I do not, at any rate, expect to
experience any more of it. Well, a month ago I was returning late on
a very wet night from dining out. There was not a taxi to be had, and
I hurried through the pouring rain to the tube-station at Piccadilly
Circus, and thought myself very lucky to catch the last train in this
direction. The carriage into which I stepped was quite empty except
for one other passenger, who sat next the door immediately opposite
to me. I had never, to my knowledge, seen him before, but I found my
attention vividly fixed on him, as if he somehow concerned me. He was
a man of middle age, in dress-clothes, and his face wore an expression
of intense thought, as if in his mind he was pondering some very
significant matter, and his hand which was resting on his knee clenched
and unclenched itself. Suddenly he looked up and stared me in the face,
and I saw there suspicion and fear, as if I had surprised him in some
secret deed. “At that moment we stopped at Dover Street, and the conductor threw
open the doors, announced the station and added, ‘Change here for Hyde
Park Corner and Gloucester Road.’ That was all right for me since
it meant that the train would stop at Brompton Road, which was my
destination. It was all right apparently, too, for my companion, for he
certainly did not get out, and after a moment’s stop, during which no
one else got in, we went on. I saw him, I must insist, after the doors
were closed and the train had started. But when I looked again, as we
rattled on, I saw that there was no one there. I was quite alone in the
carriage. “Now you may think that I had had one of those swift momentary dreams
which flash in and out of the mind in the space of a second, but I did
not believe it was so myself, for I felt that I had experienced some
sort of premonition or clairvoyant vision. A man, the semblance of
whom, astral body or whatever you may choose to call it, I had just
seen, would sometime sit in that seat opposite to me, pondering and
planning.”

“But why?” I asked. “Why should it have been the astral body of a
living man which you thought you had seen? Why not the ghost of a dead
one?”

“Because of my own sensations. The sight of the spirit of someone dead,
which has occurred to me two or three times in my life, has always been
accompanied by a physical shrinking and fear, and by the sensation of
cold and of loneliness. I believed, at any rate, that I had seen a
phantom of the living, and that impression was confirmed, I might say
proved, the next day. For I met the man himself. And the next night, as
you shall hear, I met the phantom again. We will take them in order. “I was lunching, then, the next day with my neighbour Mrs. Stanley:
there was a small party, and when I arrived we waited but for the final
guest. He entered while I was talking to some friend, and presently at
my elbow I heard Mrs. Stanley’s voice--

“‘Let me introduce you to Sir Henry Payle,’ she said. “I turned and saw my _vis-à-vis_ of the night before. It was quite
unmistakably he, and as we shook hands he looked at me I thought with
vague and puzzled recognition. “‘Haven’t we met before, Mr. Carling?’ he said. ‘I seem to
recollect----’

“For the moment I forgot the strange manner of his disappearance from
the carriage, and thought that it had been the man himself whom I had
seen last night. “‘Surely, and not so long ago,’ I said. ‘For we sat opposite each other
in the last tube-train from Piccadilly Circus yesterday night.’

“He still looked at me, frowning, puzzled, and shook his head. “‘That can hardly be,’ he said. ‘I only came up from the country this
morning.’

“Now this interested me profoundly, for the astral body, we are told,
abides in some half-conscious region of the mind or spirit, and has
recollections of what has happened to it, which it can convey only very
vaguely and dimly to the conscious mind. All lunch-time I could see his
eyes again and again directed to me with the same puzzled and perplexed
air, and as I was taking my departure he came up to me. “‘I shall recollect some day,’ he said, ‘where we met before, and I
hope we may meet again. Was it not----?’--and he stopped. ‘No: it has
gone from me,’ he added.”

The log that Anthony had thrown on the fire was burning bravely now,
and its high-flickering flame lit up his face. “Now, I don’t know whether you believe in coincidences as chance
things,” he said, “but if you do, get rid of the notion. Or if you
can’t at once, call it a coincidence that that very night I again
caught the last train on the tube going westwards. This time, so far
from my being a solitary passenger, there was a considerable crowd
waiting at Dover Street, where I entered, and just as the noise of the
approaching train began to reverberate in the tunnel I caught sight of
Sir Henry Payle standing near the opening from which the train would
presently emerge, apart from the rest of the crowd. And I thought to
myself how odd it was that I should have seen the phantom of him at
this very hour last night and the man himself now, and I began walking
towards him with the idea of saying, ‘Anyhow, it is in the tube that we
meet to-night.’... And then a terrible and awful thing happened. Just
as the train emerged from the tunnel he jumped down on to the line in
front of it, and the train swept along over him up the platform. “For a moment I was stricken with horror at the sight, and I remember
covering my eyes against the dreadful tragedy. But then I perceived
that, though it had taken place in full sight of those who were
waiting, no one seemed to have seen it except myself. The driver,
looking out from his window, had not applied his brakes, there was no
jolt from the advancing train, no scream, no cry, and the rest of the
passengers began boarding the train with perfect nonchalance. I must
have staggered, for I felt sick and faint with what I had seen, and
some kindly soul put his arm round me and supported me into the train. He was a doctor, he told me, and asked if I was in pain, or what ailed
me. I told him what I thought I had seen, and he assured me that no
such accident had taken place. “It was clear then to my own mind that I had seen the second act, so
to speak, in this psychical drama, and I pondered next morning over
the problem as to what I should do. Already I had glanced at the
morning paper, which, as I knew would be the case, contained no mention
whatever of what I had seen. The thing had certainly not happened, but
I knew in myself that it would happen. The flimsy veil of Time had been
withdrawn from my eyes, and I had seen into what you would call the
future. In terms of Time of course it was the future, but from my point
of view the thing was just as much in the past as it was in the future. It existed, and waited only for its material fulfilment. The more I
thought about it, the more I saw that I could do nothing.”

I interrupted his narrative. “You did nothing?” I exclaimed.