Free The Gap in the Curtain by John Buchan

. . A sudden longing woke in me, as if these things were slipping away. These joys were all inside the curtain of sense and present perception, and now I was feeling for the gap in the curtain, and losing them. What mattered the world beyond the gap? Why should we reach after that which God had hidden? . . .
    Fear, distaste, regret chased each other through my mind. Something had weakened this morning. Had the
mystica catena
snapped? . . . And then I heard a movement in my sitting room, and turned away from the window. My mind might be in revolt, but my will was docile.
    We sat in a semicircle round the professor. It was a small room with linen-fold panelling, a carved chimney piece, and one picture— a French hunting scene. The morning sun was looking into it, so the blinds were half-lowered. We sat in a twilight, except in one corner, where the floor showed a broad shaft of light. I was next to Sally at the left-hand edge of the circle. That is all I remember about the scene, except that each of us had a copy of
The Times
—not the blank paper we had had before, but that morning’s
Times
, the issue for the tenth of June in that year of grace.
    I must have slipped partly out of the spell, for I could use my eyes and get some message from them. I dare say I could have understood one of the
Times
leaders. But I realized that the others were different. They could not have made sense of one word. To them it was blank white paper, an empty slate on which something was about to be written. They had the air of dull, but obedient pupils, with their eyes chained to their master.
    The professor wore a dressing gown, and sat in the writing-table chair—deathly white, but stirred into intense life. He sat upright, with his hands on his knees, and his eyes, even in the gloom, seemed to be probing and kneading our souls . . . I felt the spell, and consciously struggled against it. His voice helped my resistance. It was weak and cracked, without the fierce vitality of his face.
    â€œFor three minutes you will turn your eyes inward—into the darkness of the mind which I have taught you to make. Then—I will give the sign—you will look at the paper. There you will see words written, but only for one second. Bend all your powers to remember them.”
    But my thoughts were not in the darkness of the mind. I looked at the paper and saw that I could read the date and the beginning of an advertisement. I had broken loose; I was a rebel, and was glad of it. And then I looked at Moe, and saw there something which sent a chill to my heart.
    The man was dying—dying visibly. With my eyes I saw the body shrink and the jaw loosen as the vital energy ebbed. Now I knew how we might bridge the gap of time. His personality had lifted us out of our world, and, by a supreme effort of brain and will, his departing soul might carry us into a new one—for an instant only, before that soul passed into a timeless eternity.
    I could see all this, because I had shaken myself free from his spell, yet I felt the surge of his spirit like a wind in my face. I heard the word “Now,” croaked with what must have been his last breath. I saw his huge form crumple and slip slowly to the floor. But the eyes of the others did not see this; they were on the
Times
pages.
    All but Sally. The strain had become more than she could bear. With a small cry she tilted against my shoulder, and for the few seconds before the others returned to ordinary consciousness and realized that Moe was dead, she lay swooning in my arms.
    In that fateful moment, while the soul of a genius was quitting the body, five men, staring at what had become the simulacrum of a
Times
not to be printed for twelve months, read certain things.
    Mayot had a vision of the leader page, and read two sentences of comment on a speech by the prime minister. In one sentence the prime minister was named, and the name was not that of him who then held the office.
    Tavanger,