er, but all our results were vitiated by the presence of an outsider.
However, Moir soon reconciled us to the innovation. Monsieur Paul Le Duc
was a famous student of occultism, a seer, a medium, and a mystic. He
was travelling in England with a letter of introduction to Moir from the
President of the Parisian brothers of the Rosy Cross. What more natural
than that he should bring him to our little seance, or that we should
feel honoured by his presence?

He was, as I have said, a small, stout man, undistinguished in
appearance, with a broad, smooth, clean-shaven face, remarkable only
for a pair of large, brown, velvety eyes, staring vaguely out in front
of him. He was well dressed, with the manners of a gentleman, and his
curious little turns of English speech set the ladies smiling. Mrs.
Deacon had a prejudice against our researches and left the room, upon
which we lowered the lights, as was our custom, and drew up our chairs
to the square mahogany table which stood in the centre of the studio.
The light was subdued, but sufficient to allow us to see each other
quite plainly. I remember that I could even observe the curious, podgy
little square-topped hands which the Frenchman laid upon the table.

"What a fun!" said he. "It is many years since I have sat in this
fashion, and it is to me amusing. Madame is medium. Does madame make the
trance?"

"Well, hardly that," said Mrs. Delamere. "But I am always conscious of
extreme sleepiness."

"It is the first stage. Then you encourage it, and there comes the
trance. When the trance comes, then out jumps your little spirit and in
jumps another little spirit, and so you have direct talking or writing.
You leave your machine to be worked by another. _Hein?_ But what have
unicorns to do with it?"

Harvey Deacon started in his chair. The Frenchman was moving his head
slowly round and staring into the shadows which draped the walls.

"What a fun!" said he. "Always unicorns. Who has been thinking so hard
upon a subject so bizarre?"

"This is wonderful!" cried Deacon. "I have been trying to paint one all
day. But how could you know it?"

"You have been thinking of them in this room."

"Certainly."

"But thoughts are things, my friend. When you imagine a thing you make a
thing. You did not know it, _hein_? But I can see your unicorns because
it is not only with my eye that I can see."

"Do you mean to say that I create a thing which has never existed by
merely thinking