iences yourself--_personal_ experiences--which prove
to you the existence of such powers. Can you tell me about them? I
don't ask out of curiosity alone; but if it is too sacred, too private,
I shall quite understand."

He smiled at her with an utter absence of embarrassment.

"Oh, there is nothing private. My convictions are not founded on any
definite occurrence; but as it happens, I _have_ had one experience
which defies explanation. Not in India, but by all that is _mal a
propos_ and out of place, in the most modern and material of cities--New
York. I'll tell it to you with pleasure. It's an uncommonly good tale,
and it has the merit of being first-hand, and capable of proof. It came
about like this. A man asked me to dine in a private room at a hotel
with two or three other men, bachelors--mutual friends. While we were
sitting over dessert, he said, `I've got a little excitement for you
fellows this evening. I've engaged a conjurer--thought-reading sort of
fellow, to come in and give you an exhibition. He's quite the most
uncanny thing in that line that I've ever met. I never believed in
second-sight before, but it makes one think. He'll give you a new
sensation; I can promise you that.'

"Well, he came about half an hour after that. An ordinary-looking
fellow--a white man; nothing in the least unusual about him except his
eyes--light, colourless-looking eyes, extraordinarily wide and clear--
eyes that gave one an uncanny sort of thrill when they were fixed upon
you. You felt that those eyes could see a lot more than would ever fall
to your own vision. Well, he told us to sit against the wall at the far
end of the room, and each to write something as personal as possible on
slips of paper, which were afterwards to be shuffled and handed round.
While we were writing he would leave the room. When we had finished, we
were to ring a bell and he would return. We ranged our chairs as he
said. There were no windows on that side, only the bare papered wall.
I couldn't think what to write. It puzzles one when one is suddenly
told to do a thing like that. Eventually I put my mother's maiden name,
`Mary Winifred Fielding,' and the date of her marriage, 1822. The
fellow next me showed me his slip, `I don't believe in any of this
trickery.' We chuckled together while I read it. We folded up the
papers, put them in a bowl, and drew out the first that came. Then we
rang the bell, and the fellow came bac