And as he began to encounter the evening stir of the town’s precincts, and the heavy breath of the Blackmore pastures ceased to drug his senses, he found that what he had gone through that day was now slowly sifting itself out in the various layers of his consciousness. “Either Urquhart is up to something,” he thought, “or Jason has just invented the whole thing to satisfy his own strange mind! God help us! What a crazy set they all are! I’m thankful I’m out of it down here. Blacksod doesn’t lend itself to such whimsies.”

Thus did the outer surface of his mind report on the situation, making use of the artificially acquired genial optimism of many a forgotten mental tour de force.

But another⁠—a deeper⁠—layer in his mind made quite a different report.