“I leave the suggestion to you,” said the Professor, delicately. “We will merely pursue it as a hypothesis. Such a spirit would seek to warn you. It is obviously futile to discuss the means it might or might not employ. We know nothing of the conditions of discarnate life--nothing, at any rate, with scientific certainty. But we will assume that such a spirit, desirous of communicating, finds that Hetty here is temporarily in a mediumistic condition--and by ‘mediumistic’ I mean merely that she is in the abnormal state which, in all ages and in all countries, induces persons to declare that they see and hear things imperceptible to others. She certainly had an abnormal headache. She goes to sleep and dreams. We won’t analyze dream-consciousness now. I will only point out that, in a clearly remembered dream, the events of that dream are as real to consciousness as the events of waking life, and that the perception of Time is enormously modified--you dream through hours of experience while the hand marks minutes on the clock. You are subject to a different illusion of Time--and, as Time and Space are but two faces of the same phenomenon, it may be said that you are subject to a different illusion of Space as well. The spiritualist uses this undoubted fact to support his assertion that in dream-sleep the spirit of the living person is freed from the conditions of matter and is in a condition at least approximating to that of a person who is dead--that it can and does accompany the spirits of those who in this life were linked to it. “The spiritualist, then, endeavouring to explain our present problem, would allege that a spiritual agency concerned with your welfare led Hetty’s spirit into a room in Berlin where Karl Wertheimer’s employers were indicating him to you for some special purpose--that Hetty, being then pure spirit, could actually perceive Karl Wertheimer as a living being when perhaps those in the room (if there was such a room) could only perceive the girl through whom he was speaking--that she could actually hear the significant phrase of their conversation. Further, the spiritualist would assert as a possibility that Karl Wertheimer, ordered to obtain information in your possession, is actually here--_shadowing_ you more effectively than any mortal spy could do--and that Hetty, still retaining her mediumistic power, has actually seen him. That is a spiritualistic explanation--I apologize for its length, Forsdyke. Give me another of your very excellent and material cigars!” “It is a fantastic explanation. I don’t believe a word of it,” said Forsdyke, passing him the box. “Let us have the other one.”