possible home of the teacher, the prophet. The artist is the bridegroom of Art. Marriage for him is an immorality. Had I my time again I should remain a bachelor."     

       "Time brings its revenges, you see," laughed Mrs. Camelford. "At twenty that fellow threatened to commit suicide if I would not marry him, and cordially disliking him I consented. Now twenty years later, when I am just getting used to him, he calmly turns round and says he would have been better without me."     

       "I heard something about it at the time," said Mrs. Armitage. "You were       very much in love with somebody else, were you not?"     

       "Is not the conversation assuming a rather dangerous direction?" laughed Mrs. Camelford.     

       "I was thinking the same thing," agreed Mrs. Everett. "One would imagine some strange influence had seized upon us, forcing us to speak our thoughts aloud."     

       "I am afraid I was the original culprit," admitted the Reverend Nathaniel.       "This room is becoming quite oppressive. Had we not better go to bed?"     

       The ancient lamp suspended from its smoke-grimed beam uttered a faint, gurgling sob, and spluttered out. The shadow of the old Cathedral tower crept in and stretched across the room, now illuminated only by occasional beams from the cloud-curtained moon. At the other end of the table sat a peak-faced little gentleman, clean-shaven, in full-bottomed wig.     

       "Forgive me," said the little gentleman. He spoke in English, with a strong accent. "But it seems to me here is a case where two parties might be of service to one another."     

       The six fellow-travellers round the table looked at one another, but none spoke. The idea that came to each of them, as they explained to one another later, was that without remembering it they had taken their candles and had gone to bed. This was surely a dream.     

       "It would greatly assist me," continued the little peak-faced gentleman,       "in experiments I am conducting into the phenomena of human tendencies, if you would allow me to put your lives back twenty years."     

       Still no one of the six replied. It seemed to them that the little old gentleman 

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