I found Tyeglev sitting on the bench. A candle was burning on the table before him and he was writing something in a little album which he always had with him. Seeing me, he quickly put the album in his pocket and began filling his pipe.

“Look here, my friend,” I began, “what a trophy I have brought back from my expedition!” I showed him the comb and told him what had happened to me near the willow. “I must have startled a thief,” I added. “You heard a horse was stolen from our neighbour yesterday?”

Tyeglev smiled frigidly and lighted his pipe. I sat down beside him.

“And do you still believe, Ilya Stepanitch,” I said, “that the voice we heard came from those unknown realms. . . . ”

He stopped me with a peremptory gesture.

“Ridel,” he began, “I am in no mood for jesting, and so I beg you not to jest.”

He certainly was in no mood for jesting. His face was changed. It looked paler, longer and more expressive. His strange, “different” eyes kept shifting from one object to another.

“I never thought,” he began again, “that I should reveal to another . . . another man what you are about to hear and what ought to have died . . . yes, died, hidden ............