"Yours faithfully;
"HELEN PENCLOSA.

Really, when I had read the note, I was too relieved to be angry. It
was a liberty. Certainly it was a very great liberty indeed on the
part of a lady whom I had only met once. But, after all, I had
challenged her by my scepticism. It may have been, as she said, a
little difficult to devise a test which would satisfy me.

And she had done that. There could be no question at all upon the
point. For me hypnotic suggestion was finally established. It took
its place from now onward as one of the facts of life. That Agatha,
who of all women of my acquaintance has the best balanced mind, had
been reduced to a condition of automatism appeared to be certain. A
person at a distance had worked her as an engineer on the shore might
guide a Brennan torpedo. A second soul had stepped in, as it were, had
pushed her own aside, and had seized her nervous mechanism, saying: "I
will work this for half an hour." And Agatha must have been
unconscious as she came and as she returned. Could she make her way in
safety through the streets in such a state? I put on my hat and
hurried round to see if all was well with her.

Yes. She was at home. I was shown into the drawing-room and found her
sitting with a book upon her lap.

"You are an early visitor, Austin," said she, smiling.

"And you have been an even earlier one," I answered.

She looked puzzled. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"You have not been out to-day?"

"No, certainly not."

"Agatha," said I seriously, "would you mind telling me exactly what you
have done this morning?"

She laughed at my earnestness.

"You've got on your professional look, Austin. See what comes of being
engaged to a man of science. However, I will tell you, though I can't
imagine what you want to know for. I got up at eight. I breakfasted
at half-past. I came into this room at ten minutes past nine and began
to read the 'Memoirs of Mme. de Remusat.' In a few minutes I did the
French lady the bad compliment of dropping to sleep over her pages, and
I did you, sir, the very flattering one of dreaming about you. It is
only a few minutes since I woke up."

"And found yourself where you had been before?"

"Why, where else should I find myself?"

"Would you mind telling me, Agatha, what it was that you dreamed about
me? It really is not mere curiosity on my part."

"I merely had a vague impression that yo