l at once throw back the bolts of the one lock which had defied
the most ingenious of our complex implements and open our way into a
hitherto unexplored territory.

It certainly was not through the eye alone that Maurice felt the
paralyzing influence. He could contemplate Euthymia from a distance, as
he did on the day of the boat-race, without any nervous disturbance. A
certain proximity was necessary for the influence to be felt, as in the
case of magnetism and electricity. An atmosphere of danger surrounded
every woman he approached during the period when her sex exercises
its most powerful attractions. How far did that atmosphere extend, and
through what channel did it act?

The key to the phenomena of this case, he believed, was to be found in a
fact as humble as that which gave birth to the science of galvanism and
its practical applications. The circumstances connected with the very
common antipathy to cats were as remarkable in many points of view as
the similar circumstances in the case of Maurice Kirkwood. The subjects
of that antipathy could not tell what it was which disturbed their
nervous system. All they knew was that a sense of uneasiness,
restlessness, oppression, came over them in the presence of one of
these animals. He remembered the fact already mentioned, that persons
sensitive to this impression can tell by their feelings if a cat is
concealed in the apartment in which they may happen to be. It may be
through some emanation. It may be through the medium of some electrical
disturbance. What if the nerve-thrills passing through the whole system
of the animal propagate themselves to a certain distance without any
more regard to intervening solids than is shown by magnetism? A sieve
lets sand pass through it; a filter arrests sand, but lets fluids pass,
glass holds fluids, but lets light through; wood shuts out light, but
magnetic attraction goes through it as sand went through the sieve. No
good reasons can be given why the presence of a cat should not betray
itself to certain organizations, at a distance, through the walls of a
box in which the animal is shut up. We need not disbelieve the stories
which allege such an occurrence as a fact and a not very infrequent one.

If the presence of a cat can produce its effects under these
circumstances, why should not that of a human being under similar
conditions, acting on certain constitutions, exercise its specific
influence? The doctor recalled a story