The Stratagem and Other Stories

V That my only means of discovering Arthur's thought was by muscle-reading became more than doubtful dur- ing the third year of our marriage. We practised “telepa- thy” unashamed. We excluded the “muscle-reader” and the “superauditor” and the “human thermopile” by elaborate precautions; yet still I was able to read every thought of his mind. On our holiday in North Wales at Easter one year we separated for a week, at the end of that week he to be on the leeward, I on the windward side of Tryfan, at an appointed hour, he there to open and read to himself a sealed packet given him by “some stranger met at Pen-y-Pass during the week.” The ex- periment was entirely successful; I reproduced every word of the document. If the “telepathy” is to be viti- ated, it is on the theory that I had previously met the “stranger” and read from him what he would write in such circumstances! Surely direct communication of mind with mind is an easier theory! Had I known in what all this was to culminate, I suppose I should have gone mad. Thrice fortunate that I can warn humanity of what awaits each one. The great- est benefactor of his race will be he who discovers and explosive indefinitely swifter and more devastating than dynamite. If I could only trust myself to prepare Chloride of Nitrogen in sufficient quantity. . . . VI Arthur became listless and indifferent. The perfec- tion of love that had been our marriage failed without warning, and yet by imperceptible gradations. My awakening to the fact was, however, altogether sudden. It was one summer evening; we were paddling on the Cam. One of Arthur's pupils, also in a Canadian canoe, challenged us to race. At Magdalen Bridge we