Semanticate

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 			<p>The faintest hint of vexation was in the answer.</p>
 			<p>“What is the matter? Can’t I help? It’s so very absurd⁠—”</p>
 			<p>“What is absurd?” he asked dully.</p>
-			<p>“Why, standing like this outside my own bedroom door. Are you ill? I will send for <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Simon.”</p>
+			<p>“Why, standing like this outside my own bedroom door. Are you ill? I will send for <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Dr.</abbr> Simon.”</p>
 			<p>“Please, Sheila, do nothing of the kind. I am not ill. I merely want a little time to think in.” There was again a brief pause, and then a slight rattling at the handle.</p>
 			<p>“Arthur, I insist on knowing at once what’s wrong; this does not sound a bit like yourself. It is not even quite like your own voice.”</p>
 			<p>“It is myself,” he replied stubbornly, staring fixedly into the glass. “You must give me a few moments, Sheila. Something has happened. My face. Come back in an hour.”</p>

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@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
 			<p>“Ah, there you have me! One merely surmises just as one’s temperament or convictions lean. Grisel says it’s some poor derelict soul in search of peace⁠—that the poor beggar wants finally to die, in fact, and can’t. Sallie smells crime. After all, what is every man?” he talked on; “a horde of ghosts⁠—like a Chinese nest of boxes⁠—oaks that were acorns that were oaks. Death lies behind us, not in front⁠—in our ancestors, back and back, until⁠—”</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Until?’ ” Lawford managed to remark.</p>
 			<p>“Ah, that settles me again. Don’t they call it an amoeba? But really I am abjectly ignorant of all that kind of stuff. We are <em>all</em> we are, and all in a sense we care to dream we are. And for that matter, anything outlandish, bizarre, is a godsend in this rather stodgy life. It is after all just what the old boy said⁠—it’s only the impossible that’s credible; whatever credible may mean.⁠ ⁠…”</p>
-			<p>It seemed to Lawford as if the last remark had wafted him bodily into the presence of his kind, blinking, intensely anxious old friend, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bethany. And what leagues asunder the two men were who had happened on much the same words to express their convictions.</p>
+			<p>It seemed to Lawford as if the last remark had wafted him bodily into the presence of his kind, blinking, intensely anxious old friend, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Bethany. And what leagues asunder the two men were who had happened on much the same words to express their convictions.</p>
 			<p>He drew his hand gropingly over his face, half rose, and again seated himself. “Whatever it may be,” he said, “the whole thing reminds me, you know⁠—it is in a way so curiously like my own⁠—my own case.”</p>
 			<p>Herbert sat on, a little drawn up in his chair, quietly smoking. The crash of the falling water, after seeming to increase in volume with the fading of evening, had again died down in the darkness to a low multitudinous tumult as of countless inarticulate, echoing voices.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Bizarre,’ you said; God knows <em>I</em> am.” But Herbert still remained obdurately silent. “You remember, perhaps,” Lawford faintly began again, “our talk the other night?”</p>
@@ -30,9 +30,9 @@
 			<p>“Insane!” There was a genuinely amused astonishment in the echo. “You were lucidity itself. Besides⁠—well, honestly, if I may venture, I don’t put very much truck in what one calls one’s sanity: except, of course, as a bond of respectability and a means of livelihood.”</p>
 			<p>“But did you realise in the least from what I said how I really stand? That I went down into that old shadowy hollow one man, and came back⁠—well⁠—this?”</p>
 			<p>“I gathered vaguely something like that. I thought at first it was merely an affectation⁠—that what you said was an affectation, I mean⁠—until⁠—well, to be frank, it was the ‘this’ that so immensely interested me. Especially,’ he added almost with a touch of gaiety, “especially the last glimpse. But if it’s really not a forbidden question, what precisely was the other? What precise manner of man, I mean, came down into Widderstone?”</p>
-			<p>“It is my face that is changed, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Herbert. If you’ll try to understand me⁠—my <em>face</em>. What you see now is not what I really am, not what I was. Oh, it is all quite different. I know perfectly well how absurd it must sound. And you won’t press me further. But that’s the truth: that’s what they have done for me.”</p>
+			<p>“It is my face that is changed, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Herbert. If you’ll try to understand me⁠—my <em>face</em>. What you see now is not what I really am, not what I was. Oh, it is all quite different. I know perfectly well how absurd it must sound. And you won’t press me further. But that’s the truth: that’s what they have done for me.”</p>
 			<p>It seemed to Lawford as if a remote tiny shout of laughter had been suddenly caught back in the silence that had followed this confession. He peered in vain in the direction of his companion. Even his cigarette revealed no sign of him. “I know, I know,” he went gropingly on; “I felt it would sound to you like nothing but frantic incredible nonsense. <em>You</em> can’t see it. <em>You</em> can’t feel it. <em>You</em> can’t hear these hooting voices. It’s no use at all blinking the fact; I am simply on the verge, if not over it, of insanity.”</p>
-			<p>“As to that, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Lawford,” came the still voice out of the darkness; “the very fact of your being able to say so seems to me all but proof positive that you’re not. Insanity is on another plane, isn’t it? in which one can’t compare one’s states. As for what you say being credible, take our precious noodle of a spook here! Ninety-nine hundredths of this amiable world of ours would have guffawed the poor creature into imperceptibility ages ago. To such poor credulous creatures as my sister and I he is no more and no less a fact, a personality, an amusing reality than⁠—well, this teacup. Here we are, amazing mysteries both of us in any case; and all round us are scores of books, dealing just with life, pure, candid, and unexpurgated; and there’s not a single one among them but reads like a taradiddle. Yet grope between the lines of any autobiography, it’s pretty clear what one has got⁠—a feeble, timid, creeping attempt to describe the indescribable. As for what you say <em>your</em> case is, the bizarre⁠—that kind very seldom gets into print at all. In all our make-believe, all our pretence, how, honestly, could it? But there, this is immaterial. The real question is, may I, can I help? What I gather is this: You just trundled down into Widderstone all among the dead men, and⁠—but one moment, I’ll light up.”</p>
+			<p>“As to that, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Lawford,” came the still voice out of the darkness; “the very fact of your being able to say so seems to me all but proof positive that you’re not. Insanity is on another plane, isn’t it? in which one can’t compare one’s states. As for what you say being credible, take our precious noodle of a spook here! Ninety-nine hundredths of this amiable world of ours would have guffawed the poor creature into imperceptibility ages ago. To such poor credulous creatures as my sister and I he is no more and no less a fact, a personality, an amusing reality than⁠—well, this teacup. Here we are, amazing mysteries both of us in any case; and all round us are scores of books, dealing just with life, pure, candid, and unexpurgated; and there’s not a single one among them but reads like a taradiddle. Yet grope between the lines of any autobiography, it’s pretty clear what one has got⁠—a feeble, timid, creeping attempt to describe the indescribable. As for what you say <em>your</em> case is, the bizarre⁠—that kind very seldom gets into print at all. In all our make-believe, all our pretence, how, honestly, could it? But there, this is immaterial. The real question is, may I, can I help? What I gather is this: You just trundled down into Widderstone all among the dead men, and⁠—but one moment, I’ll light up.”</p>
 			<p>A light flickered up in the dark. Shading it in his hand from the night air straying through the open window, Herbert lit the two candles that stood upon the little chimneypiece behind Lawford’s head. Then sauntering over to the window again, almost as if with an affectation of nonchalance, he drew one of the shutters, and sat down. “Nothing much struck me,” he went on, leaning back on his hands, “I mean on Sunday evening, until you said goodbye. It was then that I caught in the moon a distinct glimpse of your face.”</p>
 			<p>“This,” said Lawford, with a sudden horrible sinking of the heart.</p>
 			<p>Herbert nodded. “The fact is, I have a print of it,” he said.</p>
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@
 			<p>“You say a passing likeness; do you <em>mean</em> that?”</p>
 			<p>Herbert smiled indulgently. “If one <em>can</em> mean what is purely a speculation. I am only trying to look at the thing dispassionately, you see. We are so much the slaves of mere repetition. Here is life⁠—yours and mine⁠—a kind of <i xml:lang="la">plenum in vacuo</i>. It is only when we begin to play the eavesdropper; when something goes askew; when one of the sentries on the frontier of the unexpected shouts a hoarse ‘<i xml:lang="fr">Qui vive</i>?’⁠—it is only then we begin to question; to prick our aldermen and pinch the calves of our kings. Why, who is there can answer to anybody’s but his own satisfaction just that one fundamental question⁠—Are we the prisoners, the slaves, the inheritors, the creatures, or the creators of our bodies? Fallen angels or horrific dust? As for identity or likeness or personality, we have only our neighbours’ nod for them, and just a fading memory. No, the old fairy tales knew better; and witchcraft’s witchcraft to the end of the chapter. Honestly, and just of course on that one theory, Lawford, I can’t help thinking that Sabathier’s raid only just so far succeeded as to leave his impression in the wax. It doesn’t, of course, follow that it will necessarily end there. It might⁠—it may be even now just gradually fading away. It may, you know, need driving out⁠—with whips and scorpions. It might, perhaps, work in.”</p>
 			<p>Lawford sat cold and still. “It’s no good, no good,” he said, “I don’t understand; I can’t follow you. I was always stupid, always bigoted and cocksure. These things have never seemed anything but old women’s tales to me. And now I must pay for it. And this Nicholas Sabathier; you say he was a blackguard?”</p>
-			<p>“Well,” said Herbert with a faint smile, “that depends on your definition of the word. He wasn’t a flunkey, a fool, or a prig, if that’s what you mean. He wasn’t perhaps on <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Grundy’s visiting list. He wasn’t exactly gregarious. And yet in a sense that kind of temperament is so rare that Sappho, Nelson, and Shelley shared it. To the stodgy, suety world of course it’s little else than sheer moonshine, midsummer madness. Naturally, in its own charming and stodgy way the world kept flicking cold water in his direction. Naturally it hissed.⁠ ⁠… I shall find the book. You shall have the book; oh yes.”</p>
+			<p>“Well,” said Herbert with a faint smile, “that depends on your definition of the word. He wasn’t a flunkey, a fool, or a prig, if that’s what you mean. He wasn’t perhaps on <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mrs.</abbr> Grundy’s visiting list. He wasn’t exactly gregarious. And yet in a sense that kind of temperament is so rare that Sappho, Nelson, and Shelley shared it. To the stodgy, suety world of course it’s little else than sheer moonshine, midsummer madness. Naturally, in its own charming and stodgy way the world kept flicking cold water in his direction. Naturally it hissed.⁠ ⁠… I shall find the book. You shall have the book; oh yes.”</p>
 			<p>“There’s only one more question,” said Lawford in a dull, slow voice, stooping and covering his face with his hands. “I know it’s impossible for you to realise⁠—but to me time seems like that water there, to be heaping up about me. I wait, just as one waits when the conductor of an orchestra lifts his hand and in a moment the whole surge of brass and wood, cymbal and drum will crash out⁠—and sweep me under. I can’t tell you Herbert, how it all is, with just these groping stirrings of that mole in my mind’s dark. You say it may be this face, working in! God knows. I find it easy to speak to you⁠—this cold, clear sense, you know. The others feel too much, or are afraid, or⁠—Let me think⁠—yes, I was going to ask you a question. But no one can answer it.” He peered darkly, with white face suddenly revealed between his hands. “What remains now? Where do <em>I</em> come in? What is there left for <em>me</em> to do?”</p>
 			<p>And at that moment there sounded, even above the monotonous roar of the water beyond the window⁠—there fell the sound of a light footfall approaching along the corridor.</p>
 			<p>“Listen,” said Herbert; “here’s my sister coming; we’ll ask her.”</p>

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 			<p>The door opened. Lawford rose, and into the further rays of the candlelight entered a rather slim figure in a light summer gown.</p>
 			<p>“Just home?” said Herbert.</p>
 			<p>“We’ve been for a walk⁠—”</p>
-			<p>“My sister always forgets everything,” said Herbert, turning to Lawford; “even teatime. This is <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Lawford, Grisel. We’ve been arguing no end. And we want you to give a decision. It’s just this: Supposing if by some impossible trick you had come in now, not the charming familiar sister you are, but shorter, fatter, fair and round-faced, quite different, physically, you know⁠—what would you do?”</p>
+			<p>“My sister always forgets everything,” said Herbert, turning to Lawford; “even teatime. This is <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Lawford, Grisel. We’ve been arguing no end. And we want you to give a decision. It’s just this: Supposing if by some impossible trick you had come in now, not the charming familiar sister you are, but shorter, fatter, fair and round-faced, quite different, physically, you know⁠—what would you do?”</p>
 			<p>“What nonsense you talk, Herbert!”</p>
 			<p>“Yes, but supposing: a complete transmogrification⁠—by some unimaginable ingression or enchantment, by nibbling a bunch of roses, or whatever you like to call it?”</p>
 			<p>“<em>Only</em> physically?”</p>