Wanhope still waited, and the stranger said, “I suppose one conclusion might be that I had dreamed the whole thing myself.”
“Then you wish me to infer,” the psychologist pursued, “that the entire incident was a figment of your sleeping brain? That there was no sort of sleeping thought-transference, no metaphantasmia, no—Excuse me. Do you remember verifying your impression of being between Worcester and Springfield when the affair occurred, by looking at your watch, for instance?”
The stranger suddenly pulled out his watch at the word. “Good Heavens!” he called out. “It’s twenty minutes of eleven, and I have to take the eleven-o’clock train to Boston. I must bid you good-evening, gentlemen. I’ve just time to get it if I can catch a cab. Good-night, good-night. I hope if you come to Boston—eh—Good-night! Sometimes,” he called over his shoulder, “I’ve thought it might have been that girl in the stateroom that started the dreaming.”
He had wrung our hands one after another, and now he ran out of the room.
Rulledge said, in appeal to Wanhope: “I don’t see how his being the dreamer invalidates the case, if his dreams affected the others.”
“Well,” Wanhope answered, thoughtfully, “that depends.”
“And what do you think of its being the girl in the stateroom?”
“That would be very interesting.”