world," he said. "I don't
understand it. _Why?_... But it is all _why!_"

"I suppose they can fly and do all sorts of things Let me try and
remember just how it began."

He was surprised at first to find how vague the memories of his first
thirty years had become. He remembered fragments, for the most part
trivial moments, things of no great importance that he had observed. His
boyhood seemed the most accessible at first, he recalled school books
and certain lessons in mensuration. Then he revived the more salient
features of his life, memories of the wife long since dead, her magic
influence now gone beyond corruption, of his rivals and friends and
betrayers, of the swift decision of this issue and that, and then of
his, last years of misery, of fluctuating resolves, and at last of his
strenuous studies. In a little while he perceived he had it all again;
dim perhaps, like metal long laid aside, but in no way defective or
injured, capable of re-polishing. And the hue of it was a deepening
misery. Was it worth re-polishing? By a miracle he had been lifted out
of a life that had become intolerable.

He reverted to his present condition. He wrestled with the facts in
vain. It became an inextricable tangle. He saw the sky through the
ventilator pink with dawn. An old persuasion came out of the dark
recesses of his memory. "I must sleep," he said. It appeared as a
delightful relief from this mental distress and from the growing pain
and heaviness of his limbs. He went to the strange little bed, lay down
and was presently asleep.

He was destined to become very familiar indeed with these apartments
before he left them, for he remained imprisoned for three days. During
that time no one, except Howard, entered his prison. The marvel of his
fate mingled with and in some way minimised the marvel of his survival.
He had awakened to mankind it seemed only to be snatched away into this
unaccountable solitude. Howard came regularly with subtly sustaining and
nutritive fluids, and light and pleasant foods, quite strange to Graham.
He always closed the door carefully as he entered. On matters of detail
he was increasingly obliging, but the bearing of Graham on the great
issues that were evidently being contested so closely beyond the
soundproof walls that enclosed him, he would not elucidate. He evaded,
as politely as possible, every question on the position of affairs in
the outer world.

And in those three days Graham's incess