“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—­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.”