Besides, during the short instants when Mrs Piper is as if suspended between two worlds, she still has a vague recollection of what she has just heard; the fragments of sentences she utters bear sufficient witness to this. She rarely fails to shed a few tears, and to say, "I want to stop here, I don't want to go back to the dark world!" Here is a characteristic passage, as an example. Mrs Piper, coming out of the trance, begins to weep and murmur, "I do not want to go back to the darkness.... Oh, it is, it is, it must be the window ... but I want to know.... I want to know where they are all gone[88].... It is funny ... I forgot that I was alive.... Yes, Mr Hodgson, I forgot.... I was going to tell you something, but I have forgotten what it was.... You see, when my head snaps, I forget what I was going to say.... It must be night. Oh, dear! I feel so weak.... Is that my handkerchief?" On other occasions she uses an odd figure of speech. "You see Rector turns round a dark board and says that's your world--and he turns round the other side and that's light, and he says that's his world. I don't want to go back to the dark world." Another time she says, quite at the end, "Is that my body? how it pricks!" It appears that Imperator, before sending her back to the "dark world," prays for her, and she sometimes repeats fragments of the prayers automatically. "Is that a blessing? Say it."[89] "Father be and abide with thee for evermore." "Servus Dei--I don't know." "I have all these to look out for. I leave thee well." "Go and do the duties before thee." "Blessings on thy head." "The light shall cease." "Why do you say that?" "Are you going? Good-bye." "I want to go along the same path with you." "Hear the whistle?" (This was an earthly whistle, which those present also heard.) FOOTNOTES: [86] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xvi. p. 322. [87] That is to say, Imperator, who always signalises his presence by making a cross on the paper, or, with his hand, in the air. [88] The spirits in whose company she has been. [89] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xvi. p. 396. CHAPTER XX Encouraging results obtained--The problem must be solved. And now, can there be a conclusion to this work? It does not allow of any conclusion. The most I can do in terminating is to record certain facts. Dr Hodgson, Professor Hyslop and others, who, though unprejudiced, began these studies as sceptical as anyone, have ended, after long years of hesitation, by giving their adhesion to the spiritualist hypothesis. But, as they are careful to point out, they accept this hypothesis conditionally, and not definitely. New experiments and new facts may turn their minds in quite another direction.