death has followed. There are wise men by the score
to-day who do not ask "What made it stop?" but "Who made it stop?" But
they have no evidence to bring, and the new jurisprudence, which in some
countries covers the cases of thefts and frauds committed under hypnotic
suggestion, cannot as yet lay down the law for cases where a man has
been told to die, and dies--from "weakness of the heart." And yet it is
known, and well known, that by hypnotic suggestion the pulse can be made
to fall to the lowest number of beatings consistent with life, and that
the temperature of the body can be commanded beforehand to stand at a
certain degree and fraction of a degree at a certain hour, high or low,
as may be desired. Let those who do not believe read the accounts of
what is done from day to day in the great European seats of learning,
accounts of which every one bears the name of some man speaking with
authority and responsible to the world of science for every word he
speaks, and doubly so for every word he writes. A few believe in the
antiquated doctrine of electric animal currents, the vast majority are
firm in the belief that the influence is a moral one--all admit that
whatever force, or influence, lies at the root of hypnotism, the
effects it can produce are practically unlimited, terrible in their
comprehensiveness, and almost entirely unprovided for in the scheme of
modern criminal law.

Unorna was sure of herself, and of her strength to perform what she
contemplated. There lay the dark beauty in the corner of the sofa, where
she had sat and talked so long, and told her last story, the story of
her life which was now to end. A few determined words spoken in her ear,
a pressure of the hand upon the brow and the heart, and she would never
wake again. She would lie there still, until they found her, hour after
hour, the pulse growing weaker and weaker, the delicate hands colder,
the face more set. At the last, there would be a convulsive shiver of
the queenly form, and that would be the end. The physicians and the
authorities would come and would speak of a weakness of the heart, and
there would be masses sung for her soul, and she would rest in peace.

Her soul? In peace? Unorna stood still. Was that to be all her vengeance
upon the woman who stood between her and happiness? Was there to be
nothing but that, nothing but the painless passing of the pure young
spirit from earth to heaven? Was no one to suffer for all Unorna's