n other telekinetic happenings were proved, to the
stupefaction of most of those in the group. One special experiment, the
success of which confounded the shrewdest, was the attempt to secure on
a smoke-blackened paper the print of one of the spectral hands."

"Did it succeed?"

"Yes. The impression was made while Paladino's hands were imprisoned
beyond all question, and, what was most singular of all, the hand _that
made the print smudged the wrists of one of the experimenters, and yet
not a particle of black appeared on the fingers of the psychic_."

"That ought to have convinced them of her honesty," remarked Fowler,
with a note of amusement in his voice, "but it didn't; these scientific
folk are so difficult."

"No," I replied, "it didn't convince them, but it jarred them not a
little. In their report they admitted this much. They said, 'We do not
believe we have the right to explain these things by the aid of
insulting assumptions.' (By this they meant to acquit the psychic of
fraud.) 'We think, on the contrary, that _these experiments have to do
with phenomena of an unknown nature_, and we confess that we do not know
what the conditions are that are required to produce them.'"

"That seems to me like a very mild statement, but I suppose they
considered it epoch-making," remarked Fowler.

"From this time forward learned men in Russia, France, and Italy
successively sought Paladino out and tried to expose her to the world.
Professor Wagner, of the Department of Zoology at the University of St.
Petersburg, made a study of her in 1893, and found her powers real. A
year later M. Siemeradski, correspondent of the Institute, experimented
with her in Rome, obtaining, among other miracles, the plucking of the
strings of a closed piano under strictly test conditions."

"You had that experience, did you not?" asked Mrs. Cameron.

"Yes, I've had that."

"How do you account for a thing of that sort?"

"I don't account for it--or if I did give my theory, you would laugh at
me. Wait till I tell you what these Italians are doing. Among the most
eminent and persuasive of all Eusapia's investigators was Professor
Charles Richet, the French physiologist and author. Eusapia came to
revere and trust him, and gave him many sittings. He, too, was bowled
over. He tells the story of his conversion very charmingly. 'In my
servile respect for classic tradition,' he writes, 'I laughed at Crookes
and his experiments; but it must be