is the most hideous phase
of this whole situation--and for reasons not all connected with Ruth," I
added.

"Hideous!" he repeated. "Unthinkable--yet all this is unthinkable.
And still--it is! And Ventnor--coming back--that way. Like a lost soul
finding voice.

"Was it raving, Goodwin? Or could he have been--how was it he put it--in
touch with these Things and their purpose? Was that message--truth?"

"Ask yourself that question," I said. "Man--you know it was truth. Had
not inklings of it come to you even before he spoke? They had to me.
His message was but an interpretation, a synthesis of facts I, for one,
lacked the courage to admit."

"I, too," he nodded. "But he went further than that. What did he mean by
the Keeper of the Cones--and that the Things--were vulnerable under the
same law that orders us? And why did he command us to go back to the
city? How could he know--how could he?"

"There's nothing inexplicable in that, at any rate," I answered.
"Abnormal sensitivity of perception due to the cutting off of all
sensual impressions. There's nothing uncommon in that. You have its most
familiar form in the sensitivity of the blind. You've watched the same
thing at work in certain forms of hypnotic experimentation, haven't you?

"Through the operation of entirely understandable causes the mind gains
the power to react to vibrations that normally pass unperceived; is able
to project itself through this keying up of perception into a wider area
of consciousness than the normal. Just as in certain diseases of the ear
the sufferer, though deaf to sounds within the average range of hearing,
is fully aware of sound vibrations far above and far below those the
healthy ear registers."

"I know," he said. "I don't need to be convinced. But we accept these
things in theory--and when we get up against them for ourselves we
doubt.

"How many people are there in Christendom, do you think, who believe
that the Saviour ascended from the dead, but who if they saw it today
would insist upon medical inspection, doctor's certificates, a
clinic, and even after that render a Scotch verdict? I'm not speaking
irreverently--I'm just stating a fact."

Suddenly he moved away from me, strode over to the curtained oval
through which Norhala had gone.

"Dick," I cried, following him hastily, "where are you going?