n
if the psychic had been able to extend her foot or release a hand she
could not have produced such movement, and if she had done so we could
have detected it. Intelligent forces were plainly at work on the table,
and writing was going on. So far as I was concerned, I was convinced
that the psychic had externalized her power in some occult fashion, and
that it was she who was speaking to us. It was as if she were able to
_will_ the cone to rise and then to project her voice into it, all of
which seems impossible the moment it is stated.

At length "Wilbur" said: "Good-night." I rose, and Miller, eagerly,
expectantly, turned the light slowly on. _Mrs. Smiley sat precisely as
we had last seen her. Her eyes were closed, her head leaning against the
back of her chair. Her hands were fastened exactly as we had left them,
and, strangest thing of all, the table was pushed away from her so that
the silk threads were tight._

"Do you see that, Miller?" I exclaimed. "Will you tell me how that
final movement was made? 'Wilbur' has given us an unexpected test. Even
if she had freed her hands, she could not have tied the threads and
returned to her bonds; and if she first returned to her bonds, how could
she, then, have pushed the table away? The two things are mutually
exclusive. Her feet are nailed to the floor, and the newspaper still on
guard. Are we not forced to conclude that the table was moved by some
supernormal expenditure of force? Her hands were here, the table there.
Does it not seem to you a case of the 'psychic force,' such as Crookes
and Richet describe?"

Miller was confounded, but concealed it. "She may have shoved the table
with her feet."

"How? Your newspaper is unbroken. Not a tack is disturbed. But suppose
she did! How about the books? Did she get the books with her feet? How
about the broad hand which I saw? How about the candy-box which was
moved from a point seven feet away? How could she slip from her bonds?
See these threads, actually sunk into her wrists!" I continued. "No, my
conviction is that she has not once moved."

"I cannot admit that."

"You mean you dare not!"

Mrs. Miller was indignant at our delay. "The poor thing! It is a shame!
Unfasten her at once! You are torturing her!"

"Wait a few moments," said Miller, inexorably. "I want to make a few
notes."

Meanwhile I took the psychic's pulse. It was very slow, faint, and
irregular. It was, indeed, only a faint, sluggish throb at long