I must now note a curious episode connected with my friend Judge Forbes, whose astral influence I had traced clinging to the rooms he once occupied in Cambridge.

As before mentioned, he had married, and I had lost sight of him and his whole family for many years. But we had several mutual friends, through whom I had heard of the birth of his only son and only child, and later of the boy being sent to Eton, and eventually entering the army.

This was very shortly before the breaking out of the South African War, and the young fellow was one of many who were drafted from India, after a few months' service there, to help to defend their Queen's possessions and their countrymen's lives and property in South Africa.

Later, young Forbes was shut up in Ladysmith, and one cold, dismal day in January (6th January 1900) I was lying very ill in bed with a severe bronchial attack in the house of my eldest brother in Hampshire, when the latter came home one evening from the Winchester Club and told us of the celebrated sortie and the death of three young English officers. The name of Forbes of the Royal Rifles figured amongst these, and I felt convinced that it must be the only child of my old friend.

Without hesitation I prepared to write a few short lines of sympathy with the heart-broken father. In vain my sister-in-law protested against my concluding at once that it must be the judge's son, since other members of the family of the same name were known to be in the army. I had not a moment's doubt that this was the boy already mentioned, and even a silence of over twenty years seemed to present no difficulty in expressing one's deep sympathy, in the face of such a sorrow.

The real drawback lay in my weak state of health and physical inability to write more than a few lines. But in these I expressed a hope that in time my poor friend might come to realise that his boy was "as much alive and as near to him as ever—perhaps nearer."

It will indicate how entirely all relations between us had been broken off for many years, when I say that I did not even know the judge's private address, and was forced to send my letter to his court. In a day or two I received a very touching and grateful answer, pathetic not only in its grief, but even more in his frankly avowed inability to derive any consolation from the thoughts that my short note had suggested. Resignation to the inscrutable will of God was the keynote of the letter. In some far-distant future he might be permitted once more to see his beloved son, but meanwhile all was gloom and misery.

The episode was over. I had expressed my sincere sympathy with an overwhelming sorrow, I had received a most kind and appreciative answer—no more could be done in the matter.

This was my conclusion, but evidently not the conclusion of young Talbot Forbes. I had never seen this boy in my life, nor his mother; but I suppose my old friendship with his father, and my deep sympathy with the latter, enabled the son to approach me soon after he had passed into the next sphere.

Anyway, he made me conscious of his presence by my bedside during the greater part of the night following my receipt of his father's letter.

Owing to my severe illness I was sleeping very little, and once or twice in the night an attendant came in to make up my fire and keep the temperature of the room even, so that I had ample opportunity for realising the presence of my hitherto unknown visitor.

Those who know what "hearing with the inner ear" means will realise the method through which the following conversation took place, so far as I can now recall it:—

TALBOT.—"Yes, it is Talbot Forbes. I want to speak to you. Please listen to me! I want to tell you, you must do more for them than this—you have to help them about me."

E. K. B.—"Who do you mean by 'them'?"

TALBOT.—"My parents, of course. Don't you understand what I am saying? You have to do more for them—you must make them know I am close to them."

Now I could only suppose that he wished me to write again to his father, and explain more fully my own ideas on the subject of our departed friends. As this would have involved a wearisome and almost certainly useless discussion on a topic which I had reason to know was very distasteful to the boy's father, I said rather shortly, and I am afraid with some of the petulance of an invalid:

"Oh, do be quiet, and leave me alone! I have done all I can, and there is no more to be said about it. I am very sorry for you, but I really can't help you in this. I don't know your mother or what her views about it may be; and as for your father—well, I am not going to worry and torment him about ideas that he dislikes and disapproves of, and just now, too, when he is so miserable! No, I won't do it, not even if you come and worry me about it every night."

I was feeling ill and weary, and longing for sleep, and hoped this would be a quietus to my young friend. Not a bit of it! His next remark was:

"What does it matter what you think or what you mean to do or not to do? You have to help them, not to think about your own feelings."

This was frank at anyrate, but not altogether convincing. Soon afterwards, tired out with the discussion, I really did fall asleep, and only woke a short time before my breakfast and daily budget of letters arrived. Amongst these letters was one in an unknown handwriting, which proved to be from Mrs Forbes, saying she had seen my letter to her husband, and begging that I would tell her the grounds I had for my assurance that those we love are close to us after the great change we call death.

Evidently the boy knew that this letter was coming to me, and was trying to prepare me to answer it in such a way as should help him to convince his mother of his continued existence in her immediate presence.

As this case is one well known to the Society for Psychical Research (the lady I have called Mrs Forbes appearing on their records both as Mrs Scott and under the pseudonym I have borrowed from them), it is unnecessary to go into further details. Suffice it to say that my nocturnal visitor was successful in his aim.

I answered his mother's letter as he wished. This led to a long correspondence between us, and to my making her acquaintance shortly afterwards and renewing my old friendship with her husband.

Mrs Forbes had several sittings with Mrs Thompson and other mediums, became convinced of her son's presence with her, and very soon was independent of outside assistance in communicating with him. The judge also declared himself "unable to resist the evidence," but I don't think he ever quite honestly rejoiced in his convictions. It is hard to eradicate prejudices and traditions after fifty years of age, and the human element in his son's bright and happy messages always seemed to worry and perplex him a little.

He knows all about it now! Much as I deplore the earthly disappearance of such an old and faithful friend of my youth, I can sincerely rejoice in thinking of him as once more united with his son, in ways that will no longer appear to him unnatural or undesirable.

During the judge's lifetime, and after the son's death, I often stayed with him and his wife in their northern home. Mrs Forbes used frequently to say: "It was Talbot who brought us all three together, we must remember!"

PEKIN STORY

It was during my first visit to Judge and Mrs Forbes, in the north of England, that another curious experience came to me.

This happened on the 4th of July 1900, for I remember saying to Mrs Forbes next morning: "I shall remember the date from its being American Independence Day."

It was the year of the Boxer rebellion in China, when the Pekin Embassy was in a state of siege, and by July almost all hope that any Europeans would be saved from their dire peril had faded away.

The Memorial Service, arranged by a too eager dignitary of the Church to take place in St Paul's, had certainly been adjourned at the last moment; but as days and weeks passed, and the little garrison was still unrelieved, very little hope was entertained. In fact, by July most people hoped and believed that their troubles must be already over, through the merciful interposition of death.

A connection of mine, whom I had known well when she was a child, but had not seen for many years, was shut up with her husband, children, and sister in the Pekin Embassy at the time. Thousands were lamenting her sad fate, and I naturally amongst them; but I wish to make clear that, owing to the years that had elapsed since I had seen this special member of the family, it was not in any sense a very personal sorrow, nor was I then—nor am I now—aware of any special tie of affinity between this lady and myself.

I had gone to bed about eleven o'clock on the night of 4th July 1900, and had been in bed about half-an-hour, without any attempt at going to sleep, when suddenly I felt extremely alert in mind, very much as Miss Porter described herself in the Captain Carbury episode. Almost immediately upon this feeling of mental alertness came the conviction that Mabel MʻLeod (as I will call her) was in the room, close to me, and that she was in some dire and urgent need of help—instantaneous help, I mean. I could neither see nor hear on this occasion—I only knew these facts through some power of intuition, all the more remarkable because, having made up my mind that all was over at the Embassy, I had not been thinking of her or of her fellow-sufferers for some days past.

My thoughts were fully engaged at the time with the grief of my host and hostess.

With the knowledge of Mabel's presence came also the conviction that she was still alive—in the physical body—and that it was no excarnate spirit that was appealing to me for help.

The impression was so vivid that I called out instinctively: "What is it, Mabel? What can I do for you?" There was no response, either by outward or inner voice, only the insistent appeal for help, and knowledge of some imminent danger at hand for her. I am trying to explain that something more than the usual hourly peril in which they must be living, if on this side the veil, was implied by the impression I received. It was some acute and additional danger which threatened her at the moment. Feeling it was useless to waste time trying to find out by writing or other means what the exact nature of this danger might be, I jumped out of bed as quickly as possible, saying: "Never mind trying to make me understand—I will pray for you, whatever it is!" So I knelt down, and prayed most earnestly that this poor woman, whose spirit had appealed for help at some dread crisis, might be comforted, and delivered from any dangers threatening her at the time.

I had been very comfortably tucked up in bed, looking forward to the pleasant drowsiness which promises sleep, and I am quite sure I should not have put myself to all this inconvenience without a very strong motive.

When I felt the poor, tormented spirit was calmed and soothed by the atmosphere of prayer, I returned to my bed, and eventually fell asleep.

Next morning I told Mrs Forbes of my experience, making the remark quoted about the date.

The following week she and I were together at one of the meetings of the Society for Psychical Research, at the close of which, in shaking hands with Mr Frederic Myers, I begged him to make a note of my experience and the date.

"Ah, Miss Bates!" he said, taking out a small note-book, "I will make a note of it, but I fear there is not the remotest chance of any of them having been alive ten days ago."

"Then my experience goes for nothing," I answered. "It was a living woman, not an excarnate one, who came to my bedside on the 4th July."

Later, when the Embassy was relieved, and this lady (who had presented such a "stiff upper lip" to Fortune) was once more safe at home for a much-needed rest, I found that she had gone through a special time of accentuated suffering just when I felt her presence in my room. Her husband was down with dysentery, and she had not enough food either for him or for her poor little children, and the strain was almost too great, even for that brave soul.

Of course, she had been quite unconscious of any appeal to me.

But she has Scottish as well as Irish blood in her veins, and this heredity may have enabled her subconscious self to sense my locality and to realise my power and will to help her in her desperate need.

Truly it was a case of "vain is the help of man," or woman either! But we know too little of spiritual laws to be able to deny off-hand the efficacy of any earnest prayer.

I saw Mr Myers make a note of the circumstance, but, unfortunately, this cannot be found amongst his papers. I asked Mrs Myers about it, and she remembered distinctly her husband having mentioned the case to her when he returned home after that meeting, but when I last saw her, she had hunted amongst his papers in vain for the note which he made at the time.

Early in January 1901, the day after Lord Robert's triumphant procession through London, I went to spend some weeks at an "open-air cure" in Devonshire, high up in the hills, and in a bleak part of the county. Several severe illnesses had left me so supersensitive to colds and draughts that it seemed a vital necessity to take some such drastic step, even at this inclement time of the year, unless I were prepared to sink into a state of chronic invalidism, and become a burden to myself and my neighbours for the rest of my natural life.

An old friend was "second in command" in this special establishment, which she had asked me to recommend, and a bright thought struck me that I might do my friend a good turn, and myself also, by spending a few weeks in the house.

I did not bargain, however, for the deep snow which fell on the very day after my arrival, nor for the howling west winds, which continued to blow during the whole of my stay.

In these parts, the west wind corresponds with our eastern variety, and is quite as cold and disagreeable.

Nor were the surroundings inside of a very cheerful nature. All the other patients (six or seven) were quite young girls, and all more or less consumptive. Several of them were very attractive, which made it seem all the more sad. Without exception, all were, or had been, engaged to be married, as the coping-stone to this tragedy of their lives! In several cases the engagements had been broken off, sometimes by mutual consent, on the score of health. In a few exceptions, where love had proved stronger than prudence and common-sense, it was equally melancholy to realise that the future could hold nothing but disappointment on the one side, and a hopeless regret on the other.

Under these circumstances it was perhaps only to be expected that my first impressions of the establishment should not be entirely couleur de rose. Yet the house itself was pleasant enough, and the view from the drawing-room windows was simply magnificent, including sea as well as moor.

Curtainless windows, with sashes thrown wide open, and chilly linoleum to replace warm carpets, were rather a trial to the uninitiated, early in January, with deep snow on the ground and fires none too plentiful. In addition to these drawbacks I had another personal one. Coming in the middle of the winter, it was naturally Hobson's choice as regarded the bedrooms. All the best and warmest aspects had been appropriated in the autumn, and an ugly little room, with cold, west outlook and depressing, mustard-coloured distempered walls, fell to my lot.

Yet even these facts did not sufficiently account for the extremely depressing effect of that room upon me.

"Has anyone died here lately?" was my first and natural query in a house of this kind.

I had heard the girls casually mention two gentlemen patients who had been in the house the previous year—one of these had gone into rooms in a neighbouring town with his nurse. I did not hear what had become of the other one, and had not sufficient curiosity to ask the question.

My friend reassured me by saying she was sure no one had died recently in my room. She had only lately come to the house herself, as I knew; having been matron for some years of a small hospital in the country.

"The second poor gentleman, who was a patient here, did die in the house, I believe, but that was months ago," she said, "and I understand that he had Laura Pearce's room," mentioning one of the girls, who had a specially cheerful apartment. It seemed quite natural that a sick man, confined to his bed, should occupy a large and sunny room, so I thought no more of the matter. Still, I was always conscious of an unpleasant and sad atmosphere in my own room, and took occasion one day to ask the lady at the head of the establishment whether she knew anything of the predecessors in the house.

It struck me that the psychic atmosphere in my room might be connected with some of them.

Miss Hunter replied laughingly: "I can't tell you anything about them, for the very good reason that they don't exist. I am the first tenant of this house. It was only built two years ago, and remained vacant for the first twelve months."

Then I told her very cautiously of my feeling about my room, and that I had supposed it might have to do with someone who had slept there before she took the house.

Two or three of the young girls were in the room at the time, and it struck me that one of them—the one who was there for her second winter—looked a little surprised and interested; but the matron passed off the subject with a few bantering words, and again I had no suspicion of the truth.

Six weeks passed, and my last night in the house had arrived. My nurse friend was in the habit of giving me massage twice a day, before getting up in the morning and the last thing at night. She left me on this occasion about ten-thirty p.m., expressing a hope that I should soon sleep, and have a good night before my long journey next day.

"Not much doubt of that," I murmured. "Why, I'm half asleep already!" And I turned round, tired and yet soothed by the massage, and soon fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Several hours must have passed, when I woke up, trembling and terror-struck, after passing through an experience which seems as vivid to me to-day as on that February night or early morning. My heart was beating, my limbs trembling, beads of perspiration covered my face, as I discovered later.

No wonder! I had been through an experience from which few, I imagine, return to tell the tale. For I had passed through every detail of dying, and dying a very hard and difficult death.

Body and soul were being literally torn apart, in spite of the desperate effort to cling together, and my spirit seemed to be launched into unknown depths of darkness and possible horror. It was the feeling that I did not know where I was going nor what awaited me that seemed so terrible—this and the horrible fight for mastery between my poor body and soul and some unknown force that was inexorably set upon dividing them.

This, so far as I can express it, exactly describes the experience I had just gone through, and from which I had awakened in such abject terror.

As the beating of my heart subsided, and I could think more calmly, I remembered with startling distinctness that in the very worst of the struggle I had been vainly endeavouring to say that text in the twenty-third Psalm which begins:

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me: Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me." I could say the first part of it quite easily, but some fiendish enemy seemed bent upon preventing my saying the last sentence, and in my terrible dream, rescue and safety depended upon my getting to the end of the text. I tried again and again, always to be driven back in despair before the crucial words were uttered. At last, with a desperate effort, I seemed to shake off the incubus which was weighing me down, and I finished the words triumphantly, and so loud that I had positively wakened myself up by shouting them out. With returning memory I knew this had happened, and hearing a door open and shut on the half landing below my room, I thought for the moment that someone must have heard me, and must be coming to see what was the matter. I looked at my watch—just two-thirty a.m. No one appeared; and to my relief I remembered that this was just the hour when either Miss Hunter or my friend went round to the invalids, giving them milk or bovril, in the night.

I had no inclination to seek out either of these ladies. The horror was past, and no one could undo what I had endured; so I lay quiet, and in course of time managed to go to sleep again, not waking until the servant came into my room to light the fire at seven-thirty a.m.

It happened to be a certain Minnie on this occasion, a very respectable young woman, who had accompanied Miss Hunter when she gave up the matronship of a well-known hospital, and who had therefore been with her since this establishment had been started.

My night's experience convinced me so absolutely that, in spite of all that had been said, the gentleman patient had died in this room, and that I had just gone through his death agonies, that instead of asking any question about it, I said very quietly to Minnie, as she was on her knees lighting my fire: "The poor gentleman who died here last summer died in this room, I find."

"Yes, ma'am," she said quietly, not knowing, as it turned out, that any mystery had been made about the fact.

My personal friend was guiltless of any deceit, for she had been told the story about Laura Pearce's room, but the young girls confessed when I went down to breakfast that they had been specially warned not to let me know the true facts.

Miss Hunter did not appear at breakfast, as she was suffering from a chill, so I went to her bedroom to say good-bye before going up to London.

Feeling naturally annoyed and rather shaken by my night's experience, I said to her rather drily:

"You need not have taken the trouble to deceive me about my room, Miss Hunter, nor to warn the girls to do the same. I know that gentleman died there, for I have just gone through his experiences." And then I told her about my terrible night.

Although forced to admit the facts, Miss Hunter fought every inch of the ground, so far as the painful experiences were concerned.

"Such an excellent man! so interested in everything—a clergyman, my dear Miss Bates, and so good! How could there be anything painful connected with his death?" etc. etc.

I suggested that, as Christians, we had the most overwhelming proof that holiness of life does not always preclude even mental suffering at death; but she would not hear of this argument, and doubtless considered it blasphemous.

By dint of questioning, however, I made two discoveries—first, that the death was quite unexpected. The man had only been a fortnight in the house, and when I expressed surprise that he should have been moved there so late in a fatal illness, she said unguardedly:

"Oh, but he was very slightly ill when he came—it was more a preventive measure. None of us had any idea that he was a dying man, the symptoms developed so suddenly."

I also elicited another fact—i.e. that this delightfully interesting personality "so intellectual—so full of interest in everything" (to quote Miss Hunter's words), had died at the age of forty, in the very prime of life. No wonder, under the circumstances of so short an illness, in the very zenith of life and enjoyment, that body and soul should have been loath to separate, and thus free the imprisoned spirit! But Miss Hunter was adamant, and would admit nothing.

Just before leaving her, it struck me that I had not yet told her about the text, so I repeated that episode, and then, for the first time, a startled look came into her eyes. She was taken by surprise, and said hastily: "That is extraordinary! I was with him when he died in the night, and he kept on asking for that text. That is not so remarkable, many might have asked for that text, but I stopped once or twice after the first sentence, and he kept on urging me: "Say it to the end, Miss Hunter! Say it to the end!"

Later the good lady even consented to write out the evidential points in this story, which I sent at once to my friend Dr Richard Hodgson.

Immediately upon my return to London on this occasion, I was attacked quite suddenly by a very acute form of rheumatism, which laid me on my back—perfectly helpless—for several days.

When the doctor arrived, his first question was: "Have you had any special shock lately? This particular form of rheumatism does not generally come on with so little warning unless there has been a previous shock."

I was about to deny this, thinking he referred to unexpected news, but with the memory of my Devonshire experience so keen and clear, I felt bound to tell him that I had certainly had a shock to my nerves twenty-four hours previously.

Soon after this sudden and sharp attack of illness I found myself in Portugal for the first time in my life.

I had gone there with an English friend—Mrs Frampton—in order to be near connections who had lived in the country for many years.

A cousin and I spent a delightful afternoon in that Cintra paradise of Monserrat, with General and Mrs Sartorius, who were living there at the time of my visit to Portugal. I have heard that even this charming house could tell strange tales if only walls could speak. It is easy to imagine that any spirits—carnate or discarnate—might deem it a privilege to haunt so exquisite a spot. Personally, I can only testify to the hospitality of our kind host and hostess and the excellence of the spirit of "Robur," which refreshed our weary bodies, and made the walk back to the Cintra Hotel, through the lovely woodland paths, a "thing of beauty and a joy for ever."

To return to Lisbon. My friend Mrs Frampton had never been present at any sort of psychic phenomena, so we planned a little sitting for her during one of these Lisbon evenings.

She and I descended in solemn state to the fine library of our host, on the ground floor, whilst his wife and sister elected to remain in the drawing-room upstairs. A sister-in-law also begged to be excused from accompanying us, and spent the whole time occupied by our sÉance, in playing Moody and Sankey hymns, doubtless hoping thereby to exorcise the evil spirits whom we should presumably evoke.

Unfortunately, she did not play loud enough to divert the attention of the Portuguese cook, who promptly gave warning next day, saying she could not stand these "devilish practices"! We had failed to realise that the very wall, close to which our small table was placed, divided the kitchen from the large ground-floor library, so the poor woman doubtless sat with her ear well jammed up against this partition, and considered every rap of the table leg on the floor, a distinct footstep of the devil!

Nothing more terrible happened to us that evening than being forced to look up our English history once more, in "Hume" and "Green's Short History of the English People," both of which volumes were close at hand. For the whole sÉance might have been an "easy lesson in English history," with John, Duke of Northumberland, Lady Jane Grey, the Earl of Leicester, and the famous Elizabeth as its exponents. All these purported to be with us that evening, and I am bound to say that all dates and details mentioned, which our middle-aged memories could not verify at the moment, were in every case corroborated by reference to the library books later.

It was just before leaving England for Portugal that I first met a lady (with whom I have since become more intimate), under rather exceptional circumstances—these latter were unknown to me at the time.

My brother, Colonel C. E. Bates, was living at this time (1901) in rooms in Cambridge Terrace, and the drawing-room floor was occupied by a Miss Isabel Smith, who was then only a name to us both. His landlady had given him to understand that this lady had connections in India, and was the niece of a General Propert, still on the active list, and an old friend of my brother's in Indian days.

The last Sunday before starting for Lisbon I called in as usual to spend the afternoon in Cambridge Terrace, and found that the "drawing-room lady" had just been paying him a visit, and had left him most enthusiastic.

This visit surprised me, because my brother, being a very great invalid, had an inveterate dislike to meeting strangers, with whom he generally found it difficult to carry on any lengthy conversation. But this visitor had evidently been an exception. My brother expressed some regret that I should have missed seeing her, so to please him I suggested sending his valet upstairs with his compliments, and asking if I might pay the lady a short visit, should she be disengaged.

She came downstairs kindly, a second time, and we had a pleasant chat, whilst my brother and an old Indian brother officer carried on their conversation.

I left England a few days later, and scarcely expected to see or hear any more of Miss Isabel Smith. Fate, however, ordained otherwise. Some weeks elapsed, and then I received a letter from my brother, mentioning the curious circumstances that, he had just heard, had led to his making the acquaintance of this pleasant neighbour. "It is too long a story to write," he concluded, "but I will tell you all about it next time we meet."

He did so, and as his account exactly tallies with the one Miss Isabel Smith (now Mrs Finch) has kindly written out for me for insertion in this volume, I will quote the latter from her own words. I must premise that Miss Smith turned out to be naturally clairvoyant and clair-audient, rather to the disgust of my brother, who considered himself superior to these "superstitions." Her narrative is interesting not only in itself, but because it is an object lesson in the curious "hits and misses" in psychic investigation. In this case a spirit confessed to an impersonation; but it was an impersonation of the brother of a man whom my brother had really known in India—a fact entirely apart from any possible knowledge on the part of Miss Smith, who had never met my brother at the time of her adventure. I will now give Miss Smith's narrative.

"When at Grindelwald in the winter 1900-1901 an excarnate entity came and spoke to me. He seemed much interested in the South African campaign; told me he had been a soldier, first in the Rifle Brigade, then in the Indian army. When I asked his name he said he was Henry Arthur Chomley (the name of a celebrated ambassador was the one given), that he was a brother of Sir Frederic Chomley, and had been in the Rifle Brigade and in India, and had passed over two or three years before.

When, shortly afterwards, I returned to Cambridge Terrace, he realised the changed surroundings, and asked where I was. On learning I was in rooms he asked whether there was anyone else in the house, and on my telling him there was a paralysed military man downstairs named Bates, he exclaimed 'What! Charlie Bates? I knew him very well in India—do ask him if he remembers me!'

I said I did not know the gentleman, but would certainly ask him if an opportunity should occur.

A few days after this, a message was brought up to me from Colonel Bates, asking for my uncle, General Propert's, address in Burmah. This gave me the opening. I wrote giving the required information, and suggested that I might come and have a talk with him.

In my next conversation with 'Colonel Chomley' I told him all this, and he again said: 'Mind you ask him about me!' I answered: 'How can I, when I don't know what Colonel Bates' ideas are on these subjects? He might look on me as a dangerous lunatic!'

Colonel Chomley remarked: 'I think you will find that he is interested in psychic matters.'

I discovered that this was true, for on my first visit I saw a copy of the S.P.R. Proceedings lying on the table.

I found him interested, but unable to get beyond the 'subliminal consciousness' theory.

A few days later I asked Colonel Bates if he had ever met a Colonel Henry Arthur Chomley in India. He thought for a moment, then said:

'Chomley? Why, of course I knew a Chomley, but I don't know his Christian name. He was Brigade Major at Meean Meer, and I took over the brigade from him, and bought his horses, etc. Where did you know him?'

I then told him of the spirit who had given me the name of Henry Arthur Chomley, who said he had known him in India, and had over and over again begged to be remembered to him.

The day following this conversation Colonel Bates sent me up his Army List, open, and marked at the name of Colonel Walter Chomley, and a note explaining that it was not Henry Arthur, but Walter Chomley whom he had known at Meean Meer.

I then asked 'Henry Arthur' if his name was Walter or Henry Arthur.

He said: 'Henry Arthur. Surely I ought to know my own name!'

Colonel Bates told the story to you the next time you (i.e. E. K. Bates) came to see him, and I remember we discussed it together when we met again.

Shortly afterwards you wrote to tell me that you had looked up a Debrett for 1895, and had there found Colonel Henry Arthur Chomley, a brother of Sir Frederic Chomley, of the Rifle Brigade, etc., so that Henry Arthur Chomley was evidently alive in that year, and had been in the Rifle Brigade.

I was much pleased to get this corroborative evidence, though the mistake in initials must have been Colonel Bates' error, and apologised to Colonel Henry Arthur Chomley in the Unseen.

A few weeks later, however, you wrote again, and told me that you had been staying with a friend, who drove you over to call upon Colonel and Mrs Henry Arthur Chomley, that he was a brother of Sir Frederic Chomley, and was certainly alive, although not at home, at the time of your visit!

This information startled me, and my guide, at my request, went to look up the soi-disant Colonel to find out what it all meant.

The latter then confessed to having taken a friend's name, said a sudden impulse came over him when I first asked his name, and having told one lie, he felt bound to go on deceiving me, but that he had known both Colonel Bates and Colonel Henry Arthur Chomley in India, and that his own real name was Anstruther!"

This was Miss Smith's narrative.

Now out of this curious jumble of true and false, two points remain clear:

My brother had known a Chomley in India, and had succeeded him as Brigade Major at Meean Meer. This Chomley was a brother of Sir Frederic Chomley, the well-known diplomatist, but his name was Walter, not Henry Arthur. Yet Sir Frederic had a brother named Henry Arthur, and the impersonating Anstruther had borrowed the wrong brother's name when trying to pose as the friend of Colonel Charles Bates. To make confusion worse confounded, Walter Chomley was alive, as well as Henry Arthur, at the time of Miss Mabel Smith's experiences, for I have seen his death within the last eight months!

The second point is that, personally, my brother and I had reason to be grateful to the deceiving Anstruther. He was certainly the means of introducing a pleasant acquaintance to my brother and to me.

Miss Mabel Smith's experience at Grindelwald reminds me of one of my own in the same place during the following year.

I had gone there with a cousin, who was eager for skating and tobogganing, in January 1902, on my way to Rome. After a pleasant week at a charmingly quiet and comfortable hotel—the AlpenrÜhe I think was the name—my cousin wished, for purposes of policy, to change over to a more famous, but noisy and overcrowded one.

So on the evening of 3rd February we found ourselves in this immense caravanserai, having exchanged our large, comfortable, steam-heated rooms for small, oblong apartments, each provided with three doors as well as the window, and a wood fire to be fed from small "five-franc baskets," and always going out at that!

There was deep snow on the ground and a heavy fog of snow falling when we made our change, so that one was not in the most brilliant spirits; and being suddenly thrust into the midst of a big, heterogeneous company of strangers is never exhilarating.

Our bedrooms, though small and not specially comfortable, were perfectly commonplace, the very last milieu with which one would have associated any interesting experience. The window of my room faced the door into the passage, my bed lay between the two; right and left of it were two other doors, each communicating with other occupied rooms.

Therefore I thought little the first night of noises and moving of furniture, taking for granted that these must be occurring either right or left of me, and that the clearness of the atmosphere accounted for my odd impression that a table and chair—between my bed and the window—were being moved.

The following night (4th February), however, this fact was indisputable. I had heard both my neighbours retire to bed by ten p.m., as so many do who have been skating and tobogganing all day long. I had sat up reading for half-an-hour beyond this, and went to bed at eleven p.m., by which time there was perfect silence in the hotel, as no special entertainment was going on.

Very shortly, this movement of the furniture began again, unmistakably in my room this time. Curiously enough, it did not frighten me at all nor suggest burglars (a far greater terror to me than ghosts!). I cannot at this distance of time remember why the idea of Mr Myers should have come to me in connection with these noises; but I am quite certain that I did think of him at the time, and fully expected his name to be given, when I asked if anyone wished to speak to me and were trying to attract my attention by moving the furniture about.

It was greatly to my surprise, therefore, that the name of Gifford was given. I may here note that this was the real name given to me. He said he was a judge, one who had lived fifty or sixty years previously, that he had once unintentionally condemned an innocent man to be hanged, and he was evidently still greatly perturbed about this, and begged for my prayers.

All this put Mr Myers entirely out of my head—unfortunately, as events proved.

I had some further talk with Judge Gifford, but do not remember it in detail.

Next morning I told my cousin of my experience, and on the evening of the following day mentioned it in the presence of some neighbours at table d'hÔte who had introduced psychic subjects to us.

This gentleman and his wife were both impressed, and yet incredulous, and when my cousin laughingly declared that "Gifford had come to her the second night, but that she told him she was too tired out to listen to him," we all three supposed that she was turning the whole subject into ridicule. This would have been quite characteristic of her, although I have always thought she had some mediumistic faculty, and was one of the many people whom I should advise to leave these matters alone. I was the more convinced that she was merely "chaffing" on this occasion, because when I warned our acquaintances of her powers of exaggeration in "making fun" of things, she said nothing.

But when we had returned to our rooms that night she remarked quite quietly: "But he did come, Emmie! When you said that at table d'hÔte about my exaggerating things, I let it pass, because very often it is true. But what I said this evening was absolutely correct, though perhaps it is as well those people should not believe it. Someone did come to my bedside last night, and said: 'I am Gifford—will you listen to me?' And I said: 'No; not to-night. I am too tired,' just as I told you."

I think poor Gifford came again more than once to me; but I had done all I could for him, and explained this, adding that he must now leave me alone, which he did.

Later my cousin returned to Paris, and I went on to Rome, where I received a letter from Dr Richard Hodgson enclosing some Piper script.

F. W. H. Myers communicating, said that he had come to me on the evening of 4th February, that I seemed to recognise him, and that he thought he had "got his message through to me," and hoped that I should write to Dr Hodgson to that effect.

In answering Dr Hodgson's letter I denied the Myers' episode in toto, so far as my consciousness was concerned. In fact, the Gifford incident put all else so entirely out of my mind that I fear I did not even mention to Dr Hodgson that my first thought that night had been connected with Mr Myers.

Anyway, the next letter from Boston enclosed an account of a sitting, where Mr Myers came and apologised for having misled Dr Hodgson about my recognition of him.

His words were almost literally as follows:—

"I am extremely sorry, my dear Hodgson, about that affair with Miss Bates. I should not have thought of mentioning it to you had I not felt convinced that she recognised me. Her astral body was quite aware of my presence, and I quite thought she had realised it on the physical plane" (the italics are mine).

It would seem that the Myers' message was in the very act of transmission from my astral to my normal consciousness when this man Gifford must have come, switching off the telephone for Mr Myers, and getting on to it himself. Probably his great distress of mind would have made him the stronger force of the two for the time being.

There must always be many disappointments of this kind in our research. There is always something which so nearly succeeds and then just fails at last. This must be the case where conditions are so fine and subtle and so easily disturbed, and where our own ignorance of many necessary factors is so profound. This makes it none the less disheartening at times!

Later I made an attempt with my friend Baroness Rosenkrantz of Rome to get a message through the other way—i.e. from Mr Myers and myself to Dr Hodgson, via Mrs Piper.

The Baroness and I had a little "sitting" alone, wrote one or two short messages with a couple of extracts from Mr Myers' own writings, sealed up the envelope carefully, and I forwarded it to Dr Hodgson.

But the test failed. Two years later Dr Hodgson spoke of the letter as being still intact.