"She, however, seemed undecided in her mind, and for the first time that day I began to be conscious of her thoughts. Seeing that I had made no attempt to follow her, or to exhibit any further signs of insanity, the sudden fear had evidently diminished, and she began to fancy that probably I had only been fooling her for the pleasure of seeing if she could be made to believe the story. At length, being satisfied that this was the explanation, she began to walk slowly towards the place where I was sitting, and then called to me, saying that it was time to go back. I answered that I was quite ready, but that it seemed a pity to go so soon. My voice still further reassuring her, she came and looked over the rock, saying--
"'So you thought you could take me in with that rubbish, did you?'
"'Well,' I replied, 'that was my intention, but as it's evidently of no use, I must give in. Your imagination is not so easily influenced as I thought.'
"'I should think not,' she said. 'But you acted very well, and I really thought for the moment you had gone mad. It was very nasty of you to spoil our happy day in that manner. I suppose you did it in revenge.'
"'No, I did not, dear,' I answered. 'But come and sit down. We will say no more about it.'
"She did as I asked her, protesting all the while that I was a brute; but in five minutes I had managed to change the subject, and to get her to take my hand. Then without speaking I willed her to sleep. Slowly she leant further back; her head sank down, and in less than a minute she was quite unconscious.
"There would, I now knew, be no difficulty in impressing on her mind what had previously been obliterated, and moreover, there was plenty of time to consider whether it might not be well to keep her still in ignorance of some part of her experience with Vancome. But thinking the matter over, I decided it would not under the circumstances be right to interfere with the past. So I willed her to remember all, and to awake with the same feelings towards her husband as those which she felt before she left the ship; moreover, that she should not only understand what course I had pursued, but my reason for pursuing it, and my ignorance of the marriage.
"In her hypnotic condition she was able to answer my questions, and I felt satisfied that when she recovered, she would be able clearly to recall the past.
"Once more I laid my hand over her eyes, and bade her sleep, it being easier and safer to recall the patient to a natural condition, from a state of placid, rather than active, mesmerism. But on trying to rouse her, I was again destined to failure. It was impossible to bring her back to consciousness, or even to influence her now in any way. She lay in one of those cataleptic trances, which no power then known could break, and which form the chief danger connected with all such experiments. Even now, though I should have little difficulty in dealing with a case of this kind, I should be loath, except in emergency, or where the life of the body was endangered, to recall the spirit which is for the time free from its bodily trammels. But in those days I was unable to do so.
"At length alarmed, I took her in my arms and carried her to the little fishing village, where with some difficulty I managed to find a vehicle to drive back to Heather Lodge. It is not necessary for me to go into the details of the two anxious days which followed. During this time all the efforts, not only of the local doctor, but of two consulting physicians, had no effect in rousing Vera from her unnatural sleep. On the third day, however, she awoke, and seemed little the worse for her experience.