himself that he knew it was
true--these presences were about him now, so why was it that he was no
longer frightened?

He looked carefully into the dark corner behind him, beyond the low
jutting bookshelf, in the angle between the curtained windows, at his
piano, glossy and mysterious in the gloom, at the door half-open into
his bedroom. All was quiet here, shut off from the hum of Fleet
Street; circumstances were propitious. Why was he not frightened...?
Why, what was there to frighten him? These presences were natural and
normal; even as a Catholic he believed in them. And if they manifested
themselves, what was there to fear in that?

He looked steadily and serenely; and as he looked, like the kindling
of a fire, there rose within him a sense of strange exaltation.

"Amy," he whispered.

But there was no movement or hint.

Laurie smiled a little, wearily. He felt tired; he would sleep a
little. He beat out his pipe, crossed his feet before the fire, and
closed his eyes.

III

There followed that smooth rush into gulfs of sleep that provides
perhaps the most exquisite physical sensation known to man, as the
veils fall thicker and softer every instant, and the consciousness
gathers itself inwards from hands and feet and limbs, like a dog
curling himself up for rest; yet retains itself in continuous being,
and is able to regard its own comfort. All this he remembered
perfectly half an hour later; but there followed in his memory that
inevitable gap in which self loses itself before emerging into the
phantom land of dreams, or returning to reality.

But that into which he emerged, he remembered afterwards, was a
different realm altogether from that which is usual--from that country
of grotesque fancy and jumbled thoughts, of thin shadows of truth and
echoes from the common world where most of us find ourselves in sleep.

His dream was as follows:--

He was still in his room, he thought, but no longer in his chair.
Instead, he stood in the very center of the floor, or at least poised
somewhere above it, for he could see at a glance, without turning, all
that the room contained. He directed his attention--for it was this,
rather than sight, through which he perceived--to the piano, the
chiffonier, the chairs, the two doors, the curtained windows; and
finally, with scarcely even a touch of surprise, to himself still sunk
in the chair before the fire. He regarded himself with pleased
interest, remembering ev