Laurie hesitated.
“It’s like this,” he said; “I’m not really convinced. I don’t see anything final in what happened.”
“Will you explain, please?”
Laurie set the results of his meditations forth at length. There was nothing, he said, that could not be accounted for by a very abnormal state of subjectivity. The fact that this … this young person’s name was in his mind … and so forth. …
“… And I find it rather distracting to my work,” he ended. “Please don’t think me rude or ungrateful, Mr. Vincent.”
(He thought he was being very strong and sensible!)
The medium was silent for a moment.
“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that I myself was able to get no results that night?” he said presently.
“How? I don’t understand.”
“Why, as a rule, I find no difficulty at all in getting some sort of response by automatic handwriting. Are you aware that I could do nothing at all that night?”
Laurie considered it.
“Well,” he said at last, “this may sound very foolish to you; but granting that I have got unusual gifts that way—they are your own words, Mr. Vincent—if that is so, I don’t see why my own concentration of thought, or hypnotic sleep or trance—or whatever it was—might not have been so intense as to—”