"Some very curious cases. Here is one in which a door, not only locked but bolted, plays a part. A great Scotch physician relates how a person of high rank complains to him that he is in the habit of being visited by a hideous old woman at six o'clock every evening; that she rushes upon him with a crutch in her hand, and strikes him a blow so severe that he falls down in a swoon. The gentleman informs the physician that on the previous evening, at a quarter to six o'clock, he carefully locked and double bolted the door of the room, and that then he sat down in his chair and waited. Exactly as the clock strikes six the door flies wide open--as the door in Lamb's Terrace did, Ned--and the old woman rushes in and deals him a harder blow than she was in the habit of doing, and down he falls insensible. 'How many times has this occurred?' asks the physician. 'Several times,' is the reply. 'On any one of these occasions,' says the physician, 'have you had a companion with you?' 'No,' the gentleman replies, 'I have been quite alone.' The physician then inquires at what hour the gentleman dines, and he answers, five o'clock, and the physician proposes that they shall dine the next day in the room in which the old woman makes her appearance. The gentleman gladly consents; they dine together as agreed upon, and the physician--who is an agreeable talker--succeeds apparently in making his host forget all about the apparition. Suddenly, the clock on the mantelpiece is heard striking six. 'Here she is, here she is!' cries the gentleman, and a moment afterward falls down in a fit." "Very curious," I said, "and how does the wise physician account for the delusion?" "By the gentleman having a tendency to apoplexy." "There is, generally," I observed, "a weak spot or two in this kind of story. Does it say in the account that the door was locked and bolted when the gentleman and the physician dined together, and that the door flew open upon the appearance of the old lady?" "No, it does not say that." "The omission of the precaution to lock the door," I said, "is fatal, for the absence of that visible and material manifestation deprives the physician of the one strong argument he could have brought forward. Had the door been locked and bolted, and had the old woman appeared without its flying open, the physician could have said to the gentleman, 'You see, the door remains fastened, as we fastened it before we sat down to dinner; you imagined that it flew open, and there it remains shut, a clear proof that the old woman and her crutch is but a fevered fancy.' That would have disposed of this gentleman at once." "Quite so," said Bob. "You will, I suppose, admit that if the locked door had opened in the physician's presence, it would have been a sign that some spiritual power had been exercised for which he could not so readily have accounted?" "Yes, I should admit that."