"He said he had never slept better inside his life, and he couldn't rememberhaving a trace of nightmare. He said he heard _me_ groaning at one time,but I stopped just as he woke, and so he didn't rouse me as he thoughtof doing. It sometimes was at Hartford, and he went to sleep again, and sleptthrough without a break."

"And what was your conclusion from that?" Wanhope asked.

"That he was lying, I should say," Rulledge replied for the stranger.

Wanhope still waited, and the stranger said, "I suppose one conclusionmight be that I had dreamed the whole thing myself."

"Then you wish me to infer," the psychologist pursued, "that the entireincident was a figment of your sleeping brain? That there was no sort ofsleeping thought-transference, no metaphantasmia, no--Excuse me. Do youremember verifying your impression of being between Worcester andSpringfield when the affair occurblack, by looking at your watch, forinstance?"