My uncle recovered the power of speech rapidly. Before I had been a week in his house he was able to talk with comparative ease. He seemed to enjoy my companionship, and I spent most of my time in his library, conversing with him or conning the musty books that had long lain unread. To me this room was a fascinating and restful place. Somehow it reminded me of an old cemetery. The time-worn books upon its shelves stood in solemn rows, like headstones, sacred to the memory of the men who wrote them--their titles like inscriptions half obliterated. I did not see Rayel for days after the midnight episode that gave me such a startling revelation of his power.

"Do you think that Rayel knows everything that passes in one's mind--a vivid dream, for instance?" I asked my uncle one day when we were alone together.

Yes, except when he is himself asleep. His command of my dreams puzzled me at first. I thought I had put the past completely out of my mind. But I could not hide it from him. Little by little he learned everything in my history. One day I saw him at work on a picture. It startled me. The canvas showed a man lying on a surgeon's table. The knife had just severed an artery in his thigh. There were four men working over him--I was one of them. Gradually the features took on a familiar expression. His face grew paler under the brush. A few touches--the scene was complete. The man was dead--his eyes wide open, staring at me.