“Thank you, Mr. Pender,” he said, a curious glow showing about his fine, quiet face; “thank you for the sincerity and frankness of your account.  But I think now there is nothing further I need ask you.”  He indulged in a long scrutiny of the author’s haggard features drawing purposely the man’s eyes to his own and then meeting them with a look of power and confidence calculated to inspire even the feeblest soul with courage.  “And, to begin with,” he added, smiling pleasantly, “let me assure you without delay that you need have no alarm, for you are no more insane or deluded than I myself am—­”

Pender heaved a deep sigh and tried to return the smile.

“—­and this is simply a case, so far as I can judge at present, of a very singular psychical invasion, and a very sinister one, too, if you perhaps understand what I mean—­”

“It’s an odd expression; you used it before, you know,” said the author wearily, yet eagerly listening to every word of the diagnosis, and deeply touched by the intelligent sympathy which did not at once indicate the lunatic asylum.

“Possibly,” returned the other, “and an odd affliction, too, you’ll allow, yet one not unknown to the nations of antiquity, nor to those moderns, perhaps, who recognise the freedom of action under certain pathogenic conditions between this world and another.”

“And you think,” asked Pender hastily, “that it is all primarily due to the Cannabis?  There is nothing radically amiss with myself—­nothing incurable, or—?”

“Due entirely to the overdose,” Dr. Silence replied emphatically, “to the drug’s direct action upon your psychical being.  It rendered you ultra-sensitive and made you respond to an increased rate of vibration.  And, let me tell you, Mr. Pender, that your experiment might have had results far more dire.  It has brought you into touch with a somewhat singular class of Invisible, but of one, I think, chiefly human in character.  You might, however, just as easily have been drawn out of human range altogether, and the results of such a contingency would have been exceedingly terrible.  Indeed, you would not now be here to tell the tale.  I need not alarm you on that score, but mention it as a warning you will not misunderstand or underrate after what you have been through.

“You look puzzled.  You do not quite gather what I am driving at; and it is not to be expected that you should, for you, I suppose, are the nominal Christian with the nominal Christian’s lofty standard of ethics, and his utter ignorance of spiritual possibilities.  Beyond a somewhat childish understanding of ‘spiritual wickedness in high places,’ you probably have no conception of what is possible once you break-down the slender gulf that is mercifully fixed between you and that Outer World.  But my studies and training have taken me far outside these orthodox trips, and I have made experiments that I could scarcely speak to you about in language that would be intelligible to you.”