On the way to the Wilford apartment, which was not very far away, Craig explained briefly what it was that he wanted me to do for him.

"You saw that list of words?" he asked.

"Yes, and the columns opposite."

"Precisely. I want you to write in them the answers that I get. You will understand as we go on. I\'ll hold this watch and note the time—and then we can put the two together, the answers and the reaction time."

It seemed simple enough and we chatted about other things connected with the case as we walked along to the apartment.

Honora Wilford showed some surprise at seeing us again, yet I fancied she was in a better mood than previously, since the obnoxious McCabe was no longer so much in evidence.

"What is it that I can do for you now?" she asked, rather abruptly, though her manner showed that her surprise was, after all, very mild.

Evidently Doyle had accustomed her to being quizzed and watched. It was not a pleasant situation, [203] even to be watched and quizzed by Kennedy, yet she seemed to realize that he was making it as easy as possible.

"Just another little psychological experiment," Craig explained, trying to gloss it over. "I thought you wouldn\'t mind."

Honora looked at him a moment doubtfully.

"Just why are you so interested in studying me, Professor Kennedy?" she asked, pointedly, yet without hostility in her tone.

It was a rather difficult question to answer, and I must admit that I could scarcely have met it adequately myself. However, it took more than that to give Kennedy a poser.

"Oh," he replied, quickly, with an engaging airiness, "as a psychologist I\'m interested in all sorts of queer things—things that must often seem strange to other people. Perhaps it\'s highbrow stuff. But for a long time—and not in connection with you at all, Mrs. Wilford—I\'ve been interested in dreams."

He paused a moment, moving a chair for her, and I could see that he was observing the effect of the statement on her. She did not seem to show any emotion at all over it, and Kennedy went on.

"Often I\'ve studied my own dreams. I find that if, when I wake in the morning, I immediately try to recollect whether I have dreamed anything the night before or not, I invariably find that I have. But if I do something else—even as simple a thing as take a bath or shave—unless the dreams were [204] especially vivid, they are all gone when I try to recollect them. I\'m almost convinced that we dream continuously in sleep, that more often we don\'t recollect the dreams than we do. Your dreams interested me at the very start. I guess that was why Doctor Leslie repeated them to me. He knew that I was a crank, if you may call it that, on dreams. As for detective work of the old kind—that sort of thing Doyle does and—well—I leave that to Doyle." He shrugged.

As Kennedy rattled on, I could see or fancy that Honora was becoming more reassured.

"What is it you want me to do now?" she asked, her reluctance disappearing.

"Nothing very difficult—for you," he flattered. "You see, I have here a list of words, selected at random. I don\'t suppose it will mean anything. Yet there are lots of things these strange people, the modern experimental psychologists, do that seem perfectly foolish until you understand them. If we can once get at the bottom of your dreams, find out what causes them, I mean, I feel sure that we can make that nervousness of yours vanish as a prestidigitator will cause a card to vanish into thin air."

She nodded. At least on the surface, she seemed satisfied, though I could not be sure but that beneath the surface it was really that she was shrewdly convinced that it was necessary to make the best of a bad situation.

"You see," Craig pursued, seizing whatever advantage he might have, "as I read off from the list [205] of words, I wish that you would repeat the first word, anything," he emphasized, "that comes into your mind, no matter how trivial it may seem to you. Perhaps it is not so trivial, after all, as you think. It may be just the thing that will lead to helping you."

She nodded dutifully, but her attitude did not seem to please Kennedy thoroughly.

"Don\'t force yourself to think," he hastened. "Let your ideas flow naturally. It depends altogether on your paying attention to the words, undivided attention, and answering as quickly as you can. Remember—the first word that comes into your mind. Don\'t change it—no matter what it is, even if it seems trivial and of no consequence. It\'s very easy to do and it won\'t take long. Call it a game if you will. But take it seriously."

"Suppose I refuse to do it?" she suggested.

Kennedy merely shrugged. "I hardly think you will do that," he smiled quietly. "Besides, it will be over soon."

She leaned back in the easy-chair in which she had been sitting, and Kennedy took it as a tacit consent to the test.

From the paper, as I placed myself at a table, with the list of words and the blank columns before me, he read the first word, quickly and incisively, "Foot."

"Shoe," countered Honora quickly, then gazed at him to see whether she had caught the idea of what it was he wanted her to do.
[206]

"Very good," nodded Kennedy, reassuringly. "That\'s the thing."

I wrote down the word and when I had finished I could see from the corner of my eye that Kennedy also had noted the time, marking down "2-5," which I took to mean two-fifths of a second.

"Gray," he repeated next.

"Black."

Again I noted the answering word in the second column, while again I saw him put down another "2-5."

I began to see dimly what his method was. Evidently Kennedy had chosen colorless words at the start to reassure her. And the fact was that they did reassure. She saw immediately that there was nothing very terrifying about what he wanted her to do.

"Dream," Craig added, from the list.

Flashed through my mind, as I prepared to write, the thought that he was now coming to the words more significant.

"Lathrop," she answered.

I saw that Kennedy had noted a longer reaction time by some fifths of a second than before. Was it because she had checked a first thought suggested by the word and had taken extra time to substitute something for it? And why had she made the substitution that she did? It was a natural thing to mention the doctor\'s name in that connection. Had she rejected one word to cast about for another equally natural?
[207]

I scarcely think it necessary to follow the whole thing through, question and answer, word by word. Instead I have appended a list of the words and the answering words as we got them first, and suggest that they will bear careful study:
1    2    3
foot    shoe
gray    black
dream    Lathrop
struggle    escape
ship    ocean
bean    baked
lion    path
book    newspaper
false    true
voyage    Europe
money    poor
sad    myself
quarrel    Vail
marry    Vail
bull    breath
sleep    dream
foolish    wise
despise    love
finger    hand
friend    none
serpent    hiss
face    man
chair    sit
bottle    stopper
glass    empty

Kennedy finished and glanced hastily over the list of words that I had written, as well as the fractions of seconds which he had jotted down on his [208] own sheet of paper. Honora, unable to make out quite what was the reason back of all these enigmatical proceedings, watched his face narrowly.

"Did I do all right?" she asked, with just a trace of anxiety in her tone.

"Very fine, thank you," assured Kennedy. "It wasn\'t such a terrible thing, after all, was it?"

"N-no," she admitted, reluctantly.

Craig continued to look over the list, talking about all sorts of perfectly unrelated subjects with her, as though to remove from her mind as much is possible the memory of what had been said and done.

"There is just one other thing I want," he added, as he picked up the list again and handed it to me, his finger significantly on the third column that he had laid out. "It won\'t take long, Mrs. Wilford, now that you understand the game. Walter, take that other column. I am merely going through the list rapidly again. Don\'t try to recollect the answers you gave—but then, on the other hand, don\'t try to make them different. Do you get what I mean? Don\'t force your ideas. Just remain relaxed, easy, natural. Let me have just what comes into your mind, the moment it occurs to you—please don\'t try to change it."

"I see," she murmured, but I thought in a manner that showed she was just a little bit on her guard, and determined, if she made any slips before, not to repeat them.

In quick staccato Kennedy repeated the words [209] from the list, beginning with "foot," to which again, almost mechanically, she responded with "shoe." I noted the answering words, as before, while he recorded the time.

It did not take me long to see that what Kennedy was after was to discover whether, on the second trial, she would make any very significant changes in the words.

Nor was he giving her a chance to cover up. The words came so fast that even I had no time to dwell on them. I shall not pause to do so here, for later Kennedy analyzed them carefully. Here is our third list, complete:
1    2    3
foot    shoe    shoe
gray    black    black
dream    Lathrop    Lathrop
struggle    escape    escape
ship    ocean    ocean
bean    baked    white
lion    path    beard
book    newspaper    newspaper
false    true    true
voyage    Europe    Europe
money    poor    poor
sad    myself    myself
quarrel    Vail    words
marry    Vail    Vail
bull    breath    field
sleep    dream    dream
foolish    wise    wise
despise    love    like
finger &n............