violent, that had we permitted you to carry out your anticipated actions, it would have resulted in the murder of one Mary Hastings, your wife. Do you understand the charge?"

"I do." He didn't know what to do with his hands.

"How do you plead?"

"I plead not guilty."

"On what ground?" asked the voice.

The defendant raised his head. "On the ground that I had good and sufficient reason to justify my emotion."

"The reactographs on your wife, Mary Hastings, have been thoroughly examined, and it has been determined that she performed no act which in any way deviated from the norm. Had any disturbances taken place within Mary Hastings during the week of last March ninth to sixteenth, it would have shown up plainly in a flux on the charts. Your contention is impossible."

The man in the box bit his lip. "Nevertheless, I contend it. My wife gave me sufficient reason. She—she was unfaithful to me."

Only silence for a full minute.

"It is impossible."

"But true!" Hastings shouted.

The multitude leaned forward, a misted inquiry rustling its skirts.

"Very well," the voice almost sighed. "Will you submit, Captain Hastings, to the use of the concentric screen? We wish to know more of the circumstances surrounding several pertinent dates."

His face was the color of picked bones. "Yes, I will submit."

Two men advanced carrying a mesh complexity between them. Placing it over the defendant's head they allowed it to fall to his shoulders.

"Are you ready, John Hastings?"

"Yes." It seemed he was already gone from the place.

"Then concentrate. Remember. Permit your mind to have freedom." The voice washed over him in waves. "It is a day in December ... the fourteenth.... Take my words and let them carry you...."

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