“Look at me,” she said, standing before him, and touching his brow.  He obeyed.

“You are the image in my eyes,” she said, after a moment’s pause.

“Yes.  I am the image in your eyes,” he answered in a dull voice.

“You will never resist me again, I command it.  Hereafter it will be enough for me to touch your hand, or to look at you, and if I say, ‘Sleep,’ you will instantly become the image again.  Do you understand that?”

“I understand it.”

“Promise!”

“I promise,” he replied, without perceptible effort.

“You have been dreaming for years.  From this moment you must forget all your dreams.”

His face expressed no understanding of what she said.  She hesitated a moment and then began to walk slowly up and down before him.  His half-glazed look followed her as she moved.  She came back and laid her hand upon his head.

“My will is yours.  You have no will of your own.  You cannot think without me,” She spoke in a tone of concentrated determination, and a slight shiver passed over him.

“It is of no use to resist, for you have promised never to resist me again,” she continued.  “All that I command must take place in your mind instantly, without opposition.  Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he answered, moving uneasily.

For some seconds she again held her open palm upon his head.  She seemed to be evoking all her strength for a great effort.

“Listen to me, and let everything I say take possession of your mind for ever.  My will is yours, you are the image in my eyes, my word is your law.  You know what I please that you should know.  You forget what I command you to forget.  You have been mad these many years, and I am curing you.  You must forget your madness.  You have now forgotten it.  I have erased the memory of it with my hand.  There is nothing to remember any more.”

The dull eyes, deep-set beneath the shadows of the overhanging brow, seemed to seek her face in the dark, and for the third time there was a nervous twitching of the shoulders and limbs.  Unorna knew the symptom well, but had never seen it return so often, like a protest of the body against the enslaving of the intelligence.  She was nervous in spite of her success.  The immediate results of hypnotic suggestion are not exactly the same in all cases, even in the first moments; its consequences may be widely different with different individuals.  Unorna, indeed, possessed an extraordinary power, but on the other hand she had to deal with an extraordinary organisation.  She knew this instinctively, and endeavoured to lead the sleeping mind by degrees to the condition in which she wished it to remain.

The repeated tremor in the body was the outward sign of a mental resistance which it would not be easy to overcome.  The wisest course was to go over the ground already gained.  This she was determined to do by means of a sort of catechism.