“Aunt Phoebe,” I gasped as I touched her arm, “where are you going?  You must be making a mistake!”

“No, no!” she cried, with a feverish impatience in her voice.  “I am right! quite right!  You must not stop me!” and she quickened her pace into a halting run.

I saw clearly that there was nothing to be done but to follow her and try to keep her out of actual harm’s way, for there now seemed to be no manner of doubt that my poor aunt was, for the time at any rate, insane.  So I fell back a pace, and, never appearing even to notice that I had left her side, she pursued her course.

Suddenly she stopped short, crossed the street and stumbled up the uneven stone steps of a shabby-looking house, whose front door was wide open.  Without a moment’s hesitation she entered the dark hall, and I followed closely at her heels.  Up the squalid, dirty stairs she hurried, and, without knocking, opened a door on the left-hand side of the first landing and went in.

I was a few steps behind, but as I gained the threshold I saw her take a parcel from beneath her cloak and hold it out to a man who came to meet her from the far end of the badly-lighted room.

“I have brought them,” I heard my aunt say in the same curious husky voice I had noticed before.

As the man came nearer and stood where the light of the evil-smelling little paraffin lamp fell upon his features, I recognised in the heavy jaw, the bull-neck and the close-cropped head, the Professor Dmitri Sclamowsky of the previous evening.  Our eyes met, and I thought I detected a start of not altogether pleased surprise; but if this were so he recovered himself quickly and bowing low, said: 

“I had not expected the pleasure of your company, madam, but as you have done me the honour of coming, I am glad that you should be here to witness the conclusion of last night’s experiment.  This lady,” he continued, pointing to my aunt, who still stood with fixed, apparently unseeing eyes, holding out the parcel towards him—­“this lady, you will remember, considered the hypnotic phenomena exhibited at last night’s entertainment as a clever imposture—­those were the words, I think.  To one who, like myself, is an enthusiast on the subject, such words were hard, nay, impossible to bear.  It was necessary to prove to her that the power I possess”—­here his blue eyes gleamed with the same metallic light I had before noticed—­“is something more than conjuring; something more than a ‘clever imposture’.  You will see now.”

As he spoke he stretched out his hand and took the parcel from my aunt, and as he did so, I recognised with horror the morocco case which I knew contained the heirlooms.

“Who are these for?” he said, addressing Aunt Phoebe.

“For you,” came from my aunt’s lips, but her eyes were fixed and her voice seemed to come with difficulty.

“She is mad!” I exclaimed.  “She does not know what she is saying!”