On this particular afternoon Armstrong had thrown himself upon the couch, and for a moment closed his eyes. With no warning he saw a scene enacted before his mental vision in which he himself was the central figure. He was lying still and lifeless upon the grass by the roadside at the foot of the hill. Four other figures were in the picture. He recognized Inez, but the other women and the boy he had never seen. The figures moved about, as in a kinetoscope. One of the women ran into the cottage and returned with a basin of water. Inez knelt beside him and bathed his forehead. He could see the tense expression on her face. She seemed to speak to the women, but he could distinguish no words. Then he saw himself lifted and carried into the cottage. At this point the picture disappeared as suddenly as it had come.
Armstrong opened his eyes when he found the picture gone, and sat up, gazing about him excitedly. He saw Inez crossing the veranda and called to her abruptly.
“Tell me,” he cried, as she hastened to obey the summons and before she reached him, “who carried me into the cottage after the accident?”
The girl paled at the suddenness and intensity of the question. “There were four of us,” she said, faintly—“two peasant women, a boy, and myself.”
Armstrong passed his hand over his forehead and gazed at Inez intently. So far, then, his vision had been correct. Breathlessly he pursued his interrogations.
“Before that did one of the women bring some water from the cottage, and did you kneel beside me and bathe my face?”
“Yes. Who has told you?”
“Then it all happened just like that?”
“Like what?” Inez was trembling, vaguely apprehensive.
Armstrong rose. “Why, as you have just said,” he replied. “You know I have been trying to get you to tell me about it.”