“We introduced a minuet in our theatricals,” Mr. Brandreth interposed, “and people said it was the best thing in it. I _beg_ your pardon!” “Not at all. It must have been very picturesque. The cousin is taken up for dead, and the husband goes into hiding until the result of the cousin’s injuries can be ascertained. They are searching for the husband everywhere, and the girl’s father, who has dabbled in hypnotism, and has hypnotized his daughter now and then, takes the notion of trying to discover the husband’s whereabouts by throwing her into a hypnotic trance and questioning her: he believes that she knows. The trance is incomplete, and with what is left of her consciousness the girl suffers tremendously from the conflict that takes place in her. In the midst of it all, word comes from the room where the cousin is lying insensible that he is dying. The father leaves his daughter to go to him, and she lapses into the cataleptic state. The husband has been lurking about, intending to give himself up if it comes to the worst. He steals up to the open window--I forgot to say that the hypnotization scene takes place in her father’s office, a little building that stands apart from the house, and of course it’s a ground floor--and he sees her stretched out on the lounge, all pale and stiff, and he thinks she is dead.” Mr. Brandreth burst into a laugh. “I _must_ tell you what our Mercutio said--he was an awfully clever fellow, a lawyer up there, one of the natives, and he made simply a _perfect_ Mercutio. He said that our Juliet was magnificent in the sepulchre scene; and if she could have played the part as a dead Juliet throughout, she would have beat us all!” “Capital!” said Ray. “Ha, ha, ha!” “Well, go on,” said Mr. Brandreth. “Oh! Well, the husband gets in at the window and throws himself on her breast, and tries to revive her. She shows no signs of life, though all the time she is perfectly aware of what is going on, and is struggling to speak and reassure him. She recovers herself just at the moment he draws a pistol and shoots himself through the heart. The shot brings the father from the house, and as he enters the little office, his daughter lifts herself, gives him one ghastly stare, and falls dead on her husband’s body.” “That is strong,” said Mr. Brandreth. “That is a very powerful scene.” “Do you think so?” Ray asked. He looked flushed and flattered, but he said: “Sometimes I’ve been afraid it was overwrought, and improbable--weak. It’s not, properly speaking, a novel, you see. It’s more in the region of romance.” “Well, so much the better. I think people are getting tired of those commonplace, photographic things. They want something with a little more imagination,” said Mr. Brandreth. “The motive of my story might be called psychological,” said the author. “Of course I’ve only given you the crudest outline of it, that doesn’t do it justice”--