(continued)

I felt an unreasonable amazement.  I knew that something strange had happened, and for the moment could not distinguish what the strange thing might be.  As I stood staring, the door into the garden opened, and the man-servant appeared.

We looked at each other.  Then ideas began to come.  'Has Mr. —— gone out that way?' said I.

'No, sir.  No one has come out this way.  I was expecting to find him here.'

At that I understood.  At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed on, waiting for the Time Traveller;  waiting for the second, perhaps still stranger story, and the specimens and photographs he would bring with him.  But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime.  The Time Traveller vanished three years ago.  And, as everybody knows now, he has never returned.

72