Pender heaved a deep sigh and tried to return the smile.

“⁠—and this is simply a case, so far as I can judge at present, of a very singular psychical invasion, and a very sinister one, too, if you perhaps understand what I mean⁠—”

“It’s an odd expression; you used it before, you know,” said the author wearily, yet eagerly listening to every word of the diagnosis, and deeply touched by the intelligent sympathy which did not at once indicate the lunatic asylum.

“Possibly,” returned the other, “and an odd affliction, too, you’ll allow, yet one not unknown to the nations of antiquity, nor to those moderns, perhaps, who recognise the freedom of action under certain pathogenic conditions between this world and another.”

“And you think,” asked Pender hastily, “that it is all primarily due to the Cannabis? There is nothing radically amiss with myself⁠—nothing incurable, or⁠—?”