"Stop—hold!" cried Dr. Anderson, suddenly. "Take back your will. See, I give it back to you."
He took her hands and forcibly laid her back on the bed. She stared up at him fixedly, and he gazed intently into her wide-open eyes.
"Take back your will, Ursula," he repeated in an imperative voice. Here it is—I return it to you. Be the gentle—the loving Ursula of old once again."
His words acted as magic. The hungry, angry light died out of the beautiful eyes—they grew soft—then they filled with tears.
"I had a bad dream," she said, speaking as if she were a child. "It is over—I am glad to be awake again."
"I'll stay with you until you are better," he answered—"until you fall into a gentle, healing sleep."
But, strange to say, when Anderson gave Miss Whittaker back her will, his power over her had vanished. Try as he would, he could not soothe her to sleep; by the evening she was more feverish than ever, and her condition was highly critical.
She lay in a state of delirium all through the night, but she did not talk of any more horrors. Her troubled spirit had evidently entered into a happier and more peaceful phase of memory. Her conversation was all of her mother who was dead, and of her own life as a light-hearted schoolgirl.
When the sun rose the next day, Miss. Whittaker died.
I have not seen Dr. Anderson since. It is my belief that he will never again try hypnotism, either for good or evil.
