laces--but I
have never seen anything even faintly suggestive of a ghost. Therefore,
my dear lady, I advise you to take it for granted that you have seen a
living person."

"I never shivered with cold and felt my hair rise upon my head at the
sight of any living thing," said Unorna dreamily, and still shading her
eyes with her hand.

"But might you not feel that if you chanced to see some one whom you
particularly disliked?" asked Keyork, with a gentle laugh.

"Disliked?" repeated Unorna in a harsh voice. She changed her position
and looked at him. "Yes, perhaps that is possible. I had not thought of
that. And yet--I would rather it had been a ghost."

"More interesting, certainly, and more novel," observed Keyork, slowly
polishing his smooth cranium with the palm of his hand. His head, and
the perfect hemisphere of his nose, reflected the light like ivory balls
of different sizes.

"I was standing before him," said Unorna. "The place was lonely and
it was already night. The stars shone on the snow, and I could see
distinctly. Then she--that woman--passed softly between us. He cried
out, calling her by name, and then fell forward. After that, the woman
was gone. What was it that I saw?"

"You are quite sure that it was not really a woman?"

"Would a woman, and of all women that one, have come and gone without a
word?"

"Not unless she is a very singularly reticent person," answered Keyork,
with a laugh. "But you need not go so far as the ghost theory for an
explanation. You were hypnotised, my dear friend, and he made you see
her. That is as simple as anything need be."

"But that is impossible, because----" Unorna stopped and changed colour.

"Because you had hypnotised him already," suggested Keyork gravely.

"The thing is not possible," Unorna repeated, looking away from him.

"I believe it to be the only natural explanation. You had made him
sleep. You tried to force his mind to something contrary to its firmest
beliefs. I have seen you do it. He is a strong subject. His mind
rebelled, yielded, then made a final and desperate effort, and then
collapsed. That effort was so terrible that it momentarily forced your
will back upon itself, and impressed his vision on your sight. There are
no ghosts, my dear colleague. There are only souls and bodies. If the
soul can be defined as anything it can be defined as Pure Being in the
Mode of Individuality but quite removed from the Mode of Matter. As for
the body