on me in half-smiling curiosity, and I felt a painful sensation as if a
sharp wind were cutting me. The pale-green dress, and the green leaves
that seemed to form a border about her pale blond hair, made me think of
a Water-Nixie--for my mind was full of German lyrics, and this pale,
fatal-eyed woman, with the green weeds, looked like a birth from some
cold sedgy stream, the daughter of an aged river.

"Well, Latimer, you thought me long," my father said . . .

But while the last word was in my ears, the whole group vanished, and
there was nothing between me and the Chinese printed folding-screen that
stood before the door. I was cold and trembling; I could only totter
forward and throw myself on the sofa. This strange new power had
manifested itself again . . . But _was_ it a power? Might it not rather
be a disease--a sort of intermittent delirium, concentrating my energy of
brain into moments of unhealthy activity, and leaving my saner hours all
the more barren? I felt a dizzy sense of unreality in what my eye rested
on; I grasped the bell convulsively, like one trying to free himself from
nightmare, and rang it twice. Pierre came with a look of alarm in his
face.

"Monsieur ne se trouve pas bien?" he said anxiously.

"I'm tired of waiting, Pierre," I said, as distinctly and emphatically as
I could, like a man determined to be sober in spite of wine; "I'm afraid
something has happened to my father--he's usually so punctual. Run to
the Hotel des Bergues and see if he is there."

Pierre left the room at once, with a soothing "Bien, Monsieur"; and I
felt the better for this scene of simple, waking prose. Seeking to calm