An account

I fear it is quite impossible to get any information from Miss D. She married soon after we reached India, and I never met her since, nor do I know where she is, if alive. I quite understand the value of her corroboration; and at the time she told the whole circumstance to a fellowtraveller, who repeated it to me, and her story and mine agreed in every particular, save that to her the visitant was a complete stranger ; and her tale was quite unbiassed by mine, as I always treated hers as a fancy, and never acknowledged I had been aware of anything unusual having taken place in our room at Cairo. I never have seen, or fancied I saw, any one before or since. My visitant, also, is dead, or he would, I know, have added his testimony, small as it was, to mine. He was a very calm, quiet, clever, scientific man, not given to vain fancies on any subject, and certainly was not aware of any desire of appearing to me. [This seems at any rate an interesting example of collective hallucination ; though as regards its supposed origination in the thoughts of Mrs. Elgee's friend in England, one may doubt whether, after a lapse of 4 years, complete certainty as to the identity of dates was attainable. If there has been an error on this point, the case would properly belong to the preceding section.]