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Page 6
She bent forward as she spoke and dropped her fan upon
the floor. The girl whisked round and came straight
toward us, with an enquiring look upon her face, as if
some one had called her.
"What do you think of that, Gilroy?" cried Wilson, in a
kind of ecstasy.
I did not dare to tell him what I thought of it. To me
it was the most barefaced, shameless piece of imposture
that I had ever witnessed. The collusion and the
signal had really been too obvious.
"Professor Gilroy is not satisfied," said she, glancing
up at me with her strange little eyes. "My poor fan is
to get the credit of that experiment. Well, we must
try something else. Miss Marden, would you have any
objection to my putting you off?"
"Oh, I should love it!" cried Agatha.
By this time all the company had gathered round us in a
circle, the shirt-fronted men, and the white-throated
women, some awed, some critical, as though it were
something between a religious ceremony and a conjurer's
entertainment. A red velvet arm-chair had been pushed
into the centre, and Agatha lay back in it, a little
flushed and trembling slightly from excitement. I
could see it from the vibration of the wheat-ears.
Miss Penclosa rose from her seat and stood over her,
leaning upon her crutch.
And there was a change in the woman. She no longer
seemed small or insignificant. Twenty years were gone
from her age. Her eyes were shining, a tinge of color
had come into her sallow cheeks, her whole figure had
expanded. So I have seen a dull-eyed, listless lad
change in an instant into briskness and life when given
a task of which he felt himself master. She looked
down at Agatha with an expression which I resented from
the bottom of my soul--the expression with which a
Roman empress might have looked at her kneeling slave.
Then with a quick, commanding gesture she tossed up her
arms and swept them slowly down in front of her.
I was watching Agatha narrowly. During three passes
she seemed to be simply amused. At the fourth I
observed a slight glazing of her eyes, accompanied by
some dilation of her pupils. At the sixth there was a
momentary rigor. At the seventh her lids began to
droop. At the tenth her eyes were closed, and her
breathing was slower and fuller than usual. I tried as
I watched to preserve my scientific calm, but a
foolish, causeless agitation convulsed me. I trust
that I hid it, but I felt as a child feels in the dark.
I could not have believed that I was still open to such
weakness.
"She is in the trance," said Miss Penclosa.
"She is sleeping!" I cried.
"Wake her, then!"
I pulled her by the arm and shouted in her ear. She
might have been dead for all the impression that I
could make. Her body was there on the velvet chair.
Her organs were acting--her heart, her lungs. But her
soul! It had slipped from beyond our ken. Whither had
it gone? What power had dispossessed it? I was
puzzled and disconcerted.
"So much for the mesmeric sleep," said Miss Penclosa.
"As regards suggestion, whatever I may suggest Miss
Marden will infallibly do, whether it be now or after
she has awakened from her trance. Do you demand proof
of it?"
"Certainly," said I.
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