“Anything else?” Harrison pressed him. “We only saw her for a few moments, of course,” Vernon said. “I must confess that at the moment I can’t think of any other marked differences. It--it was another face and expression, that’s all.” “And you, Emma,” said Harrison, looking at his wife. “I couldn’t be absolutely sure that it wasn’t Miss Messenger,” she replied. “We were all in rather an excited state just then, weren’t we?” “But the dress was a different colour,” put in Mrs. Greatorex. “That first woman was in white. Miss Messenger had a grey dress on.” “I think, you know,” her husband continued, “that Vernon rather hit the mark when he said that the first girl had a more spiritual face. That was what struck me.” “Haven’t you any comments, Lady Ulrica?” Harrison asked. Lady Ulrica sighed. “I’m afraid,” she said honestly, “that for observations of that kind, you can’t count on me one way or the other. I’d left my glasses under the cedar, and I’m as blind as a bat without them.” Harrison smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, come, what does it all amount to?” he asked. “Is there any reason in the world why we should resort to so far-fetched an explanation as the supernatural? Let us consider the evidence as if we were going to put it before a body of expert opinion. We were, according to Vernon’s own admission, in an ‘expectant, slightly inert condition.’ We had been talking spiritualism for an hour or more after dinner, in very exceptional conditions. I never remember a stiller or an--er--more emotional night. When we were all worked up by Vernon’s eloquence into a peculiar state of anticipation, we saw a white figure down by the lake. It was inevitable, in these circumstances, that we should approach it in a state of emotion. And what did we find? We found a young woman walking in trance. Well, that state had very naturally altered her usual appearance, given her face a more spiritual expression. No doubt, she was very pale. She told me this morning that she had contemplated suicide just before she fell into this trance, and I conceive it as being probable that her highly disturbed mental condition had reacted upon her physical appearance.