I stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth
so as not to scream aloud and communicate my hysterics to the entire
household.”

“And the presence of this--this----?”

“It was hanging about me all the time,” said Pender, “but for the
moment it seemed to have withdrawn. Probably, too, my laughter killed
all other emotions.”

“And how long did you take getting downstairs?”

“I was just coming to that I see you know all my ‘symptoms’ in advance,
as it were; for, of course, I thought I should never get to the bottom. Each step seemed to take five minutes, and crossing the narrow hall at
the foot of the stairs--well, I could have sworn it was half an hour’s
journey had not my watch certified that it was a few seconds. Yet I
walked fast and tried to push on. It was no good. I walked apparently
without advancing, and at that rate it would have taken me a week to
get down Putney Hill.”

“An experimental dose radically alters the scale of time and space
sometimes----”

“But, when at last I got into my study and lit the gas, the change came
horridly, and sudden as a flash of lightning. It was like a douche of
icy water, and in the middle of this storm of laughter----”

“Yes; what?” asked the doctor, leaning forward and peering into his
eyes. “----I was overwhelmed with terror,” said Pender, lowering his reedy
voice at the mere recollection of it. He paused a moment and mopped his forehead. The scared, hunted look in
his eyes now dominated the whole face. Yet, all the time, the corners
of his mouth hinted of possible laughter as though the recollection of
that merriment still amused him. The combination of fear and laughter
in his face was very curious, and lent great conviction to his story;
it also lent a bizarre expression of horror to his gestures. “Terror, was it?” repeated the doctor soothingly. “Yes, terror; for, though the Thing that woke me seemed to have gone,
the memory of it still frightened me, and I collapsed into a chair. Then I locked the door and tried to reason with myself, but the
drug made my movements so prolonged that it took me five minutes to
reach the door, and another five to get back to the chair again. The
laughter, too, kept bubbling up inside me--great wholesome laughter
that shook me like gusts of wind--so that even my terror almost made
me laugh. Oh, but I may tell you, Dr. Silence, it was altogether vile,
that mixture of fear and laughter, altogether vile! “Then, all at once, the things in the room again presented their
funny side to me and set me off laughing more furiously than ever. The bookcase was ludicrous, the arm-chair a perfect clown, the way
the clock looked at me on the mantelpiece too comic for words; the
arrangement of papers and inkstand on the desk tickled me till I roared
and shook and held my sides and the tears streamed down my cheeks. And
that footstool! Oh, that absurd footstool!”

He lay back in his chair, laughing to himself and holding up his hands
at the thought of it, and at the sight of him Dr. Silence laughed too. “Go on, please,” he said, “I quite understand. I know something myself
of the hashish laughter.”

The author pulled himself together and resumed, his face growing
quickly grave again. “So, you see, side by side with this extravagant, apparently causeless
merriment, there was also an extravagant, apparently causeless terror. The drug produced the laughter, I knew; but what brought in the terror
I could not imagine. Everywhere behind the fun lay the fear. It was
terror masked by cap and bells; and I became the playground for two
opposing emotions, armed and fighting to the death. Gradually, then,
the impression grew in me that this fear was caused by the invasion--so
you called it just now--of the ‘person’ who had wakened me: she was
utterly evil; inimical to my soul, or at least to all in me that wished
for good. There I stood, sweating and trembling, laughing at everything
in the room, yet all the while with this white terror mastering my
heart. And this creature was putting--putting her----”

He hesitated again, using his handkerchief freely. “Putting what?”

“----putting ideas into my mind,” he went on, glancing nervously about
the room. “Actually tapping my thought-stream so as to switch off the
usual current and inject her own. How mad that sounds! I know it,
but it’s true. It’s the only way I can express it. Moreover, while
the operation terrified me, the skill with which it was accomplished
filled me afresh with laughter at the clumsiness of men by comparison. Our ignorant, bungling methods of teaching the minds of others, of
inculcating ideas, and so on, overwhelmed me with laughter when I
understood this superior and diabolical method. Yet my laughter seemed
hollow and ghastly, and ideas of evil and tragedy trod close upon the
heels of the comic. Oh, doctor, I tell you again, it was unnerving!”

John Silence sat with his head thrust forward to catch every word of
the story which the other continued to pour out in nervous, jerky
sentences and lowered voice. “You _saw_ nothing--no one--all this time?” he asked. “Not with my eyes. There was no visual hallucination. But in my mind
there began to grow the vivid picture of a woman--large, dark-skinned,
with white teeth and masculine features, and one eye--the left--so
drooping as to appear almost closed. Oh, such a face----!”

“A face you would recognise again?”

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. “What I mean in detail will keep till a little later, and I need only
say now that I should not have spoken in this way unless I were quite
positive of being able to help you. Oh, there’s no doubt as to that,
believe me.