here was an interval of thought.

"Unless I sponge," said Denton, "your forehead will develop a tremendous
bruise."

"You can go on sponging," said the hypnotist sulkily.

There was another pause.

"We might be in the Stone Age," said the hypnotist. "Violence!
Struggle!"

"In the Stone Age no man dared to come between man and woman," said
Denton.

The hypnotist thought again.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"While you were insensible I found the girl's address on your tablets.
I did not know it before. I telephoned. She will be here soon. Then--"

"She will bring her chaperone."

"That is all right."

"But what--? I don't see. What do you mean to do?"

"I looked about for a weapon also. It is an astonishing thing how few
weapons there are nowadays. If you consider that in the Stone Age men
owned scarcely anything _but_ weapons. I hit at last upon this lamp. I
have wrenched off the wires and things, and I hold it so." He extended
it over the hypnotist's shoulders. "With that I can quite easily smash
your skull. I _will_--unless you do as I tell you."

"Violence is no remedy," said the hypnotist, quoting from the "Modern
Man's Book of Moral Maxims."

"It's an undesirable disease," said Denton.

"Well?"

"You will tell that chaperone you are going to order the girl to marry
that knobby little brute with the red hair and ferrety eyes. I believe
that's how things stand?"

"Yes--that's how things stand."

"And, pretending to do that, you will restore her memory of me."

"It's unprofessional."

"Look here! If I cannot have that girl I would rather die than not. I
don't propose to respect your little fancies. If anything goes wrong you
shall not live five minutes. This is a rude makeshift of a weapon, and
it may quite conceivably be painful to kill you. But I will. It is
unusual, I know, nowadays to do things like this--mainly because there
is so little in life that is worth being violent about."

"The chaperone will see you directly she comes--"

"I shall stand in that recess. Behind you."

The hypnotist thought. "You are a determined young man," he said, "and
only half civilised. I have tried to do my duty to my client, but in
this affair you seem likely to get your own way...."

"You mean to deal straightly."

"I'm not going to risk having my brains scattered in a petty affair like
this."

"And afterwards?"

"There is nothing a hypnotist or doctor hates so much as a scandal. I at