"The days of so-called miracles will never be over," replied my friend, "till all have equal knowledge. A miracle is but a natural law, of which most persons have hitherto been ignorant, brought into play at length by one who is better informed than the majority."
"But you had nothing to do with the manifestation of to-night, had you?" I asked.
"It was all my doing, with the exception of the first act, and even that was ruled by my influence; but I will explain it to you, as by doing so I shall save trouble later on. I told you that I had come to-night for a reason, and that my object was an important one you may judge by my using a power in public which I have seldom cared to exercise. No one, however, suspects that I had anything to do with what happened beyond being able to give them a little information; all the credit or discredit will be with the performers at the table. Let me first explain what I did, and then give you an idea of my motive.
"Before the ladies left us I exercised my will on Lady Folker and two others to try table-turning that evening. It is a slightly dangerous amusement that has recently revived; and is nothing else but a convenient form of semi-mesmerism caused by the joining of hands. If, which is unusual, no one tries to cheat or to fool the others present, the persons will soon feel a tingling sensation in their arms and hands, and lastly through their whole bodies; when the balance of will is fairly even, nothing may happen for some time, but at last one will-force must predominate the others, and quite unconsciously that power influences all the rest, so that every hand moves by the order of a semi-dormant will. Hence the moving and tilting of the table, the message received, etc. Sometimes the motive-will, being partially entranced, becomes a medium for the transmission of thoughts passing through the mind of some absent friend, for under certain conditions thought can be transferred, even as the sound of the voice through a telephone; but this is too lengthy a matter to go into now.
"As a rule, however, one of the party being more susceptible than the others, will before long become unconscious, or completely mesmerized. This is, as you know, what happened to-night, and in this condition the predominant will, whether the owner thereof be absent or present, gains complete control, speaking through his or her voice, and in fact acting the part of hypnotizer on a patient. Sometimes one of the party present, and then another, will so act on the medium, and each one be unconscious of doing so."
"I begin to see now," I said, "what happened. Your will acted on the girl, and you made her do just what you wished. But how about the skeleton?"
"You are mistaken," my friend answered, "and you forget about the curtains going back of their own accord. I adopted a simpler method, and one less harmful to the girl. Those at the table mesmerized her, but I mesmerized all the others present; from the time the curtains had been drawn till I myself threw them back not a single thing took place, and the room was in silence with the exception of the shriek of horror when I relaxed my power, and you saw, as you thought, the curtains fall together."
"Do you mean to say that the girl had nothing to do with it, and that she never moved?"
"She never stirred so much as a finger, but her condition assisted me in a way that you will understand better when I explain the laws which govern the transmission of will-force, for in her state what power she possessed was added to my own."
"And you mean to say that during all this time we were staring like a pack of fools at a blank curtain?" I demanded.