here now? And yet, on my
word of honour, though every friend I ever had in the world should
deny it, I am the same. Memory stretches back clear and sound to my
childhood. I can see myself with extraordinary lucidity, how I think, my
motives and all that; and in spite of these voices that I seem to hear,
and this peculiar kind of longing to break away, as it were, just
to press on--it is I,--I myself, that am speaking to you now out of
this--this mask.'

Herbert glanced reflectively at his companion. 'You mustn't let me tire
you,' he said; 'but even on our theory it would not necessarily
follow that you yourself would be much affected. It's true this fellow
Sabathier really was something of a personality. He had a rather
unusual itch for life, for trying on and on to squeeze something out
of experience that isn't there; and he seemed never to weary of a
magnificent attempt to find in his fellow-creatures, especially in the
women he met, what even--if they have it--they cannot give. The little
book I wanted to show you is partly autobiographical and really does
manage to set the fellow on his feet. Even there he does absolutely take
one's imagination. I shall never forget the thrill of picking him up in
the Charing Cross Road. You see, I had known the queer old tombstone for
years. He's enormously vivid--quite beyond my feebleness to describe,
with a kind of French verve and rapture. Unluckily we can't get nearer
than two years to his death. I shouldn't mind guessing some last
devastating dream swept over him, held him the breath of an instant too
long beneath the wave, and he caved in. We know he killed himself; and
perhaps lived to regret it ever after.

'After all, what is this precious dying we talk so much about?' Herbert
continued after a while, his eyes restlessly wandering from shelf to
shelf. 'You remember our talk in the churchyard? We all know that the
body fades quick enough when its occupant is gone. Supposing even in the
sleep of the living it lies very feebly guarded. And supposing in that
state some infernally potent thing outside it, wandering disembodied,
just happens on it--like some hungry sexton beetle on the carcase of
a mouse. Supposing--I know it's the most outrageous theorising--but
supposing all these years of sun and dark, Sabathier's emanation,
or whatever you like to call it, horribly restless, by some fatality
longing on and on just for life, or even for the face, the voice, of
some "imposs