The dark woman tried to rise, and could not. There was worse than anger,
or hatred, or the intent to kill, in those dreadful eyes. There was
a fascination from which no living thing could escape. She tried to
scream, to shut out the vision, to raise her hand as a screen before it.
Nearer and nearer it came, and she could feel the warm breath of it upon
her cheek. Then her brain reeled, her limbs relaxed, and her head fell
back against the wall.
"I know him, and I love him," were the last words Beatrice heard.
CHAPTER XX[*]
[*] The deeds here recounted are not imaginary. Not very
long ago the sacrilege which Unorna attempted was actually
committed at night in a Catholic church in London, under
circumstances that clearly proved the intention of some
person or persons to defile the consecrated wafers. A case
of hypnotic suggestion to the committal of a crime in a
convent occurred in Hungary not many years since, with a
different object, namely, a daring robbery, but precisely as
here described. A complete account of the case will be
found, with authority and evidence, in a pamphlet entitled
_Eine experimentale Studie auf dem Gebiete des Hypnotismus_,
by Dr. R. von Krafft-Ebing, Professor of Psychiatry and for
nervous diseases, in the University of Gratz. Second
Edition, Stuttgart, Ferdinand Enke, 1889.
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