“And the wires. The ones worth pulling.”

“Those, too. In any case, I think I’ll come off from this new line we’re doing just about…”

His voice trailed off.

“What’s the matter?” Laura asked.

Douglas half rose from his chair. His face had gone suddenly white. He stared in horror, gripping the arms of his chair, his mouth opening and closing.

At the window was a great eye. An immense eye that gazed into the room intently, studying him. The eye filled the whole window.

“Good God!” Douglas cried.

The eye withdrew. Outside there was only the evening gloom, the dark hills and trees, the street. Douglas sank down slowly in his chair.

“What was it?” Laura demanded sharply. “What did you see? Was somebody out there?”

Douglas clasped and unclasped his hands. His lips twitched violently. “I’m telling you the truth, Bill. I saw it myself. It was real. I wouldn’t say so, otherwise. You know that. Don’t you believe me?”

“Did anybody else see it?” Professor William Henderson asked, chewing his pencil thoughtfully. He had cleared a place on the dinner table, pushed back his plate and silver and laid out his notebook. “Did Laura see it?”

“No. Laura had her back turned.”

“What time was it?”

“Half an hour ago. I had just got home. About six-thirty. I had my shoes off, taking it easy.” Douglas wiped his forehead with a shaking hand.

“You say it was unattached? There was nothing else? Just the—eye?”

“Just the eye. One huge eye looking in at me. Taking in everything. As if…”

“As if what?”

“As if it was looking down a microscope.”

Silence.

From across the table, Henderson’s red-haired wife spoke up. “You always were a strict empiricist, Doug. You never went in for any nonsense before. But this… It’s too bad nobody else saw it.”