--well, there it is before you, in a variety of shapes, and in
various states of preservation, as incapable of producing a ghost as
a picture or a statue. You are altogether in a very nervous condition
to-day. It is really quite indifferent whether that good lady be alive
or dead."

"Indifferent!" exclaimed Unorna fiercely. Then she was silent.

"Indifferent to the validity of the theory. If she is dead, you did not
see her ghost, and if she is alive you did not see her body, because,
if she had been there in the flesh, she would have entered into an
explanation--to say the least. Hypnosis will explain anything and
everything, without causing you a moment's anxiety for the future."

"Then I did not hear shrieks and moans, nor see your specimens moving
when I was here along just now?"

"Certainly not! Hypnosis again. Auto-hypnosis this time. You should
really be less nervous. You probably stared at the lamp without
realising the fact. You know that any shining object affects you in
that way, if you are not careful. It is a very bright lamp, too.
Instantaneous effect--bodies appear to move and you hear unearthly
yells--you offer your soul for sale and I buy it, appearing in the nick
of time? If your condition had lasted ten seconds longer you would have
taken me for his majesty and lived, in imagination, through a dozen
years or so of sulphurous purgatorial treatment under my personal
supervision, to wake up and find yourself unscorched--and unredeemed, as
ever."

"You are a most comforting person, Keyork," said Unorna, with a faint
smile. "I only wish I could believe everything you tell me."

"You must either believe me or renounce all claim to intelligence,"
answered the little man, climbing from his chair and sitting upon the
table at her elbow. His short, sturdy legs swung at a considerable
height above the floor, and he planted his hands firmly upon the board
on either side of him. The attitude was that of an idle boy, and was
so oddly out of keeping with his age and expression that Unorna almost
laughed as she looked at him.

"At all events," he continued, "you cannot doubt my absolute sincerity.
You come to me for an explanation. I give you the only sensible one that
exists, and the only one which can have a really sedative effect upon
your excitement. Of course, if you have any especial object in
believing in ghosts--if it affords you any great and lasting pleasure to
associate, in imagination, with spectr