Pender laughed dreadfully.

"I wish I could forget it," he whispered, "I only wish I could forget
it!" Then he sat forward in his chair suddenly, and grasped the doctor's
hand with an emotional gesture.

"I _must_ tell you how grateful I am for your patience and sympathy," he
cried, with a tremor in his voice, "and--that you do not think me mad. I
have told no one else a quarter of all this, and the mere freedom of
speech--the relief of sharing my affliction with another--has helped me
already more than I can possibly say."

Dr. Silence pressed his hand and looked steadily into the frightened
eyes. His voice was very gentle when he replied.

"Your case, you know, is very singular, but of absorbing interest to
me," he said, "for it threatens, not your physical existence but the
temple of your psychical existence--the inner life. Your mind would
not be permanently affected here and now, in this world; but in the
existence after the body is left behind, you might wake up with your
spirit so twisted, so distorted, so befouled, that you would be
_spiritually insane_--a far more radical condition than merely being
insane here."

There came a strange hush over the room, and between the two men sitting
there facing one another.

"Do you really mean--Good Lord!" stammered the author as soon as he
could find his tongue.