But I pulled myself together. I was going too far ahead. After all, I was still merely in the realms of fancy and suspicion. It is true that I have queer, almost uncanny intuitive powers, which have seldom failed me. But still, I had as yet little to go on. With an effort of will, I put the matter out of my mind and tried to sleep. Counsel would, I felt sure, come in the morning. 4 It did. I woke with the words ringing in my head as if some one had spoken them--'Why not consult Amy Ayres?' Of course! That was the very thing. I would go that afternoon. Amy Ayres had been a friend of mine from girlhood. We had always been in the closest sympathy, although our paths had diverged greatly since we were young. We had written our first stories together for _Forget-me-not_ and _Hearth and Home_, and together enjoyed the first sweets of success. But, while I had pursued the literary path, Amy had not. Her interests had turned more and more to the occult. She had fallen in with and greatly admired Mrs. Besant. When her husband (a Swedenborgian minister) left her at the call of his conscience to convert the inhabitants of Peru to Swedenborgianism, and finally lost his life, under peculiarly painful circumstances, in the vain attempt, Amy turned for relief to spiritualism, which was just then at its zenith of popularity. At first she practised it privately and unofficially, with a few chosen friends, for it was something very sacred to her. But gradually, as she came to discover in herself wonderful powers of divination and spiritual receptivity, and being very poor at the time, she took it up as a calling. She is the most wonderful palm-reader and crystal-gazer I have come across. I have brought people to her of whom she has known nothing at all, and she has, after close study and brief, earnest prayer, read in their hands their whole temperament, present circumstances, past history, and future destiny. I have often tried to persuade Percy to go to her, for I think it would convince him of that vast world of spiritual experience which lies about him, and to which he is so blind. If I have to pass on before Percy, he will be left bereaved indeed, unless I can convince him of Truth first. 5 I went to see Amy in her little Maid of Honour house in Kensington that very afternoon. I found her reading Madame Blavatski (that strange woman) in her little drawing-room. Amy has not worn, perhaps, quite so well as I have. She has to make up a little too thickly. I sometimes wish she would put less black round her eyes; it gives her a stagey look, which I think in her particular profession it is most important not to have, as people are in any case so inclined to doubt the genuineness of those who deal in the occult. Besides, what an odd practice that painting the face black in patches is! As unlike real life as a clown's red nose, though I suppose less unbecoming. I myself only use a little powder, which is so necessary in hot, or, indeed, cold weather.