With some reluctance, Chrissalyn asked Prescott how he had taken the rose.
“By means of what some of your scientific people call the Fourth Dimension of Space,” he replied.
“Can you explain it more clearly?”
“No; I have no terms in which to make it plain to you. It is all natural enough, however, and comes under a law as yet not known to your world. Now wait a moment and I will bring you a flower by means of the same law.”
Silent and expectant they sat for three or four minutes. Then, apparently out of the air above their heads, two large fresh, red roses fell on the table before them. Examination proved that they were real and not illusory.
“Where did you get them?” Cartice asked.
“I went what you would call a long distance for them,—about two hundred miles; but it is nothing to me, for I know no distance outside of my own thought.”
Unsolicited, one evening Prescott volunteered to tell his two faithful friends some of his experiences since passing out of their sight. He wrote with a rapidity and energy even greater than in life, though he had ever a nervous, hasty manner of writing, which was his true form of expression. In conversation he had little ability. He consumed three evenings in the task he had set himself, and this was his story, which was addressed to Cartice:
“There was the accident at the elevator. It occurred in a few seconds of time, but I did not realize what was taking place. A thought that something was going wrong flashed through my mind, but it conveyed no sense of danger. I was like a spectator who sees disaster overtake another, yet has no clear idea what that disaster is. From this and what I have learned here, I am inclined to the belief that victims of accidents which result in sudden death have no painful experiences—do not even suffer from fear.