publisher, at two. I looked at my watch, and saw that I could barely
save that engagement. I got up and went down the passage to tell the
Time Traveller.
As I took hold of the handle of the door I heard an exclamation, oddly
truncated at the end, and a click and a thud. A gust of air whirled
round me as I opened the door, and from within came the sound of broken
glass falling on the floor. The Time Traveller was not there. I seemed
to see a ghostly, indistinct figure sitting in a whirling mass of black
and brass for a moment a figure so transparent that the bench behind
with its sheets of drawings was absolutely distinct; but this phantasm
vanished as I rubbed my eyes. The Time Machine had gone. Save for a
subsiding stir of dust, the further end of the laboratory was empty. A
pane of the skylight had, apparently, just been blown in.
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.
Epilogue
One cannot choose but wonder. Will he ever return? It may be that he
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