On the following Thursday I went to see the ladies in question, and in the course of conversation (without any allusion to the subject on my part) the elder one told me, that on the previous Sunday night she had been much terrified by perceiving me standing by her bedside, and that she screamed when the apparition advanced towards her, and awoke her little sister, who saw me also.
I asked her if she was awake at the time, and she replied most decidedly in the affirmative, and upon my inquiring the time of the occurrence, she replied, about 1 o'clock in the morning.
This lady, at my request, wrote down a statement of the event and signed it.
This was the first occasion upon which I tried an experiment of this kind, and its complete success startled me very much.
Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly, I put forth an effort which I cannot find words to describe. I was conscious of a mysterious influence of some sort permeating in my body, and had a distinct impression that I was exercising some force with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but which I can now at certain times set in motion at will.
S. H. B.
Of the original entry in the almanac diary, Mr. B. says: "I recollect having made it within a week or so of the occurrence of the experiment, and whilst it was perfectly fresh in my memory."
Miss Verity's account is as follows:—
January 18th, 1883.
On a certain Sunday evening, about twelve months since, at our house in Hogarth Road, Kensington, I distinctly saw Mr. B. in my room, about 1 o'clock. I was perfectly awake and was much terrified. I awoke my sister by screaming, and she saw the apparition herself. Three days after, when I saw Mr. B., I told him what had happened, but it was some time before I could recover from the shock I had received; and the remembrance is too vivid to be ever erased from my memory.