“Yes?”

The medium hesitated.

“Well,” he said, “in some natures—­yours, for instance, Mr. Baxter—­this door opens rather easily.  It was through that door that you went, I think, in what you call your ‘dream.’  You yourself said it was quite unlike ordinary dreams.”

“Yes.”

“And I am the more sure that this is so, since your experience is exactly that of so many others under the same circumstances.”

Laurie moved uncomfortably in his chair.

“I don’t quite understand,” he said sharply.  “You mean it was not a dream?”

“Certainly not.  At least, not a dream in the ordinary sense.  It was an actual experience.”

“But—­but I was asleep.”

“Certainly.  That is one of the usual conditions—­an almost indispensable condition, in fact.  The objective self—­I mean the ordinary workaday faculties—­was lulled; and your subjective self—­call it what you like—­but it is your real self, the essential self that survives death—­this self, simply went through the inner door, and—­and saw what was to be seen.”

Laurie looked at him intently.  But there was a touch of apprehension in his face, too.

“You mean,” he said slowly, “that—­that all I saw—­the limitations of space, and so forth—­that these were facts and not fancies?”

“Certainly.  Doesn’t your theology hint at something of the kind?”

Laurie was silent.  He had no idea of what his theology told him on the point.

“But why should I—­I of all people—­have such an experience?” he asked suddenly.

The medium smiled.

“Who can tell that?” he said.  “Why should one man be an artist, and another not?  It is a matter of temperament.  You see you’ve begun to develop that temperament at last; and it’s a very marked one to begin with.  As for—­”

Laurie interrupted him.

“Yes, yes,” he said.  “But there’s another point.  What about that fear I had when I tried to—­to awaken?”

There passed over the medium’s face a shade of gravity.  It was no more than a shade, but it was there.  He reached out rather quickly for his pipe which he had laid aside, and blew through it carefully before answering.

“That?” he said, with what seemed to the boy an affected carelessness.  “That?  Oh, that’s a common experience.  Don’t think about that too much, Mr. Baxter.  It’s never very healthy—­”

“I am sorry,” said Laurie deliberately.  “But I must ask you to tell me what you think.  I must know what I’m doing.”

The medium filled his pipe again.  Twice he began to speak, and checked himself; and in the long silence Laurie felt his fears gather upon him tenfold.

“Please tell me at once, Mr. Vincent,” he said.  “Unless I know everything that is to be known, I will not go another step along this road.  I really mean that.”

The medium paused in his pipe-filling.