failed.

"Nothing is stranger, I think, Mr. Malling, than the fascination of a
sitting. Even when nothing, or scarcely anything, happens, the mind, the
whole nature seems to be mysteriously grasped and held. New senses in you
seem to be released. Something is alert which is never alert--or, at
all events, never alert in the same way--in other moments of life. One
seems to become inexplicably different. Chichester was aware of all this.
At the first sitting nothing happened, and I feared Chichester would wish
to give the matter up. But, no! When we rose from our chairs late in the
night he acknowledged that he had never known two hours to pass so
quickly before. At following sittings there were slight manifestations
such as, I suppose, are seldom absent from such affairs,--perfectly
trivial to you, of course,--movements of the table, rappings, gusts of
what seemed cold air, and so forth. All that is not worth talking about,
and I don't mean to trouble you further with it. My difficulty is, when
so little, apparently, took place, to make you understand the tremendous
thing that did happen, that must have been happening gradually during
our sittings.

"At the very first, as I told you, or nearly so,--I wish to be
absolutely accurate,--Chichester began to be aware of a strengthening
of his will. At this time I was almost angrily unaware of any change
either in him or in myself. At subsequent sittings--I speak of the
earlier ones--Chichester reiterated more strongly his assertion of
beneficent alteration in himself. I did not believe him, though I did
believe he was absolutely sincere in his supposition. It seemed to me
that he was 'suggestioned,' partly perhaps by his implicit trust in me,
partly by his own desire that something curious should happen. However,
still playing a part in pursuance of my resolve not to let Chichester
know my real object in this matter, I pretended that I, too, perceived an
alteration in him, as if his personality were strengthening. And not
once, but on several occasions, I spoke of the change in him as almost
exactly corresponding with the change that had taken place in me when
I sat with my Hindu friend.

"All this time, with a force encouraged by the secret anger within me,
I violently, at last almost furiously, willed that Chichester should
become entranced.

"But at length, though I willed furiously, I felt as if I were not
willing with genuine strength, as if I could not will with genu