“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.”