there they knocked at the
door; there was no answer. Opening the door they found no one
downstairs. My mother then went to Mrs. Lister's bedroom and found the
unfortunate lady, apparently breathing her last, lying in a pool of
blood. Her husband, in a fit of insanity, had severely beaten her and
left her for dead, and then went and drowned himself in a pond.

"My father immediately went off for a doctor, who was able to stitch up
Mrs. Lister's worst wounds and arrest the bleeding. In the end Mrs.
Lister recovered, owing her life entirely to the fortunate circumstance
that at the moment of losing consciousness she had apparently been able
to project a visual phantasm of herself before the window of our
tea-room. She was a friend of my mother's, and no doubt in her dire
extremity had longed for her company. This longing in Mrs. Lister, in
some way unknown to us, probably produced the appearance which startled
my mother and led to her prompt appearance on the scene of the tragedy."

This story was told me by Mr. Talbot, who was then a boy, seated at the
table at which his mother witnessed the apparition, and was regarded by
him as absolutely true. Evidence in support of it now will be somewhat
difficult to get, as almost all the witnesses have passed over to the
majority, but I have no reason to doubt the truth of the story.

_More Doubles Seeking Help._

The story of Mrs. Lister's double appearing to Mrs. Talbot when in
imminent peril of death, however it may be scouted by the sceptics, is
at least entirely in accord with many other narratives of the kind.

A member of the Psychical Research Society in Southport sends me the
following account of an apparition of a severely wounded man, which
bears considerable resemblance to Mr. Talbot's, although its evidential
value is nothing like so good. Its importance rests solely in the fact
that the apparition appeared as the result, not of death, but of a very
serious injury which might have had fatal consequences:--

"Some years ago, a lady named L. B. was staying with relations at
Beckenham, her husband being away at a shooting party in Essex. On a
certain afternoon, when she had, as she says, no especial reason for her
husband being recalled to her mind, she was somewhat surprised, on
looking out of her bedroom window, to see him, as she imagined, entering
the front garden gate. Wondering what could have been the cause of the
unexpected arrival, she exclaimed to her sis