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his throat—that it really had substance. It was a forearm and hand . . . a hand composed of terribly strong fingers, and muscles like iron. . . .”

“Weren’t you able to hold on to it?” asked the doctor, flashing me a keen glance.

“Just about,” I said. “But at the moment when I got a really good grip on it, it dissolved.”

There was a silence for a moment, then the faint, but clear voice of Betty Sargent cut in on the stillness.

“It dissolved?” her voice asked, and I did not have to look to see how bloodless and drawn her face looked.

“How can flesh and blood dissolve?” came the impetuous, excited voice of Ike Humbert.

“If I could tell you that . . .” I said, and there was a silence again, until I broke it. “If I could tell you that, I probably would be able to tell you a great deal more. The fact is that it actually faded away into the air, as though it were nothing but a wisp of smoke or mist. I found myself pulling at the unresisting air. All of this you know, because you saw me at it. The rest also you know,” I said, glancing down at the drawn-up form of Augustin Arnold.

A shudder went through the group, and some of the strained, white faces turned away. Some one threw a table cloth over the figure—a stage hand, I think it was—the cloth was from the third act property and