“Do you realize, Mr. District Attorney, what this man is saying?”

But Robinson motioned him to silence.

“Let him go on.  What happened then?”

“That’s all,” Blackburn answered, “except this long sleep I can’t make out.  Old Waters didn’t get mad at my not shaking hands.  He was too tied up in some book, I guess.  I told him I was sleepy and didn’t want to be bothered, and he nodded to the spare room off the main hall, and I tumbled into bed and was off almost before I knew it.”

Paredes sprang to his feet and commenced to walk about the hall.

“Tell us,” he said, “when you first woke up?”

“I guess it was late the next afternoon,” Silas Blackburn quavered, fumbling with his pipe again.  “But it was only for a minute.”

Paredes stopped in front of Robinson.

“When he turned!  You see!”

“It was Waters knocking on the door,” Blackburn went on.  “I guess he wanted to know what was the matter, and he talked about some food, but I didn’t want to be bothered, so I called to him through the door to go away, and turned over and went to sleep again.”

“He turned over and went to sleep again!” Katherine said breathlessly, “and it was about that time that I heard the turning in the old bedroom.”

“Katherine!” Graham called.  “What are you talking about?  What are you thinking about?”

“What else is there?” she asked.

“She’s thinking about the truth,” Paredes said tensely.  “I’ve always heard of such things.  So have you.  You’ve read of them, if you read at all.  India is full of it.  It goes back to ancient Egypt—­the same person simultaneously in two places—­the astral body—­whatever you choose to call it.  It’s the projection of one’s self whether consciously or unconsciously; perhaps the projection of something that retains reason after an apparent death.  You heard him.  He didn’t seem to walk.  He doesn’t remember leaving the room, which was locked on the inside.  His descent of the stairs was without motion as we know it.  He had gone some distance before his mind consciously directed the movement of this active image of Silas Blackburn, while the double from which it had sprung lay apparently dead in the old room.  You notice he shrank from shaking hands, and he slept until we hid away the shell.  What disintegration and coming together again has taken place since we buried that shell in the old graveyard?  If his friend had shaken hands with him would he have grasped emptiness?  Did his normal self come back to him when the shell was put from our sight, and he awakened?  These are some of the questions we must answer.”

“You’ve a fine imagination, Mr. Paredes,” Robinson said dryly.

His fat face, nevertheless, was bewildered, and in the eyes, surrounded by puffy flesh, smouldered a profound uncertainty.

“I wish Groom were here,” Paredes was saying.  “He would agree with me.  He would know more about it than I.”