CHAPTER 5.
When, in the course of the evening the ladies retired, leaving Dr.
Leete and myself alone, he sounded me as to my disposition for sleep, saying that if I felt like it my bed was ready for me; but if I was inclined to wakefulness nothing would please him better than to bear me company.

"I am a late bird, myself," he said, "and, without suspicion of flattery, I may say that a companion more interesting than yourself could scarcely be imagined.

It is decidedly not often that one has a chance to converse with a man of the nineteenth century." Now I had been looking forward all the evening with some dread to the time when I should be alone, on retiring for the night.

Surrounded by these most friendly strangers, stimulated and supported by their sympathetic interest, I had been able to keep my mental balance.

Even then, however, in pauses of the conversation I had had glimpses, vivid as lightning flashes, of the horror of strangeness that was waiting to be faced when I could no longer command diversion.