He looked about him quickly; all the objects in the range of his vision--the corner of the desk, the corduroy couch, the low bookcase with Flossie's yellow slipper and Barye's lioness upon it--seemed to move back and stand upon the same plane; the objects themselves appeared immovable enough, but the sensation of them in his brain somewhere behind his eyes began to move about in a slow, dizzy whirl.

The old touch of unreasoning terror came back, together with a sudden terror of the spirit, a sickening sinking of the heart, a loathing of life, terrible beyond words.
Vandover started up, striving to keep himself in hand, fighting against a wild desire to rush about from wall to wall, shrieking and waving his arms.

Over and over again he exclaimed, "Oh, _what_ is the matter with me ?" The strangeness of the thing was what unsettled and unnerved him.
He had all the sensations of terror, but without any assignable reason, and this groundless fear became in the end the cause of a new fear: he was afraid of this fear that was afraid of nothing.
Very gradually, however, the crisis passed away.

He became a little calmer, and as he was mixing himself a glass of whisky and water at the sideboard he decided that he would go to bed.

He was sure that he would be better for a good night's rest; evidently his nerves were out of order; it would not do for him to read late at night.