you to make this reparation to your unhappy victim at the only time when it was likely to help her?"
"I can give you a plain answer to that question. At the time of the trial I had not the moral courage to deliberately ruin myself by making the confession which I now make to you. You can, or perhaps you cannot, understand what it is to struggle with remorse—what it is daily and hourly to bid your conscience be quiet. In my case, it would not obey me; it would keep calling loudly on me to repair the awful mischief I had done. I have spoken to you to-day—I have reposed full confidence in you. The question now is this: Can Miss Whittaker be liberated, and, if so, how soon?"
"You will stand to the confession you have just made me, even though it lands you in the prisoner's dock?" I answered.
A queer smile crept into his face.
"That will not be my punishment," he retorted. "I shall lose my patients and my chance of success in life, but there are no laws at present to punish hypnotists. Even if there were, however, I think—I think now—that I should be willing to abide the issue."
"In that case we must draw up an appeal to the Home Secretary," I began; your statement must be taken down in writing———" I was interrupted by an imperative knock at the door. Even before I could reply it was pushed open and Nurse Hooper, very pale and frightened-looking, put her head in.
"Will you come at once to Miss Whittaker?" she said. "She's in a very queer state."
"Let me come with you," said Anderson, springing to his feet.
"We rushed up the stairs."
We rushed up the stairs and entered the sick girl's room.
Dr. Anderson had left her sleeping quietly, but she was not asleep now. She was sitting up in bed, gazing straight before her and speaking aloud with great rapidity. From the look in her eyes, it was evident she was gazing intently at a vision we could not see.
"I gave up my will," she said. "I gave it up when first you asked me. It is yours to do whatever you like with. I have heard you telling me day and night to hate him. To hate him! I do hate him. Now you tell me to kill him. Please don't tell me that. Please stop before you ask that. I'll have to do it if you insist, but don't insist. Don't lay this awful, awful command on me. Did you say you must? Did you say you would have to lay it on me? Then I'll do it! I'll borrow my father's pistol, it is over his mantelpiece. I can get it easily. No one will suspect me of hating that man, so I can easily, easily kill him. I know, of course, where this will lead—to prison first, and then to death. But if you ask me, I'll go even there for your sake. Yes, I'll go even there."
Her words were low, intensely horrible to listen to, her face was deadly white. The fierceness, the hungry glare of a tiger gleamed in the eyes which were generally so sweet in their glance.
"This is the house," she went on, in a hoarse voice. "I am knocking at the door. It is opened. I see the servant's face. Yes, he is at home. I am going in. That is his room to the left. Oh, how dreadful, how dreadful is the thing I have got to do! Dr. Anderson, I submit my will to yours. I obey the voice which tells me to———"
