"I don't think the failure to find the musical fragment invalidates this beautiful communication," declared Fowler. "You admit that many of the messages were to the point, and that some of them were very intimate and personal." "Yes, speaking generally, I would say that 'E. A.' might have uttered all the words and dictated all the messages except those that related to the publishing matter; but there is the final test. Schumann declares that no such manuscript has ever been in his hands." "He may be mistaken, or 'E. A.' may have misspoken himself--for, as William James infers, the spirits find themselves tremendously hampered in their attempts to manifest themselves. Furthermore, you say you could not hear all that 'E. A.' spoke--you or the psychic may have misunderstood him. In any case, it all seems to me a fine attempt at identification." "I wish I could put the same value on it now that I did when Blake played the first bar of that thrilling little melody; but I can't. As it recedes it loses its power over me." "What did Alexander's family think of the music?" "They thought it more like a Cheyenne or Omaha love-song than like a melody of 'Ernest's' own composition." "But that only adds to the mystery of the mental process," objected Miller. "That supposes it to have come out of your mind." "I can't believe that I had any hand in the musical part of it, and I can't persuade myself that my dead friend was present." "Suppose you had been able to find that musical fragment, would it have converted you?" This was Miller's challenge. "No, for even then some living person might have known of it--must have known of it; and if a knowledge of it lay in some other mind, no matter where and no matter how deeply buried in the subconscious, that knowledge, according to Myers and Hudson, would have been accessible to the supernormal perception of the psychic." Fowler interrogated me: "But suppose a phantom form resembling 'E. A.' had _spoken_ these things to you face to face--what then?" "I would not have believed, even then." "Why?" "Well, for one reason, belief is not a matter of the will; it is not even dependent upon evidence." Miller interrupted me. "I am interested in the writing. How do you account for the writing? As I understand it, the psychic did not, in some instances, touch the slate while the writing was going on. Are you sure of Blake?"