him. The darkness fell about him like a heavy curtain. A throbbing in his temples that sounded like a distant pounding. Then oblivion.
VI. The Thread Snaps
When David Bell regained consciousness he was lying in his bed. The bright sunlight shining through the curtains made delicate traceries across the counterpane. His first thought was that this was heaven by contrast to the events of his last conscious moments. Surely that was an angel hovering above him! No—at least not in the ethereal sense—but an angel nevertheless, for it was Rosalind, her sweet face beaming with love and solicitude.
“Mr. Stevens and I have been watching by your side for hours, David dear,” she said as she placed a cool hand upon his brow. “You have him to thank for saving your life, not only at the time of the attack, but during the uncertain hours that have followed.”
David turned grateful eyes toward his rescuer.
“Tell me about it, Lucius,” he said quietly.
Stevens seated himself in a chair by the bedside and proceeded with this narrative.
“After that demon you called Gregory ordered me from the room, Dr. Bell, I turned over in my mind what had better be done to save you from his vengeance. I thought it advisable to say nothing at the time to Mrs. Bell because I did not wish to alarm her unnecessarily, but I knew that when I forced entrance into the room, it must be with adequate assistance, and within a very short period of time. I made my way to the office as quickly as I could without arousing suspicion. Miss Cullis was at the desk. Knowing I could rely on her natural calmness of demeanor and self-possession, I told her briefly of the danger which threatened you, then I phoned police headquarters. Before ten minutes were over Copeland and Knowles had arrived armed with automatics and crowbars. I carried an axe. Cautiously we made our way to the door of the operating room and stood without, listening. We heard no sounds of voices and Copeland wanted to force entrance immediately, but I held him in temporary restraint. I wanted to obtain some cue as to conditions on the other side of the door before taking drastic measures. But thanks to Copeland’s impatience we broke down the door and saw—I shall never forget the sight till my dying day—that fiend of hell with his talons gripping your throat. He was evidently somewhat deaf for he heard no motion of our approach. We closed in on him from the rear, but he swung around with such force in that left arm that we all went down like tenpins. Knowles, as soon as he was on his feet again, struck him several times with the bar, but his efforts were wasted, for he might as well have rained blows upon a stone wall. Copeland aimed for his head in which he knew was encased a mortal brain, but that blow was avoided by the monster’s ever active legs and arms. I was reserving my axe for a telling stroke, when it came upon me with sudden clarity of understanding, that the man governed his movements by manipulating the fingers of his right hand upon a place of control at his breast. His right arm and the switchboard! These were the vulnerable parts. At last I had found the heel of Achilles!
“While Gregory was occupied with his other two antagonists I dealt a sudden stroke with the axe at his right hand, but missed, the weapon falling heavily upon his chest. My first emotion was disappointment at having missed my mark but in another second I realized that the blow had disabled him. The left arm hung useless at his side, but what prowess it lacked was made up in the increased activity of the legs. He ran, and never have I seen such speed. He would have made Atlanta resemble a snail! However, three against one put the odds too heavily in our favor. Between lurches and thrusts at the flying figure I managed to convey to the two policemen my discovery in regard to his mortal points, and we soon had his trusty right arm disabled. The rest was comparatively easy. We dismembered him. We did not want to kill him, but it was soon apparent to us that the damage done to the control board would prove fatal. He wanted to speak, but his voice was faint, and stooping I could hardly get the words.
“‘Tell David,’ he said, ‘that I’ve been wrong, dead wrong ever since I was carried off the field in that football game. I had been right at first. Mental perfection does make the physical harmonious, and with the right mental attitude after that accident, I could have risen above the physical handicap. It was not the physical loss of my leg that brought me to this. It was the mind that allowed it to do so. Tell David and Rosalind I am sorry for the past, and I wish them much happiness for the future!’ Those were his last words.”
David Bell and his wife looked at each other with tear-dimmed eyes.
Next day the “slender thread” which had held George Gregory to this world was laid in its last resting place, but the soul which had realized and repented of its error, who knows whither it went?
The Fifth Dimension
I.
“Why, this has happened before!” I cried as I poured my husband a third cup of coffee.
John laid down the morning paper and roared with laughter.
“I’ll say it has, and it’s liable to happen again tomorrow morning! Did you ever know me to drink fewer than three cups of coffee at breakfast, Ellen?”
“Oh, you don’t know what I mean,” I responded, a trifle irritably. “I have reference to that feeling that we all have occasionally; that the identical set of circumstances that surround us has existed before in some remote eon of time.”
“Fiddlesticks!” ejaculated John as he set down his empty coffee cup and folded his napkin. “I’m going to get my car started, as it takes so long these cold mornings.”
In which unsympathetic mood he donned hat and overcoat and disappeared through the kitchen door. A second later his head was thrust through the reopened door, and a jovial smile spread over his features.
“Say, Ellen, it strikes me as I go out to get the old bus that this has happened before,” he called back to me.
“Something else will strike you,” I cried, playfully picking up an empty cup.
He dodged in mock consternation, then his face grew earnest.
“But seriously, my dear girl,” he said, “I hope you aren’t getting to believe in all that rot about soul transmigration. Surely you don’t think your personality has been previously decked in other corporeal trappings, do you?”
“No,” I replied, “I do not believe that. I have always been myself, and you will always be yourself (stubborn as ever)! My explanation of the oft-repeated phenomenon that my life has been lived before exactly as I live it now lies solely in the theory that time, which is the fourth dimension, is, like space, curved, and travels in great cycles. You cannot conceive of either the end of space or time. The law of the universe, as illustrated by the movements of the stars and planets and the endless motion of the molecules and atoms and the whirling of the electrons, proves that orbital motion is a cosmic law and that all things return eventually to their starting point. And so, in the vast cycles of time and space, we repeat our existence upon this earth, and I claim that occasionally a fleeting memory of previous cycles thrusts itself into our consciousness.”
“Too deep for me,” said John with a shrug. “I must get down to the office and, by the way, an apple pie for dinner tonight would be greatly appreciated! I haven’t had any for a long time.”
“Do you like my apple pies, John?” I asked smiling.
“Do I? You are an expert at it. I suppose,” he added as he all but disappeared through the crack of the door as it stood slightly ajar, “the infinite number of times that you have baked apple pies in previous cycles of existence has made you adept in that line!”
The door closed and he was gone.
Dear John! Of course he understood the theory as well as I did, but he was forced out among associates in the business world and it was essential that his mind be continually occupied with the practical affairs of life. Dreamers might be vouchsafed glimpses of the truth, but did such visions always prove beneficial? There was no doubting that John was a greater success in life than I, whether he grasped the significance of certain cosmic truths or not!
“After