There is an examination, and the authorities pronounce an ambiguous verdict--death from a syncope of the heart.

Such things happen, they say, with a shake of the head.

And, indeed, they know that such things really do happen, and they suspect that they do not happen naturally; but there is no evidence, not even so much as may be detected in a clever case of vegetable poisoning.

The heart has stopped beating, and death has followed.

There are wise men by the score to-day who do not ask "What made it stop ?" but "Who made it stop ?" But they have no evidence to bring, and the new jurisprudence, which in some countries covers the cases of thefts and frauds committed under hypnotic suggestion, cannot as yet lay down the law for cases where a man has been told to die, and dies--from "weakness of the heart." And yet it is known, and well known, that by hypnotic suggestion the pulse can be made to fall to the lowest number of beatings consistent with life, and that the temperature of the body can be commanded beforehand to stand at a certain degree and fraction of a degree at a certain hour, high or low, as may be desired.