"We will come to that directly, when you have answered my questions. Can you deny that Mr. Entwistle Parkins's lecture on the Radio-Activity of Space was delivered at least a week after your husband had communicated to Mr. Adolphus Groob the very curious experience he has just related?" "And what if he did....?" "One moment--excuse me.... Or that your own very singular--I admit the singularity--Pseudo-dream or self-induced Hypnotism was _subsequent_ to this lecture?" "It was in January. What if it was?" Miss Volumnia turned with an air of subdued triumph to the other members of the Deputation. "I appeal to you, Mr. Vacaw--to you, Mr. MacAnimus. Is, or is not, the conclusion warranted that this Pseudo-dream, as I must call it, had its origin by Suggestion from the analogous experience of Mr. Aiken, who had by his own showing narrated it to Mr. Adolphus Groob?" "But Mr. Adolphus Groob never said a single word to me about it. So _there_!" Thus Mrs. Aiken with emphasis so distributed as to make her speech almost truculent. Miss Volumnia's reply was cold and firm. "You admit, cousin Euphemia, that Mr. Adolphus Groob sat next to you throughout that lecture?" "Certainly. What of that?" "Are you prepared to make oath that no part of your conversation turned on Psychic subjects?" "He talked a great deal of nonsense, if that's what you mean, and said we were on the brink of great discoveries. But I won't talk to you if you go on about being prepared to make oath, like a witness-box." Mr. Aiken, perhaps with a mistaken idea of averting heated controversy, interposed saying: "Cert'nly Dolly Groob did say he'd met the missus at a beastly place that stunk of gas out Coombe way, and that she conversed very intelligibly--no, intelligently--on subjects...." Miss Volumnia interrupted, although the speaker had to all seeming scarcely finished his sentence. "That is tantamount," she said, "to an admission that they had been talking on subjects. What subjects?" "Sort of subjects they were talkin' on, I s'pose," said he evasively. "Very well, Reginald," said his wife indignantly. "If you are going over to their side, I give up, and I shan't talk at all." And she held to this resolution, which tended to put an end to the conversation, until the Deputation took its leave, shaking its heads and making dubious sounds within its closed lips. We were on very insecure ground, and things had very doubtful complexions, and all that sort of thing. "What a parcel of fools they were," said the lady when they had departed, "not to ask about what the old gentleman dreamed at Madeline's!" That was first hand from the original picture. "I really do think one cannot depend on photographs."