hing.

But when we had returned to our rooms that night she remarked quite
quietly: "But he _did_ come, Emmie! When you said that at _table d'hote_
about my exaggerating things, I let it pass, because very often it is
true. But what I said this evening was _absolutely correct_, though
perhaps it is as well those people should not believe it. Someone _did_
come to my bedside last night, and said: 'I am Gifford--will you listen
to me?' And I said: 'No; not to-night. I am too tired,' just as I told
you."

I think poor Gifford came again more than once to me; but I had done all
I could for him, and explained this, adding that he must now leave me
alone, which he did.

Later my cousin returned to Paris, and I went on to Rome, where I
received a letter from Dr Richard Hodgson enclosing some Piper script.

_F. W. H. Myers communicating_, said that he had come to me on the
evening of 4th February, that I seemed to recognise him, and that he
thought he had "got his message through to me," and hoped that I should
write to Dr Hodgson to that effect.

In answering Dr Hodgson's letter I denied the Myers' episode _in toto_,
so far as _my_ consciousness was concerned. In fact, the Gifford
incident put all else so entirely out of my mind that I fear I did not
even mention to Dr Hodgson that my _first_ thought that night had been
connected with Mr Myers.

Anyway, the next letter from Boston enclosed an account of a sitting,
where Mr Myers came and apologised for having misled Dr Hodgson about my
recognition of him.

His words were almost literally as follows:--

"I am extremely sorry, my dear Hodgson, about that affair with Miss
Bates. I should not have thought of mentioning it to you had I not felt
convinced that she recognised me. _Her astral body was quite aware of my
presence_, and I quite thought she had realised it on the physical
plane" (the italics are mine).

It would seem that the Myers' message was in the very act of
transmission from my astral to my normal consciousness when this man
Gifford must have come, switching off the telephone for Mr Myers, and
getting on to it himself. Probably his great distress of mind would
have made him the stronger force of the two for the time being.

There must always be many disappointments of this kind in our research.
There is always something which so nearly succeeds and then just fails
at last. This _must_ be the case where conditions are so fine and subtle
and so easily dis