.
    »Let her have her way,« whispered a third voice, also a woman.
    »Well, well, I promise, then,« answered the man. »Quick, go! He is coming
out of it.«
    There was a rustle of garments and I opened my eyes. A fine looking man of
perhaps sixty was bending over me, an expression of much benevolence mingled
with great curiosity upon his features. He was an utter stranger. I raised
myself on an elbow and looked around. The room was empty. I certainly had never
been in it before, or one furnished like it. I looked back at my companion. He
smiled.
    »How do you feel?« he inquired.
    »Where am I?« I demanded.
    »You are in my house,« was the reply.
    »How came I here?«
    »We will talk about that when you are stronger. Meanwhile, I beg you will
feel no anxiety. You are among friends and in good hands. How do you feel?«
    »A bit queerly,« I replied, »but I am well, I suppose. Will you tell me how
I came to be indebted to your hospitality? What has happened to me? How came I
here? It was in my own house that I went to sleep.«
    »There will be time enough for explanations later,« my unknown host replied,
with a reassuring smile. »It will be better to avoid agitating talk until you
are a little more yourself. Will you oblige me by taking a couple of swallows of
this mixture? It will do you good. I am a physician.«
    I repelled the glass with my hand and sat up on the couch, although with an
effort, for my head was strangely light.
    »I insist upon knowing at once where I am and what you have been doing with
me,« I said.
    »My dear sir,« responded my companion, »let me beg that you will not agitate
yourself. I would rather you did not insist upon explanations so soon, but if
you do, I will try to satisfy you, provided you will first take this draught,
which will strengthen you somewhat.«
    I thereupon drank what he offered me. Then he said, »It is not so simple a
matter as you evidently suppose to tell you how you came here. You can tell me
quite as much on that point as I can tell you. You have just been roused from a
deep sleep, or, more properly, trance. So much I
