But as though her unhappy fate were for ever fighting against her good impulses, that power of hers had exerted itself unconsciously, since her resolution had been formed.  Keyork Arabian’s words, and his evident though unspoken disbelief in her denial, showed that he at least was convinced of the fact that the Wanderer was not sleeping a natural sleep.  Unorna tried to recall what she had done and said, but all was vague and indistinct.  Of one thing she was sure.  She had not laid her hand upon his forehead, and she had not intentionally done any of those things which she had always believed necessary for producing the results of hypnotism.  She had not willed him to do anything, she thought and she felt sure that she had pronounced no words of the nature of a command.  Step by step she tried to reconstruct for her comfort a detailed recollection of what had passed, but every effort in that direction was fruitless.  Like many men far wiser than herself, she believed in the mechanics of hypnotic science, in the touches, in the passes, in the fixed look, in the will to fascinate.  More than once Keyork Arabian had scoffed at what he called her superstitions, and had maintained that all the varying phenomena of hypnotism, all the witchcraft of the darker ages, all the visions undoubtedly shown to wondering eyes by mediaeval sorcerers, were traceable to moral influence, and to no other cause.  Unorna could not accept his reasoning.  For her there was a deeper and yet a more material mystery in it, as in her own life, a mystery which she cherished as an inheritance, which impressed her with a sense of her own strange destiny and of the gulf which separated her from other women.  She could not detach herself from the idea that the supernatural played a part in all her doings, and she clung to the use of gestures and passes and words in the exercise of her art, in which she fancied a hidden and secret meaning to exist.  Certain things had especially impressed her.  The not uncommon answer of hypnotics to the question concerning their identity, “I am the image in your eyes,” is undoubtedly elicited by the fact that their extraordinarily acute and, perhaps, magnifying vision, perceives the image of themselves in the eyes of the operator with abnormal distinctness, and, not impossibly, of a size quite incompatible with the dimensions of the pupil.  To Unorna the answer meant something more.  It suggested the actual presence of the person she was influencing, in her own brain, and whenever she was undertaking anything especially difficult, she endeavoured to obtain the reply relating to the image as soon as possible.

In the present case, she was sure that she had done none of the things which she considered necessary to produce a definite result.  She was totally unconscious of having impressed upon the sleeper any suggestion of her will.  Whatever she had said, she had addressed the words to herself without any intention that they should be heard and understood.