Alone once more, I sank on a seat, buried my face in my hands, and strove
in vain to collect into some definite shape my own tumultuous and
disordered thoughts. Could I attach serious credit to the marvellous
narrative I had read? Were there, indeed, such powers given to man, such
influences latent in the calm routine of Nature? I could not believe it;
I must have some morbid affection of the brain; I must be under an
hallucination. Hallucination? The phantom, yes; the trance, yes. But
still, how came the book gone? That, at least, was not hallucination.

I left my room the next morning with a vague hope that I should find the
manuscript somewhere in the study; that, in my own trance, I might have
secreted it, as sleep-walkers are said to secrete things, without
remembrance of their acts in their waking state.

I searched minutely in every conceivable place. Strahan found me still
employed in that hopeless task. He had breakfasted in his own room, and
it was past eleven o'clock when he joined me. His manner was now hard,
cold, and distant, and his suspicion so bluntly shown that my distress
gave way to resentment.

"Is it possible," I cried indignantly, "that you, who have known me so
well, can suspect me of an act so base, and so gratuitously base?
Purloin, conceal a book confided to me, with full power to copy from it
whatever I might desire, use its contents in any way that might seem to me
serviceable to science, or useful to me in my own calling!"

"I have not accused you," answered Strahan, sullenly. "But what are we to
say to Mr. Jeeves; to all others who know that this manuscript existed?
Will they believe what you tell me?"