"Never mind, Major Bates," said Morton Freer good-naturedly. "Let us go on all the same, and see what they mean to spell out."
Fortunately, we did so, with a most interesting result; for the right name was given after all, but spelt in the Hindoostanee and not the European fashion. The name in true Hindoostanee was Rám Dín—but Europeans spelt it Rham Deen—and so my brother himself had entirely forgotten when the A was given that it had any connection with the man's name. When the whole word was spelt out, of course he remembered, and then his face was a study!
"Good gracious! it is right enough, and that is the real Hindoostanee spelling, too. I never thought of that when the A came!"
I think this episode knocked the bottom out of his scepticism for some years to come.
Even now this case precludes ordinary and conscious telepathy. Mr Podmore would be reduced to explaining that the Hindoostanee spelling was latent in my brother's consciousness, though his normal self repudiated it.
Another curious incident—still more difficult to explain upon the Thought Transference Theory (unless we stretch it to include a possible impact of all thoughts, at all times and from all quarters of the globe, upon everyone else's brain)—occurred under the same hospitable roof.
One of the Archdeacon's nieces came to stay in the house about this time. She was considerably my senior, and was very kind to me, with the thoughtful kindness an older woman can show to a sensitive young girl. This awakened in me an affection which, I am thankful to say, still exists between us. This lady was considerably under thirty years old at the time, but to my young ideas she seemed already in the sear and yellow leaf from the matrimonial point of view! One must remember how different the standard of age was more than thirty years ago!
It was also the time when marriage was looked upon not only as the most desirable, but as almost the only possible, career for a woman.
So when Morton and this lady and I were "sitting at the table" in the gloaming one evening, I said, with trembling eagerness: "Morton, do ask if Carrie will ever be married," for the case seemed to me almost desperate at the advanced age of twenty-seven or twenty-eight!
I must mention that for some occult reason (which I have entirely forgotten) I trusted fervently that a Hungarian or Polish name might be given after the satisfactory "Yes" had been spelt out, but, alas! nothing of the kind occurred.