very white, and a heavy black beard grew far up over his cheeks. At
first the secretary took him for a stranger, but when he looked up and
their eyes met, a sense of familiarity flashed across him, and for a
second or two Jones imagined he was staring at a man he had known years
before. For, barring the beard, it was the face of an elderly clerk who
had occupied the next desk to his own when he first entered the service
of the insurance company, and had shown him the most painstaking
kindness and sympathy in the early difficulties of his work. But a
moment later the illusion passed, for he remembered that Thorpe had been
dead at least five years. The similarity of the eyes was obviously a
mere suggestive trick of memory.

The two men stared at one another for several seconds, and then Jones
began to act _instinctively_, and because he had to. He crossed over and
took the vacant seat at the other's table, facing him; for he felt it
was somehow imperative to explain why he was late, and how it was he had
almost forgotten the engagement altogether.

No honest excuse, however, came to his assistance, though his mind had
begun to work furiously.

"Yes, you _are_ late," said the man quietly, before he could find a
single word to utter. "But it doesn't matter. Also, you had forgotten
the appointment, but that makes no difference either."

"I knew--that there was an engagement," Jones stammered, passing his
hand over his forehead; "but somehow--"

"You will recall it presently," continued the other in a gentle voice,
and smiling a little. "It was in deep sleep last night we arranged this,
and the unpleasant occurrences of to-day have for the moment obliterated
it."

A faint memory stirred within him as the man spoke, and a grove of trees
with moving forms hovered before his eyes and then vanished again, while
for an instant the stranger seemed to be capable of self-distortion and
to have assumed vast proportions, with wonderful flaming eyes.

"Oh!" he gasped. "It was there--in the other region?"

"Of course," said the other, with a smile that illumined his whole face.
"You will remember presently, all in good time, and meanwhile you have
no cause to feel afraid."

There was a wonderful soothing quality in the man's voice, like the
whispering of a great wind, and the clerk felt calmer at once. They sat
a little while longer, but he could not remember that they talked much
or ate anything. He only recalled afterwards t