He flushed and asked angrily: "You think she was fictionizing?"

"Not fictionizing, exactly. Observing a series of ordinary occurrences through the glamour of an active

imagination would be a better way of putting it."

He said, incredulously, "You don't realize that what she has written is an authentic, even though

unconscious, description of an amazing piece of hypnotism?"

"The possibility did occur to me," I answered tartly. "But I find no actual evidence to support it. I do

perceive, however, that Walters was not so well balanced as I had supposed her. I do find evidence that

she was surprisingly emotional; that in at least one of her visits to this Madame Mandilip she was plainly

overwrought and in an extreme state of nervous instability. I refer to her most indiscreet discussion of the

Peters case, after she had been warned by me, you will remember, to say nothing of it to anyone