it with evident familiarity, and her hand trembled. They saw her bite her lip—she was indubitably attempting to communicate with them—but she was unable to make a mark on the sheet.
"H'm!" said Astro thoughtfully. "Agraphia, as well. Now we're getting warmer. I think I shall get it after a while."
"Why, to me it seems more impossible than ever!" Valeska said.
"Strange that we should have just been talking about it," he replied. "It's a case of lost identity, disassociated personality, beyond doubt. I think I can solve the riddle if I can hypnotize her. I'll try."
He did try, but without avail. At his first mesmeric gestures she shrank from him in fear. As he persisted, trying with a crystal ball held in front of and above her eyes, to send her into a hypnotic sleep by means of a partial paralysis of the optic nerve, she resolutely defended herself. The strangeness of his motions aroused her suspicion, and she refused to concentrate her attention sufficiently to be influenced. Direct verbal suggestion, the simplest and most effective method of inducing hypnosis, was of course out of the question, since she did not appear to understand any language he spoke.
"There is only one other method, if even that will succeed," Astro said at last. "If we can get her to write automatically, we may learn something. Her agraphia prevents her writing with her conscious mind. We'll try what is called the method of 'abstraction'. It is a common experiment. One holds his patient absorbed in a conversation that compels his utmost men-
