The Necromancers..............................................................................................................................................1

I must express my gratitude to the Rev. Father Augustine Howard, O.P., who has kindly read this book in

She was a small, delicatelooking old lady, very true to type indeed, with the silvery hair of the devout

widow crowned with an exquisite lace cap, in a filmy black dress, with a complexion of precious china, kind

shortsighted blue eyes, and white blue veined hands busy now upon needlework. She bore about with her

always an atmosphere of piety, humble, tender, and sincere, but as persistent as the gentle sandalwood

aroma which breathed from her dress. Her theory of the universe, as the girl who watched her now was

beginning to find out, was impregnable and unapproachable. Events which conflicted with it were either not

events, or they were so exceptional as to be negligible. If she were hard pressed she emitted a pathetic

The room in which she sat reflected perfectly her personality. In spite of the early Victorian date of the

furniture, there was in its arrangement and selection a taste so exquisite as to deprive it of even a suspicion of

Philistinism. Somehow the rosewood table on which the September morning sun fell with serene beauty did

not conflict as it ought to have done with the Tudor panelling of the room. A tapestry screen veiled the door

into the hall, and soft curtains of velvety gold hung on either side of the tall, modern windows leading to the

garden. For the rest, the furniture was charming and suitable low chairs, a tapestry couch, a multitude of

little leather covered books on every table, and two low carved bookshelves on either side of the door filled

The girl who sat upright with her hands on her lap was of another type altogetherof that type of which it is

impossible to predicate anything except that it makes itself felt in every company. Any respectable astrologer

would have had no difficulty in assigning her birth to the sign of the Scorpion. In outward appearance she

was not remarkable, though extremely pleasing, and it was a pleasingness that grew upon acquaintance. Her

beauty, such as it was, was based upon a good foundation: upon regular features, a slightly cleft rounded

chin, a quantity of dark coiled hair, and large, steady, serene brown eyes. Her hands were not small, but

beautifully shaped; her figure slender, well made, and always at its ease in any attitude. In fact, she had an air

of repose, strength, and allround competence; and, contrasted with the other, she resembled a wellbred

"Dear Laurie is so impetuous and sensitive," murmured his mother, drawing her needle softly through the

This was undeniable, and Maggie said nothing, though her lips opened as if for speech. Then she closed them

again, and sat watching the twinkling fire of logs upon the hearth. Then once more Mrs. Baxter took up the

"When I first heard of the poor girl's death," she said, "it seemed to me so providential. It would have been

too dreadful if he had married her. He was away from home, you know, on Thursday, when it happened; but

he was back here on Friday, and has been likelike a madman ever since. I have done what I could,

"Was she quite impossible?" asked the girl in her slow voice. "I never saw her, you know."

"My dear, she was. Well, I have not a word against her character, of course. She was all that was good, I

believe. But, you know, her home, her fatherwell, what can you expect from a grocerand a Baptist," she

"My dear, she was likelike a picture on a chocolatebox. I can say no more than that. She was little and

fairhaired, with a very pretty complexion, and a ribbon in her hair always. Laurie brought her up here to see

me, you knowin the garden; I felt I could not bear to have her in the house just yet, though, of course, it

would have had to have come. She spoke very carefully, but there was an unmistakable accent. Once she left

Maggie nodded gently, with a certain air of pity, and Mrs. Baxter went on encouraged.

"She had a little stammer thatthat Laurie thought very pretty, and she had a restless little way of playing

with her fingers as if on a piano. Oh, my dear, it would have been too dreadful; and now, my poor boy"

The old lady's eyes filled with compassionate tears, and she laid her sewing down to fetch out a little

Maggie leaned back with one easy movement in her low chair, clasping her hands behind her head; but she

still said nothing. Mrs. Baxter finished the little ceremony of wiping her eyes, and, still winking a little,

"Do try to help him, my dear. That was why I asked you to come back yesterday. I wanted you to be in the

house for the funeral. You see, Laurie's becoming a Catholic at Oxford has brought you two together. It's no

good my talking to him about the religious side of it all; he thinks I know nothing at all about the next world,

"Tell me," said the girl suddenly, still in the same attitude, "has he been practising his religion? You see, I

"I'm afraid not very well," said the old lady tolerantly. "He thought he was going to be a priest at first, you

remember, and I'm sure I should have made no objection; and then in the spring he seemed to be getting

rather tired of it all. I don't think he gets on with Father Mahon very well. I don't think Father Mahon

understands him quite. It was he, you know, who told him not to be a priest, and I think that discouraged poor

"I see," said the girl shortly. And Mrs. Baxter applied herself again to her sewing.

It was indeed a rather trying time for the old lady. She was a tranquil and serene soul; and it seemed as if she

were doomed to live over a perpetual volcano. It was as pathetic as an amiable cat trying to go to sleep on a

riflerange; she was developing the jumps. The first serious explosion had taken place two years before,

when her son, then in his third year at Oxford, had come back with the announcement that Rome was the only

home worthy to shelter his aspiring soul, and that he must be received into the Church in six weeks' time. She

had produced little books for his edification, as in duty bound, she had summoned Anglican divines to the

rescue; but all had been useless, and Laurie had gone back to Oxford as an avowed proselyte.

She had soon become accustomed to the idea, and indeed, when the first shock was over had not greatly

disliked it, since her own adopted daughter, of half French parentage, Margaret Marie Deronnais, had been

educated in the same faith, and was an eminently satisfactory person. The next shock was Laurie's

announcement of his intention to enter the priesthood, and perhaps the Religious Life as well; but this too had

been tempered by the reflection that in that case Maggie would inherit this house and carry on its traditions in

a suitable manner. Maggie had come to her, upon leaving her convent school three years before, with a

pleasant little income of her ownhad come to her by an arrangement made previously to her mother's

deathand her manner of life, her reasonableness, her adaptability, her presentableness had reassured the old

lady considerably as to the tolerableness of the Roman Catholic religion. Indeed, once she had hoped that

Laurie and Maggie might come to an understanding that would prevent all possible difficulty as to the future

of his house and estate; but the fourth volcanic storm had once more sent the world flying in pieces about

Mrs. Baxter's delicate ears; and, during the last three months she had had to face the prospect of Laurie's

bringing home as a bride the rather underbred, pretty, stammering, pink and white daughter of a Baptist

This had been a terrible affair altogether; Laurie, as is the custom of a certain kind of young male, had met,

spoken to, and ultimately kissed this Amy Nugent, on a certain summer evening as the stars came out; but,

with a chivalry not so common in such cases, had also sincerely and simply fallen in love with her, with a

romance usually reserved for bettermatched affections. It seemed, from Laurie's conversation, that Amy was

possessed of every grace of body, mind, and soul required in one who was to be mistress of the great house; it

was not, so Laurie explained, at all a milkmaid kind of affair; he was not the man, he said, to make a fool of

himself over a pretty face. No, Amy was a rare soul, a flower growing on stony soilsandy perhaps would

Then had followed every argument known to mothers, for it was not likely that even Mrs. Baxter would

accept without a struggle a daughterinlaw who, five years before, had bobbed to her, wearing a pinafore,

and carrying in a pair of rather large hands a basket of eggs to her back door. Then she had consented to see

the girl, and the interview in the garden had left her more distressed than ever. (It was there that the aitch

incident had taken place.) And so the struggle had gone on; Laurie had protested, stormed, sulked, taken

refuge in rhetoric and dignity alternately; and his mother had with gentle persistence objected, held her peace,

argued, and resisted, conflicting step by step against the inevitable, seeking to reconcile her son by pathos and

her God by petition; and then in an instant, only four days ago, it seemed that the latter had prevailed; and to

day Laurie, in a black suit, rent by sorrow, at this very hour at which the two ladies sat and talked in the

drawingroom, was standing by an open grave in the village churchyard, seeing the last of his love, under a

pile of blossoms as pink and white as her own complexion, within four elmboards with a brass plate upon

Now, therefore, there was a new situation to face, and Mrs. Baxter was regarding it with apprehension.

It is true that mothers know sometimes more of their sons than their sons know of themselves, but there are

certain elements of character that sometimes neither mothers nor sons appreciate. It was one or two of those

elements that Maggie Deronnais, with her hands behind her head, was now considering. It seemed to her very

odd that neither the boy himself nor Mrs. Baxter in the least seemed to realise the astonishing selfishness of

She had known him now for three years, though owing to her own absence in France a part of the time, and

his absence in London for the rest, she had seen nothing of this last affair. At first she had liked him

exceedingly; he had seemed to her ardent, natural, and generous. She had liked his affection for his mother

and his demonstrativeness in showing it; she had liked his wellbred swagger, his manner with servants, his

impulsive courtesy to herself. It was a real pleasure to her to see him, morning by morning, in his

knickerbockers and Norfolk jacket, or his tweed suit; and evening by evening in his swallowtail coat and

white shirt, and the knee breeches and buckled shoes that he wore by reason of the touch of picturesque and

defiant romanticism that was so obvious a part of his nature. Then she had begun, little by little, to perceive

the egotism that was even more apparent; his selfwill, his moodiness, and his persistence.

Though, naturally, she had approved of his conversion to Catholicism, yet she was not sure that his motives

were pure. She had hoped indeed that the Church, with its astonishing peremptoriness, might do something

towards a moral conversion, as well as an artistic and intellectual change of view. But this, it seemed, had not

happened; and this final mad episode of Amy Nugent had fanned her criticism to indignation. She did not

disapprove of romancein fact she largely lived by itbut there were things even more important, and she

was as angry as she could be, with decency, at this last manifestation of selfishness.

For the worst of it was that, as she knew perfectly well, Laurie was rather an exceptional person. He was not

at all the Young Fool of Fiction. There was a remarkable virility about him, he was tenderhearted to a

degree, he had more than his share of brains. It was intolerable that such a person should be so silly.

She wondered what sorrow would do for him. She had come down from Scotland the night before, and down

here to Hertfordshire this morning; she had not then yet seen him; and he was now at the funeral. . . .

"Maggy, darling . . . do you think you can do anything? You know I once hoped . . ."

The girl looked up suddenly, with so vivid an air that it was an interruption. The old lady broke off.

The old lady sighed; then she said suddenly, looking at the clock above the oak mantelshelf, "It is halfpast. I

She broke off as the front door was heard to open and close beyond the hall, and waited, paling a little, as

steps sounded on the flags; but the steps went up the stairs outside, and there was silence again.

"I think I shall just say nothing. I hope he will ride this afternoon. Will you go with him?"

The other looked up at her sideways in a questioning way, and Maggie went on with a kind of slow

"He will be queer at lunch. Then he will probably ride alone and be late for tea. Then tomorrow"

"Oh! my dear, Mrs. Stapleton is coming to lunch tomorrow. Do you think he'll mind?"

"She'sshe's the wife of Colonel Stapleton. She goes in for what I think is called New Thought; at least, so

somebody told me last month. I'm afraid she's not a very steady person. She was a vegetarian last year; now I

"I know, auntie," she said. "No; I shouldn't think Laurie'll mind much. Perhaps he'll go back to town in the

There fell again one of those pleasant silences that are possible in the country. Outside the garden, with the

meadows beyond the village road, lay in that sweet September hush of sunlight and mellow colour that

seemed to embalm the house in peace. From the farm beyond the stableyard came the crowing of a cock,

followed by the liquid chuckle of a pigeon perched somewhere overhead among the twisted chimneys. And

within this room all was equally at peace. The sunshine lay on table and polished floor, barred by the

mullions of the windows, and stained here and there by the little Flemish emblems and coats that hung across

the glass; while those two figures, so perfectly in place in their serenity and leisure, sat before the open

fireplace and contemplated the very unpeaceful element that had just walked upstairs incarnate in a pale,

The house, in fact, was one of those that have a personality as marked and as mysterious as of a human

character. It affected people in quite an extraordinary way. It took charge of the casual guest, entertained and

soothed and sometimes silenced him; and it cast upon all who lived in it an enchantment at once inexplicable

It was a large, squarebuilt house, close indeed to the road, but separated from it by a high wroughtiron gate

in an oak paling, and a short, straight gardenpath; originally even ante Tudor, but matured through

centuries, with a Queen Anne front of mellow red brick, and back premises of tile, oak, and modern

roughcast, with old brewhouses that almost enclosed a gravelled court behind. Behind this again lay a

great kitchen garden with boxlined paths dividing it all into a dozen rectangles, separated from the orchard

and yew walk by a broad double hedge down the centre of which ran a sheltered path. Round the south of the

house and in the narrow strip westwards lay broad lawns surrounded by high trees completely shading it from

Within, the house had been modernised almost to a commonplace level. A little hall gave entrance to the

drawing room on the right where these two women now sat, a large, stately room, panelled from floor to

ceiling, and to the diningroom on the left; and, again, through to the back, where a smokingroom, an inner

hall, and the big kitchens and back premises concluded the ground floor. The two more stories above

consisted, on the first floor, of a row of large rooms, airy, high, and dignified, and in the attics of a series of

low pitched chambers, whitewashed, oakfloored, and dormer windowed, where one or two of the

servants slept in splendid isolation. A little flight of irregular steps leading out of the big room on to the first

floor, where the housekeeper lived in state, gave access to the further rooms near the kitchen and sculleries.

Maggie had fallen in love with the place from the instant that she had entered it. She had been warned in her

French convent of the giddy gaieties of the world and its temptations; and yet it seemed to her after a week in

her new home that the world was very much maligned. There was here a sense of peace and sheltered

security that she had hardly known even at school; and little by little she had settled down here, with the

mother and the son, until it had begun to seem to her that days spent in London or in other friends' houses

were no better than interruptions and failures compared with the leisurely, tender life of this place, where it

was so easy to read and pray and possess her soul in peace. This affair of Laurie's was almost the first

reminder of what she had known by hearsay, that Love and Death and Pain were the bones on which life was

With a sudden movement she leaned forward, took up the bellows, and began to blow the smouldering logs

Meanwhile, upstairs on a long couch beside the fire in his big bedsittingroom lay a young man on his face

A week ago he had been one of those men who in almost any company appear easy and satisfactory, and,

above all, are satisfactory to themselves. His life was a very pleasant one indeed.

He had come down from Oxford just a year ago, and had determined to take things as they came, to foster

acquaintanceships, to travel a little with a congenial friend, to stay about in other people's houses, and, in fact,

to enjoy himself entirely before settling down to read law. He had done this most successfully, and had

crowned all, as has been related, by falling in love on a July evening with one who, he was quite certain, was

the mate designed for him for Time and Eternity. His life, in fact, up to three days ago had developed along

exactly those lines along which his temperament travelled with the greatest ease. He was the only son of a

widow, he had an excellent income, he made friends wherever he went, and he had just secured the most

charming rooms close to the Temple. He had plenty of brains, an exceedingly warm heart, and had lately

embraced a religion that satisfied every instinct of his nature. It was the best of all possible worlds, and fitted

him like his own wellcut clothes. It consisted of privileges without responsibilities.

As the gong sounded for luncheon he turned over and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.

It should have been a very attractive face under other circumstances. Beneath his brown curls, just touched

with gold, there looked out a pair of grey eyes, bright a week ago, now dimmed with tears, and patched

beneath with lines of sorrow. His cleancut, rather passionate lips were set now, with down turned corners,

in a line of angry selfcontrol piteous to see; and his clear skin seemed stained and dull. He had never dreamt

As he lay now, with lax hands at his side, tightening at times in an agony of remembrance, he was seeing

vision after vision, turning now and again to the contemplation of a dark future without life or love or hope.

Again he saw Amy, as he had first seen her under the luminous July evening, jewelled overhead with peeping

stars, amber to the westwards, where the sun had gone down in glory. She was in her sunbonnet and print

dress, stepping towards him across the freshscented meadow grass lately shorn of its flowers and growth,

looking at him with that curious awed admiration that delighted him with its flattery. Her face was to the

west, the reflected glory lay on it as delicate as the light on a flower, and her blue eyes regarded him beneath

He saw her again as she had been one moonlight evening as the two stood together by the sluice of the

stream, among the stillness of the woods below the village, with all fairyland about them and in their hearts.

She had thrown a wrap about her head and stolen down there by devious ways, according to the appointment,

meeting him, as was arranged, as he came out from dinner with all the glamour of the Great House about him,

in his evening dress, buckled shoes, and kneebreeches all complete. How marvellous she had been thena

sweet nymph of flesh and blood, glorified by the moon to an ethereal delicacy, with the living pallor of

sunkissed skin, her eyes looking at him like stars beneath her shawl. They had said very little; they had

stood there at the sluice gate, with his arm about her, and herself willingly nestling against him, trembling

now and again; looking out at the sheeny surface of the slow flowing stream from which, in the imperceptible

night breeze, stole away wraith after wraith of water mist to float and lose themselves in the sleeping woods.

Or, once more, clearer than all else he remembered how he had watched her, himself unseen, delaying the

delight of revealing himself, one August morning, scarcely three weeks ago, as she had come down the road

that ran past the house, again in her sunbonnet and print dress, with the dew shining about her on grass and

hedge, and the haze of a summer morning veiling the intensity of the blue sky above. He had called her then

gently by name, and she had turned her face to him, alight with love and fear and sudden wonder. . . . He

remembered even now with a reflection of memory that was nearly an illusion the smell of yew and garden

That end was even more terrible than he had conceived possible on that horrible Friday morning last week,

He had never before understood the sordidness of her surroundings, as when, an hour ago, he had stood at the

grave side, his eyes wandering from that long elm box with the silver plate and the wreath of flowers, to the

mourners on the other sideher father in his broadcloth, his heavy, smooth face pulled in lines of grotesque

sorrow; her mother, with her crimson, tearstained cheeks, her elaborate black, her intolerable crape, and her

jethung mantle. Even these people had been seen by him up to then through a haze of love; he had thought

them simple honest folk, creatures of the soil, yet wholesome, natural, and sturdy. And now that the jewel

was lost the setting was worse than empty. There in the elm box lay the remnants of the shattered gem. . . .

He had seen her in her bed on the Sunday, her fallen face, her sunken eyes, all framed in the detestable

whiteness of linen and waxen flowers, yet as pathetic and as appealing as ever, and as necessary to his life. It

was then that the supreme fact had first penetrated to his consciousness, that he had lost herthe fact which,

driven home by the funeral scene this morning, the rustling crowd come to see the young Squire, the elm box,

the heap of flowers had now flung him down on this couch, crushed, broken, and hopeless, like young ivy

His moods alternated with the rapidity of flying clouds. At one instant he was furious with pain, at the next

broken and lax from the same cause. At one moment he cursed God and desired to die, defiant and raging; at

the next he sank down into himself as weak as a tortured child, while tears ran down his cheeks and little

moans as of an animal murmured in his throat. God was a hated adversary, a merciless Judge . . . a Blind Fate

. . . there was no God . . . He was a Fiend . ... there was nothing anywhere in the whole universe but Pain and

Yet, through it all, like a throbbing pedal note, ran his need of this girl. He would do anything, suffer

anything, make any sacrifice, momentary or lifelong, if he could but see her again, hold her hand for one

instant, look into her eyes mysterious with the secret of death. He had but three or four words to say to her,

just to secure himself that she lived and was still his, and then . . . then he would say goodbye to her, content

and happy to wait till death should reunite them. Ah! he asked so little, and God would not give it him.

All, then, was a mockery. It was only this past summer that he had begun to fancy himself in love with

Maggie Deronnais. It had been an emotion of very quiet growth, developing gently, week by week, feeding

on her wholesomeness, her serenity, her quiet power, her cool, capable hands, and the look in her direct eyes;

it resembled respect rather than passion, and need rather than desire; it was a hunger rather than a thirst. Then

had risen up this other, blinding and bewildering; and, he told himself, he now knew the difference. His lips

curled into bitter and resentful lines as he contemplated the contrast. And all was gone, shattered and

It was ten minutes before he moved again, and then he only roused himself as he heard a foot on the stairs.

He slipped off the couch and stood up, his face lined and creased with the pressure with which he had lain

He bore himself at lunch with a respectable selfcontrol, though he said little or nothing. His mother's

attitude he found hard to bear, as he caught her eyes once or twice looking at him with sympathy; and he

allowed himself internally to turn to Maggie with relief in spite of his meditations just now. She at least

respected his sorrow, he told himself. She bore herself very naturally, though with long silences, and never

once met his eyes with her own. He made his excuses as soon as he could and slipped across to the

stableyard. At least he would be alone this afternoon. Only, as he rode away half an hour later, he caught a

sight of the slender little figure of his mother waiting to have one word with him if she could, beyond the

It was one of those perfect September days that fall sometimes as a gift from heaven after the bargain of

summer has been more or less concluded. As he rode all that afternoon through lanes and across uplands, his

view barred always to the north by the great downs above Royston, greyblue against the radiant sky, there

was scarcely a hint in earth or heaven of any emotion except prevailing peace. Yet the very serenity tortured

him the more by its mockery. The birds babbled in the deep woods, the cheerful noise of children reached

him now and again from a cottage garden, the mellow light smiled unending benediction, and yet his

subconsciousness let go for never an instant of the long elm box six feet below ground, and of its contents

lying there in the stifling dark, in the longgrassed churchyard on the hill above his home.

He wondered now and again as to the fate of the spirit that had informed the body and made it what it was;

but his imagination refused to work. After all, he asked himself, what were all the teachings of theology but

words gabbled to break the appalling silence? Heaven . . . Purgatory . . . Hell. What was known of these

things? The very soul itselfwhat was that? What was the inconceivable environment, after all, for so

He did not need these things, he saidcertainly not nownor those labels and signposts to a doubtful,

unimaginable land. He needed Amy herself, or, at least, some hint or sound or glimpse to show him that she

indeed was as she had always been; whether in earth or heaven, he did not care; that there was somewhere

something that was herself, some definite personal being of a continuous consciousness with that which he

had known, characterised still by those graces which he thought he had recognised and certainly loved. Ah!

he did not ask much. It would be so easy to God! Here out in this lonely lane where he rode beneath the

branches, his reins loose on his horse's neck, his eyes, unseeing, roving over copse and meadow across to the

eternal hillsa face, seen for an instant, smiling and gone again; a whisper in his ear, with that dear stammer

of shyness; a touch on his knee of those rippling fingers that he had watched in the moonlight playing gently

on the sluicegate above the moonlit stream. . . . He would tell no one if God wished it to be a secret; he

would keep it wholly to himself. He did not ask now to possess her; only to be certain that she lived, and that

"Is Father Mahon at home?" he asked, as he halted a mile from his own house in the village, where stood the

little tin church, not a hundred yards from its elder alienated sister, to which he and Maggie went on Sundays.

The housekeeper turned from her vegetablegathering beyond the fence, and told him yes. He dismounted,

Ah! what an antipathetic little room this was in which he waited while the priest was being fetched from

Over the mantelpiece hung a large oleograph of Leo XIII, in cope and tiara, blessing with upraised hand and

that eternal, widelipped smile; a couple of jars stood beneath filled with dyed grasses; a briar pipe, redolent

and foul, lay between them. The rest of the room was in the same key: a bright Brussels carpet, pale and worn

by the door, covered the floor; cheap lace curtains were pinned across the windows; and over the littered table

a painted deal bookshelf held a dozen volumes, devotional, moral, and dogmatic theology; and by the side of

Laurie looked at it all in dumb dismay. He had seen it before, again and again, but had never realised its

horror as he realised it now from the depths of his own misery. Was it really true that his religion could emit

There was a step on the stairsa very heavy oneand Father Mahon came in, a large, crimsonfaced man,

who seemed to fill the room with a completely unethereal presence, and held out his hand with a certain

"Sit down, my dear boy," said the priest, and he impelled him gently to a horsehaircovered armchair.

"Will you say Mass for my intention, please?" And he laid the packet on the mantelshelf.

Laurie drew his breath swiftly, with a hiss as of pain, and glanced at the priest.

"I HAVE told him," said Mrs. Baxter, as the two women walked beneath the yews that morning after

Maggie did not speak. She had come out just as she was, hatless, but had caught up a spud that stood in the

hall, and at that instant had stopped to destroy a youthful plantain that had established himself with infinite

pains on the slope of the path. She attacked for a few seconds, extricated what was possible of the root with

"I don't know whether to say anything to Mrs. Stapleton or not," pursued the old lady.

They spoke of it for a minute or two as they passed up and down, but Maggie only attended with one

She had gone up as usual to Mass that morning, and had been astonished to find Laurie already in church;

they had walked back together, and, to her surprise, he had told her that the Mass had been for his own

She had answered as well as she could; but a sentence or two of his as they came near home had vaguely

It was not that he had said anything he ought not, as a Catholic, to have said; yet her instinct told her that

something was wrong. It was his manner, his air, that troubled her. What strange people these converts were!

There was so much ardour at one time, so much chilliness at another; there was so little of that steady

"So I understand," said the old lady, with a touch of peevishness. "A vegetarian last year. And I believe she

was a sort of Buddhist five or six years ago. And then she nearly became a Christian Scientist a little while

"I hope she won't be very advanced," went on the old lady. "And you think I'd better not tell her about

"I'm sure it's best not," said the girl, "or she'll tell him about Deep Breathing, or saying Om, or something.

It was a little before one o'clock that the motor arrived, and that there descended from it at the iron gate a tall,

slender woman, hooded and veiled, who walked up the little path, observed by Maggie from her bedroom,

with a kind of whisking step. The motor moved on, wheeled in through the gates at the left, and sank into

"It's too charming of you, dear Mrs. Baxter," Maggie heard as she came into the drawingroom a minute or

two later, "to let me come over like this. I've heard so much about this house. Lady Laura was telling me how

Maggie saw a rather pretty, pass� face, triangular in shape, with small red lips, looking at her, as she made

"Ah! how perfect all this is," went on the guest presently, looking about her, "how suggestive, how full of

She threw back her cloak presently, and Maggie observed that she was busy with various very beautiful little

emblemsa scarab, a snake swallowing its tail, and so forthall exquisitely made, and hung upon a slender

chain of some green enamellike material. Certainly she was true to type. As the full light fell upon her it

became plain that this other worldly soul did not disdain to use certain toilet requisites upon her face; and a

Fortunately, Maggie had a very deep sense of humour, and she hardly resented all this at all, nor even the

tactful hints dropped from time to time, after the conventional part of the conversation was over, to the effect

that Christianity was, of course, played out, and that a Higher Light had dawned. Mrs. Stapleton did not quite

say this outright, but it amounted to as much. Even before Laurie came downstairs it appeared that the lady

did not go to church, yet that, such was her broad mindedness, she did not at all object to do so. It was all

one, it seemed, in the Deeper Unity. Nothing particular was true; but all was very suggestive and significant

and symbolical of something else to which Mrs. Stapleton and a few friends had the key.

Mrs. Baxter made more than one attempt to get back to more mundane subjects, but it was useless. When

He looked very selfcontained and rather pinched this morning, and shook hands with the lady without a

word. Then they moved across presently to the greenhung diningroom across the hall, and the exquisite

Lady Laura, it appeared, was one of those who had felt the charm of Stantons; only for her it was psychical

rather than physical, and all this was passed on by her friend. It seemed that the psychical atmosphere of most

modern houses was of a yellow tint, but that this one emanated a browngold radiance which was very

peculiar and exceptional. Indeed, it was this singularity that had caused Mrs. Stapleton to apply for an

invitation to the house. More than once during lunch, in a pause of the conversation, Maggie saw her throw

back her head slightly as if to appreciate some odour or colour not experienced by coarsernerved persons.

"Dear Laura was quite right," cried the lady; "there is something very unique about this place. How fortunate

"My dear husband's grandfather bought the place," observed the mistress plaintively. "We have always found

"How right you are! Andand have you had any experiences here?" Mrs. Baxter eyed her in alarm. Maggie

had an irrepressible burst of internal laughter, which, however, gave no hint of its presence in her steady

"I was talking to Mr. Vincent, the great spiritualist," went on the other vivaciously, "only last week. You have

heard of him, Mrs. Baxter? I was suggesting to him that any place where great emotions have been felt is

coloured and stained by them as objectively as old walls are weatherbeaten. I had such an interesting

conversation, too, with Cardinal Newman on the subject"she smiled brilliantly at Maggie, as if to reassure

"Why yes," said the other gently. "I know it sounds very startling to orthodox ears; but to us of the Higher

Thought all these things are quite familiar. Of course, I need hardly say that Cardinal Newman is no

"Oh, please go on," said Maggie genially. "You were saying that Cardinal Newman"

The other looked at her doubtfully; but there was no hint of irony in the girl's face.

"Well," she began, "of course on the Other Side they see things very differently. I don't mean at all that any

religion is exactly untrue. Oh no; they tell us that if we cannot welcome the New Light, then the old lights

will do very well for the present. Indeed, when there are Catholics present Cardinal Newman does not scruple

"Is it true that he speaks with an American accent?" asked Maggie gravely. The other laughed with a

"That is too bad, Miss Deronnais. Well, of course, the personality of the medium affects the vehicle through

which the communications come. That is no difficulty at all when once you understand the principle"

"Why yes," said the other, with a patient indulgence. "That is a very usual experience, but Mr. Vincent does

much more than that. It is quite a common experience not only to hear him, but to see him. I have shaken

Mrs. Baxter looked helplessly at the girl; and Maggie came to the rescue once more. "This sounds rather

Mrs. Stapleton laid her knife and fork down, leaned back, and began to discourse. When a little later her plate

Altogether she spoke for about ten minutes, uninterrupted, enjoying herself enormously. The others ate food

". . . I know all this must sound quite mad and fanatical to those who have not experienced it; and yet to us

who have been disciples it is as natural to meet our friends who have crossed over as to meet those who have

not. . . . Dear Mrs. Baxter, think how all this enlarges life. There is no longer any death to those who

understand. All those limitations are removed; it is no more than going into another room. All are together in

the Hands of the AllFather"Maggie recognised the jetsam of Christian Science. "`O death!' as Paul says,

Mrs. Stapleton flashed a radiant look of helpfulness round the faces, lingering for an instant on Laurie's, and

"Shall we go into the drawingroom?" suggested Mrs. Baxter, feebly rising. The guest rose too, again with a

brilliant patient smile, and swept out. Maggie crossed herself and looked at Laurie. The boy had an

expression, half of disgust, half of interest, and his eyelids sank a little and rose again. Then Maggie went out

"A dreadful woman," observed Mrs. Baxter half an hour later, as the two strolled back up the garden path,

after seeing Mrs. Stapleton wave a delicately gloved hand encouragingly to them over the back of the

"My dear, that woman would believe anything. I hope poor Laurie was not too much distressed."

"It was most unfortunate, all that about death and the rest. . . . Why, here comes Laurie; I thought he would be

The boy strolled towards them round the corner of the house, tossing away the fragment of his cigarette. He

"I'll go and get ready," she said. "The carriage will be round at three, Maggie."

"Oh yes, I suppose so," said Laurie. He drew out a cigarette and lighted it. "You know a lot of people think

She perceived out of the corner of her eye that Laurie looked at her suddenly and sharply. For herself, she

loathed what little she knew of the subject, so cordially and completely, that she could hardly have put it into

words. Ninetenths of it she believed to be frauda matter of wigs and Indian muslin and crosslightsand

the other tenth, by the most generous estimate, an affair of the dingiest and foulest of all the backstairs of life.

"Laurie," she said, "I think it perfectly detestable. I acknowledge I don't know much about it; but what little I

"Well," he said indulgently, "if you think that, it's not much use discussing it."

There was not much more to be said; and the sounds of stamping and whoaing in the stableyard presently

Mrs. Baxter was still mildly querulous during the drive. It appeared to her, Maggie perceived, a kind of veiled

insult that things should be talked about in her house which did not seem to fit in with her own scheme of the

universe. Mrs. Baxter knew perfectly well that every soul when it left this world went either to what she

called Paradise, or in extremely exceptional cases, to a place she did not name; and that these places, each in

its own way, entirely absorbed the attention of its inhabitants. Further, it was established in her view that all

the members of the spiritual world, apart from the unhappy ones, were a kind of Anglicans, with their minds

Tales like this of Cardinal Newman therefore were extremely tiresome and upsetting.

And Maggie had her theology also; to her also it appeared quite impossible that Cardinal Newman should

frequent the drawingroom of Mr. Vincent in order to exchange impressions with Mrs. Stapleton; but she

was more elementary in her answer. For her the thing was simply untrue; and that was the end of it. She

"What was it she said?" demanded Mrs. Baxter presently. "I didn't understand her ideas about materialism."

"I think she called it materialisation," explained Maggie patiently. "She said that when things were very

favourable, and the medium a very good one, the soul that wanted to communicate could make a kind of body

for itself out of what she called the astral matter of the medium or the sitters."

"Well, the first thing she said was that those souls want to communicate; and that they begin generally by

things like tablerapping, or making blue lights. Then when you know they're there, they can go further.

Sometimes they gain control of the medium who is in a trance, and speak through him, or write with his

hand. Then, if things are favourable, they begin to draw out this matter, and make it into a kind of body for

themselves, very thin and ethereal, so that you can pass your hand through it. Then, as things get better and

better, they go further still, and can make this body so solid that you can touch it; only this is sometimes

rather dangerous, as it is still, in a sort of way, connected with the medium. I think that's the idea."

"Well, you see, Mrs. Stapleton thinks that they really are souls from the other world, and that they can tell us

Maggie turned her large eyes on the old lady; and a spark of humour rose and glimmered in them.

"I think it's probably all a fraud. But I really don't know. It doesn't seem to me to matter much"

"I shall ask the Vicar," she said. "We might stop at the Vicarage on the way back."

Mrs. Baxter did not often stop at the Vicarage; as she did not altogether approve of the Vicar's wife. There

was a good deal of pride in the old lady, and it seemed to her occasionally as if Mrs. Rymer did not

understand the difference between the Hall and the Parsonage. She envied sometimes, secretly, the Romanist

idea of celibacy: it was so much easier to get on with your spiritual adviser if you did not have to consider his

wife. But here was a matter which a clergyman must settle for her once and for all; so she put on a slight air

of dignity which became her very well, and a little after four o'clock the victoria turned up the steep little

The dusk was already fallen before Laurie, strolling vaguely in the garden, heard the carriage wheels draw up

He had ridden again alone, and his mind had run, to a certain extent, as might be expected, upon the recent

guest and her very startling conversation. He was an intelligent young man, and he had not been in the least

taken in by her pseudo mystical remarks. Yet there had been something in her extreme assurance that had

affected him, as a man may smile sourly at a good story in bad taste. His attitude, in fact, was that of most

Christians under the circumstances. He did not, for an instant, believe that such things really and literally

happened, and yet it was difficult to advance any absolutely conclusive argument against them. Merely, they

had not come his way; they appeared to conflict with experience, and they usually found as their advocates

Two things, however, prevailed to keep the matter before his mind. The first was his own sense of loss, his

own experience, sore and hot within him, of the unapproachable emptiness of death; the second, Maggie's

attitude. When a plainly sensible and controlled young woman takes up a position of superiority, she is apt,

unless the young man in her company happens to be in love with herand sometimes even when he isto

provoke and irritate him into a camp of opposition. She is still more apt to do so if her relations to him have

Laurie then was not in the most favourable of moods to receive the dicta of the Vicar.

They were announced to him immediately after Mrs. Baxter had received from Maggie's hands her first cup

"Mr. Rymer tells me Spiritualism is all nonsense. He told me about someone called Eglingham, who kept a

"I daresay, my dear. Anyhow, it's all the same. I felt sure it must be so." Laurie took a bun, with a thoughtful

"Dear boy, I think he knows all that anyone need know. Besides, if you come to think of it, how could

Cardinal Newman possibly appear in a drawingroom? Particularly when Mrs. Stapleton says he isn't a

This had a possible and rather pleasing double interpretation; but Laurie decided it was not worth while to be

"That was in the Old Testament," answered his mother rapidly. "Mr. Rymer said something about that too."

Laurie drank up his cup of tea. it is a humiliating fact that extreme grief often renders the mourner rather

cross. There was a distinct air of crossness about Laurie at this moment. His nerves were very near the top.

"Well, that's very convenient," he said. "Maggie, do you know if there's any book on Spiritualism in the

"I don't know," she said. "Yes; I think there's something up there. I believe I saw it the other day."

She looked up at him, faintly uneasy, as he very deliberately drew down a book from the shelf and turned the

"Yes . . . this is it," he said. "Thanks very much. . . . No, really no more tea, thanks, mother."

Then he went to the door, with his easy, rather long steps, and disappeared. They heard his steps in the inner

"Poor boy," she said. "He's thinking of that girl still. I'm glad he's got something to occupy his mind."

The end room, on the first floor, was Laurie's possession. It was a big place, with two windows, and a large

open fire, and he had skilfully masked the fact that it was a bedroom by disposing his furniture, with the help

of a screen, in such a manner as completely to hide the bed and the washing arrangements.

The rest of the room he had furnished in a pleasing male kind of fashion, with a big couch drawn across the

fire, a writingtable and chairs, a deep easy chair near the door, and a long, high bookcase covering the wall

between the door and the windows. His college oar, too, hung here, and there were pleasant groups and

Maggie did not often come in here, except by invitation, but about seven o'clock on this evening, half an hour

before she had to go and dress, she thought she would look in on him for a few minutes. She was still a little

uncomfortable; she did not quite know why: it was too ridiculous, she told herself, that a sensible boy like

Laurie could be seriously affected by what she considered the wicked nonsense of Spiritualism.

Yet she went, telling herself that Laurie's grief was an excuse for showing him a little marked friendliness.

Besides, she would like to ask him whether he was really going back to town on Thursday.

She tapped twice before an answer came; and then it seemed a rather breathless voice which spoke.

The boy was sitting bolt upright on the edge of the sofa, with a couple of candles at his side, and the book in

He got up, rather stiffly, still keeping his place in the book with one finger, while she sat down. Then he too

She saw his fingers tremble a little as he put out his hand to a box of cigarettes at his side. But he put the

Maggie looked at him, aware of his deliberate attempt at dramatic brevity. He was watching the end of his

cigarette with elaborate attention, and his face had that white, rather determined look that she had seen on it

"Do you really mean you believe that?" she said, with a touch of careful bitterness in her voice.

Maggie understood him perfectly; but she realised that this was not an occasion to force issues. She still put

"You really believe that Cardinal Newman comes to Mr. Vincent's drawingroom and raps on tables?"

"I really believe that it is possible to get into touch with those whom we call dead. Each instance, of course,

"I have not studied the evidence for Cardinal Newman," remarked Laurie in a headvoice.

He handed it to her; and she began to turn the pages, pausing now and again to read a particular paragraph,

and once for nearly a minute while she examined an illustration. Certainly the book seemed interestingly

written, and she read an argument or two that appeared reasonably presented. Yet she was extraordinarily

repelled even by the dead paper and ink she had in her hands. It was as if it was something obscene. Finally

Maggie knew this mood of his only too well. He reserved it for occasions when he was determined to fight.

"My dear boy," she said with an effort, "I'm sorry. I daresay it is unreasonable. But that kind of thing does

seem to me so disgusting. That's all. . . . I didn't come to talk about that. . . . Tell me"

"Well, what else did you want to say?" He glanced purposely at the book. Maggie ignored his glance.

He looked up at her swiftly and suddenly, and she saw that his agony of sorrow was acute beneath all his

attempts at superiority, his courteous fractiousness, and his set face. She was filled suddenly with an

Again pity and misery surged up within her, and she cast all prudence to the winds. She had not realised how

"Oh! Laurie, you know I didn't like it; butbut I don't know what to do, I'm so sorry. But don't spoil it all,"

"You can't help," he repeated. "I must go my own way. Please don't say any more. I can't stand it."

There followed a dead silence. Then Maggie recovered and stood up. He rose with her.

"Forgive me, Laurie, won't you? I must say this. You'll remember I'll always do anything I can, won't you?"

The ladies went to bed early at Stantons. At ten o'clock precisely a clinking of bedroom candlesticks was

heard in the hall, followed by the sound of locking doors. This was the signal. Mrs. Baxter laid aside her

embroidery with the punctuality of a religious at the sound of a bell, and said two words

There were occasionally exclamatory expostulations from the two at the picquettable, but in nine cases out

of ten the game had been designed with an eye upon the clock, and hardly any delay followed. Mrs. Baxter

kissed her son, and passed her arm through Maggie's. Laurie followed; gave them candles, and generally took

But this evening there was no picquet. Laurie had stayed later than usual in the diningroom, and had

wandered rather restlessly about when he had joined the others. He looked at a London evening paper for a

little, paced about, vanished again, and only returned as the ladies were making ready to depart. Then he gave

He was, in fact, in a far more perturbed and excited mood than even Maggie had had any idea of. She had

interrupted him halfway through the book, but he had read again steadily until five minutes before dinner,

and had, indeed, gone back again to finish it afterwards. He had now finished it; and he wanted to think.

It had had a surprising effect on him, coming as it did upon a state of mind intensely stirred to its depths by

his sorrow. Crossness, as I have said, had been the natural psychological result of his emotions; but his

emotions were none the less real. The froth of whipped cream is real cream, after all.

Now Laurie had seen perfectly well the extreme unconvincingness of Mrs. Stapleton, and had been genuine

enough in his little shrug of disapproval in answer to Maggie's, after lunch; yet that lady's remarks had been

sufficient just to ignite the train of thought. This train had smouldered in the afternoon, had been fanned ever

so slightly by two breezesthe sense of Maggie's superiority and the faint rebellious reaction which had

come upon him with regard to his personal religion. Certainly he had had Mass said for Amy this morning;

but it had been by almost a superstitious rather than a religious instinct. He was, in fact, in that state of

religious unreality which occasionally comes upon converts within a year or two of the change of their faith.

Underneath all this then, it must be remembered that the one thing that was intensely real to him was his

sense of loss of the one soul in whom his own had been wrapped up. Even this afternoon as yesterday, even

this morning as he lay awake, he had been conscious of an irresistible impulse to demand some sign, to catch

It was in this mood that he had read the book; and it is not to be wondered at that he had been excited by it.

For it opened up to him, beneath all its sham mysticism, its intolerable affectations, its grotesque parody of

spirituality of all of which he was largely awarea glimmering avenue of a faintly possible hope of which

he had never dreameda hope, at least, of that half selfdeception which is so tempting to certain characters.

Here, in this book, written by a living man, whose name and address were given, were stories so startling, and

theories so apparently consonant with themselves and with other partly known factsstories and theories,

too, which met so precisely his own overmastering desire, that it is little wonder that he was affected by them.

Naturally, even during his reading, a thousand answers and adverse comments had sprung to his

mindsuggestions of fraud, of lying, of hallucinationbut yet, here the possibility remained. Here were

living men and women who, with the usual complement of senses and reason, declared categorically and in

detail, that on this and that date, in this place and the other, after having taken all possible precautions against

fraud, they had received messages from the deadmessages of which the purport was understood by none

but themselvesthat they had seen with their eyes, in sufficient light, the actual features of the dead whom

they loved, that they had even clasped their hands, and held for an instant the bodies of those whom they had

When the ladies' footsteps had ceased to sound overhead, Laurie went to the French window, opened it, and

He was astonished at the warmth of the September night. The little wind that had been chilly this afternoon

had dropped with the coming of the dark, and high overhead he could see the great masses of the leaves

motionless against the sky. He passed round the house, and beneath the yews, and sat down on the garden

It was darker here than outside on the lawn. Beneath his feet were the soft needles from the trees, and above

him, as he looked out, still sunk in his thought, he could see the glimmer of a star or two between the

It was a fragrant, kindly night. From the hamlet of half a dozen houses beyond the garden came no sound;

and the house, too, was still behind him. An illuminated window somewhere on the first floor went out as he

looked at it, like a soul leaving a body; once a sleepy bird somewhere in the shrubbery chirped to its mate and

Then as he still laboured in argument, putting this against that, and weighing that against the other, his

emotion rose up in an irresistible torrent, and all consideration ceased. One thing remained: he must have

It was five or six minutes before he moved again from that attitude of clenched hands and tensely strung

During those minutes he had willed with his whole power that she should come to him now and here, down

in this warm and fragrant darkness, hidden from all eyesin this sweet silence, round which sleep kept its

guard. Such things had happened before; such things must have happened, for the will and the love of man

are the mightiest forces in creation. Surely again and again it had happened; there must be somewhere in the

world man after man who had so called back the deada husband sobbing silently in the dark, a child

wailing for his mother; surely that force had before, in the world's history, willed back again from the

mysterious dark of space the dear personality that was all that even heaven could give, had even compelled

into a semblance of life some sort of body to clothe it in. These things must have happenedonly secrets had

So this boy had willed it; yet the dark had remained empty; and no shadow, no faintly outlined face, had even

for an instant blotted out the star on which he stared; no touch on his shoulder, no whisper in his ear. It had

seemed as he strove there, in the silence, that it must be done; that there was no limit to power concentrated

Once he had shuddered a little; and the very shudder of fear had had in it a touch of delicious, trembling

Laurie relaxed his muscles therefore, let his breath exhale in a long sigh, and once more remembered the

Half an hour later his mother, listening in her bed, heard his footsteps pass her room.

LADY LAURA BETHELL, spinster, had just returned to her house in Queen's Gate, with her dearest friend,

Mrs. Stapleton, for a few days of psychical orgy. It was in her house, as much as in any in London, that the

modern prophets were to be met with severelooking women in shapeless dresses, little men and big, with

long hair and cloaks; and it was in her drawingroom that tea and Queen cakes were dispensed to inquirers,

Lady Laura herself was not yet completely emancipated from what her friends sometimes called the

graveclothes of so called Revelation. To her it seemed a profound truth that things could be true and untrue

simultaneouslythat what might be facts on This Side, as she would have expressed it, might be falsehoods

on the Other. She was accustomed, therefore, to attend All Saints', Carlton Gardens, in the morning, and

psychical drawingrooms or halls in the evening, and to declare to her friends how beautifully the one aspect

For the rest, she was a small, fairhaired woman, with pencilled dark eyebrows, a small aquiline nose, gold

The two were seated this Tuesday evening, a week after Mrs. Stapleton's visit to the Stantons, in the

drawingroom of the Queen's Gate house, over the remnants of what corresponded to fiveo'clock tea. I say

"corresponded," since both of them were sufficiently advanced to have renounced actual tea altogether. Mrs.

Stapleton partook of a little hot water out of a copper jacketed jug; her hostess of boiled milk. They shared

their Plasmon biscuits together. These things were considered important for those who would successfully

"Dearest, he seems to me so different from the others," mewed Lady Laura. "He is such a man, you know. So

often those others are not quite like men at all; they wear such funny clothes, and their hair always is so

"Darling, I know what you mean. Yes, there's a great deal of that about James Vincent. Even dear Tom was

almost polite to him: he couldn't bear the others: he said that he always thought they were going to paw him."

"And then his powers," continued Lady Laura"his powers always seem to me so much greater. The

"Yes; just a small party. And he comes here tomorrow, you remember, just for a talk. I have asked a

clergyman I know in to meet him. It seems to me such a pity that our religious teachers should know so little

"Oh, Mr. Jamieson . . . just a young clergyman I met in the summer. I promised to let him know the next time

These two had really a great deal in common besides their faith. It is true that Mrs. Stapleton was forty, and

her friend but thirtyone; but the former did all that was possible to compensate for this by adroit toilette

tactics. Both, too, were accustomed to dress in soft materials, with long chains bearing various emblems; they

did their hair in the same way; they cultivated the same kinds of tones in their voicesa purring, mewing

mannersuggestive of intuitive kittens. Both alike had a passion for proselytism. But after that the

differences began. There was a deal more in Mrs. Stapleton besides the kittenish qualities. She was perfectly

capable of delivering a speech in public; she had written some really wellexpressed articles in various

Higher periodicals; and she had a willpower beyond the ordinary. At the point where Lady Laura began to

deprecate and soothe, Mrs. Stapleton began to clear decks for action, so to speak, to be incisive, to be fervent,

even to be rather eloquent. She kept "dear Tom," the Colonel, not crushed or beaten, for that was beyond the

power of man to do, but at least silently acquiescent in her programme: he allowed her even to entertain her

prophetical friends at his expense, now and then; and, even when among men, refrained from too bitter

speech. It was said by the Colonel's friends that Mrs. Colonel had a tongue of her own. Certainly, she ruled

her house well and did her duty; and it was only because of her husband's absence in Scotland that during this

time she was permitting herself the refreshment of a week or two among the Illuminated.

At about six o'clock Lady Laura announced her intention of retiring for her evening meditation. Opening out

of her bedroom was a small dressingroom that she had fitted up for this purpose with all the broad

suggestiveness that marks the Higher Thought: decked with ornaments emblematical of at least three

religions, and provided with a faldstool and an exceedingly easy chair. It was here that she was accustomed to

spend an hour before dinner, with closed eyes, emancipating herself from the fetters of sense; and rising to a

due appreciation of that Nothingness that was All, from which All came and to which it retired.

"Do you think that can be Mr. Vincent?" she said, pleasantly apprehensive. "It's not the right day, but one

"I wonder what he wants?" murmured the hostess. "Yes, do see him, Maud; you can always fetch me if it's

Then she was gone. Mrs. Stapleton sank into a chair again; and in a minute Laurie was shaking hands with

Mrs. Stapleton was accustomed to deal with young men, and through long habit had learned how to flatter

them without appearing to do so. Laurie's type, however, was less familiar to her. She preferred the kind that

grow their hair rather long and wear turndown collars, and have just found out the hopeless banality of all

orthodoxy whatever. She even bore with them when they called themselves unmoral. But she remembered

Laurie, the silent boy at lunch last week, she had even mentioned him to Lady Laura, and received

information about the village girl, more or less correct. She was also aware that he was a Catholic.

"Lady Laura asked me to excuse her absence to you, Mr. Baxter. To be quite truthful, she is at home, but had

"Yes, you know; we think that so important, just as you do. Do sit down, Mr. Baxter. You have had tea?"

"I hope she will be down before you go. I don't think she'll be very long this evening. Can I give her any

"No; I don't think so, thanks," he said. "The fact is, I came partly to find out your address, if I might."

"Yes," said Laurie slowly; "at least it seems rather particular to me. It's what you were talking about the other

"Now how nice of you to say that! Do you know, I was wondering as we talked. Now do tell me exactly what

Mrs. Stapleton was conscious of a considerable sense of pleasure. Usually she found this kind of man very

imperceptive and gross. Laurie seemed perfectly at his ease, dressed quite in the proper way, and had an air

of presentableness that usually only went with Philistinism. She determined to do her best.

"Please, please," she said, with that touch of childish intensity that her friends thought so innocent and

"Well, it's like this," said Laurie. "I've always rather disliked all that kind of thing, more than I can say. It did

seem to me sowellso feeble, don't you know; and then I'm a Catholic, you see, and so"

"Well, I've been reading Mr. Stainton Moses, and one or two other books; and I must say that an awful lot of

it seems to me still great rubbish; and then there are any amount of frauds, aren't there, Mrs. Stapleton, in that

"But then I don't know what to make of some of the evidence that remains. It seems to me that if evidence is

worth anything at all, there must be something real at the back of it all. And then, if that is so, if it really is

true that it is possible to get into actual touch with people who are deadI mean really and truly, so that

there's no kind of doubt about itwell, that does seem to me about the most important thing in the world. Do

She kept her eyes on his face for an instant or two. Plainly he was really moved; his face had gone a little

white in the lamplight and his hands were clasped tightly enough over his knee to whiten the knuckles. She

remembered Lady Laura's remarks about the village girl, and understood. But she perceived that she must not

attempt intimacy just yet with this young man: he would resent it. Besides, she was shrewd enough to see by

She nodded pensively once or twice. Then she turned to him with a bright smile. "I understand entirely," she

said. "May I too speak quite freely? Yes? Well, I am so glad you have spoken out. Of course, we are quite

accustomed to being distrusted and feared. After all, it is the privilege of all truthseekers to suffer, is it not?

"First, you are quite right about some of our workers being dishonest sometimes. They are, Mr. Baxter, I have

seen more than one, myself, exposed. But that is natural, is it not? Why, there have been bad Catholics, too,

have there not? And, after all, we are only human; and there is a great temptation sometimes not to send

"Ah! Poor Willie. . . . Yes. But he had great powers, for all that. . . . Well, but the point you want to get at is

"Mr. Baxter, by all that I hold most sacred, I assure you that it is, that I myself have seen and touched . . .

touched . . . my own father, who crossed over twenty years ago. I have received messages from his own lips .

. . and communications in other ways too, concerning matters only known to him and to myself. Is that

sufficient? No"; (she held up a delicate silencing hand) ". . . no, I will not ask you to take my word. I will ask

Laurie too leaned forward now in his low chair, his hands clasped between his knees.

She sat back easily, pushing her draperies straight. She was in some fine silk that fell straight from her high

"Listen, Mr. Baxter. Tomorrow there is coming to this house certainly the greatest medium in London, if not

in Europe. (Of course we cannot compete with the East. We are only children beside them.) Well, this man,

Mr. VincentI think I spoke of him to you last weekhe is coming here just for a talk to one or two

friends. There shall be no difficulty if you wish it. I will speak to Lady Laura before you go."

"I shall be very much obliged," he said. "You will remember that I am not yet in the least convinced? I only

"That is exactly the right attitude. That is all we have any right to ask. We do not ask for blind faith, Mr.

"There is someone in particularMr. Baxterforgive me for askingsomeone who has passed

She sank her voice to what she had been informed was a sympathetic tone, and was scarcely prepared for the

Ah well, she had been premature. She would fetch Lady Laura, she said; she thought she might venture for

Laurie went to the fire to wait, and stood there, mechanically warming his hands and staring down at that

He had taken his courage in both hands in coming at all. In spite of his brave words to Maggie, he had been

conscious of a curious repulsion with regard to the whole mattera repulsion not only of contempt towards

the elaborate affectations of the woman he had determined to consult. Yet he had come.

What he had said just now had been perfectly true. He was not yet in the least convinced, but he was anxious,

Ah! surely it was absurd and fantastichere in London, in this century. He turned and faced the lamplit

room, letting his eyes wander round the picturehung walls, the blue stamped paper, the Empire furniture, the

general appearance of beautiful comfort and sane modern life. It was absurd and fantastic; he would be

disappointed again, as he had been disappointed in everything else. These things did not happenthe dead

did not return. Step by step those things that for centuries had been deemed evidence of the supernatural, one

by one had been explained and discounted. Hypnotism, waterdivining, witchcraft, and the rest. All these had

once been believed to be indisputable proofs of a life beyond the grave, of strange supernormal personalities,

and these, one by one, had been either accounted for or discredited. It was mad of him to be alarmed or

excited. No, he would go through with it, expecting nothing, hoping nothing. But he would just go through

Lady Laura put out a hand, tremulous with pleasure at welcoming a possible disciple.

"I understand everything. You come as a scepticno, not as a sceptic, but as an inquirer, that is all that we

IT was a mellow October afternoon, glowing towards sunset, as Laurie came across the south end of the park

to his appointment next day; and the effect of it upon his mind was singularly unsuggestive of supernatural

mystery. Instead, the warm sky, the lights beginning to peep here and there, though an hour before sunset,

He wondered what his mother and Maggie would say if they knew his errand, for he had sufficient

selfcontrol not to have told them of his intentions. As regards his mother he did not care very much. Of

course she would deprecate it and feebly dissuade; but he recognised that there was no particular principle

behind, beyond a sense of discomfort at the unknown. But it was necessary for him to argue with himself

about Maggie. The angry kind of contempt that he knew she would feel needed an answer; and he gave it by

reminding himself that she had been brought up in a conventschool, that she knew nothing of the world, and

that, lastly, he himself did not take the matter seriously. He was aware, too, that the instinctive repulsion that

she felt so keenly found a certain echo in his own feelings; but he explained this by the novelty of the thing.

In fact, the attitude of mind in which he more or less succeeded in arraying himself was that of one who goes

to see a serious conjurer. It would be rather fun, he thought, to see a table dancing. But there was not wholly

wanting that inexplicable tendency of some natures deliberately to deceive themselves on what lies nearest to

Mr. Vincent had not yet arrived when he was shown upstairs, even though Laurie himself was late. (This was

partly deliberate. He thought it best to show a little nonchalance.) There was only a young clergyman in the

He seemed a harmless young man, thought Laurie, and plainly a little nervous at the situation in which he

found himself, as might a greyhound carry himself in a kennel of wellbred foxhounds. He was very

correctly dressed, with Roman collar and stock, and obviously had not long left a theological college. He had

an engaging kind of courtesy, ecclesiastically cut features, and curly black hair. He sat balancing a delicate

"Mr. Jamieson is so anxious to know all that is going on," explained Lady Laura, with a voluble frankness.

"He thinks it so necessary to be abreast of the times, as he said to me the other day."

Laurie assented, grimly pitying the young man for his indiscreet confidences. The clergyman looked priggish

"He has a class of young men on Sundays," continued the hostess"(Another biscuit, Maud

darling?)whom he tries to interest in all modern movements. He thinks it so important."

"And so I told him he must really come and meet Mr. Vincent. . . . I can't think why he is so late; but he has

A rather fine figure of a man came forward into the room, dressed in much better taste than Laurie somehow

had expected, and not at all like the type of an insane dissenting minister in broadcloth which he had feared.

Instead, it was a big man that he saw, stooping a little, inclined to stoutness, with a full curly beard tinged

with grey, rather overhung brows, and a high forehead, from which the same kind of curly greyish hair was

beginning to retreat. He was in a wellcut frockcoat and dark trousers, with the collar of the period and a

Lady Laura was in a flutter of welcome, pouring out little sentences, leading him to a seat, introducing him,

"It is too good of you," she said; "too good of you, with all your engagements. . . . These gentlemen are most

anxious. . . . Mrs. Stapleton of course you know. . . . And you will just sit and talk to us . . . like friends . . .

won't you. . . . No, no! no formal speech at all . . . just a few words . . . and you will allow us to ask you

Meanwhile Laurie observed the highpriest carefully and narrowly, and was quite unable to see any of the

unpleasant qualities he had expected. He sat easily, without self consciousness or arrogance or unpleasant

humility. He had a pair of pleasant, shrewd, and rather kind eyes; and his voice, when he said a word or two

in answer to Lady Laura's volubility, was of that resonant softness that is always a delight to hear. In fact, his

whole bearing and personality was that of a rather exceptional average mana publisher, it might be, or a

retired lawyera family man with a sober round of life and ordinary duties, who brought to their fulfilment a

wholesome, kindly, but distinctly strong character of his own. Laurie hardly knew whether he was pleased or

disappointed. He would almost have preferred a wild creature with rolling eyes, in a cloak; yet he would have

"Oh! there was some mistake about the rooms; it's the secretary's fault; you mustn't blame me."

Lady Laura cried out her dismay and disappointment, and Mrs. Stapleton played chorus. It was too tiresome,

they said, too provoking, particularly just now, when "Annie" was so complacent. (Mrs. Stapleton explained

kindly to the two young gentlemen that "Annie" was a spirit who had lately made various very interesting

While the ladies continued to buzz, and Mr. Jamieson to listen from the extreme edge of his chair, Laurie

continued to make mental comments. He felt distinctly puzzled by the marked difference between the prophet

and his disciples. These were so shallow; this so impressive by the most ordinary of all methods, and the

most difficult of imitation, that is, by sheer human personality. He could not grasp the least common multiple

of the two sides. Yet this man tolerated these women, and, indeed, seemed very kind and friendly towards

them. He seemed to possess that sort of competence which rises from the fact of having wellarranged ideas

And at last a pause came. Mr. Vincent set down his cup for the second time, refused buttered bun, and waited.

The man drew out his cigarettecase, smiling, offering it to the two men. Laurie took one; the clergyman

"Oh! well, you know what I mean; just like friends, you know. Treat us all like that."

Mrs. Stapleton rose, came nearer the circle, rustled down again, and sank into an elaborate silence.

Laurie thought it time to explain himself a little. He felt he would not like to take this man at an unfair

"I should just like to say this," he said. "I have told Mrs. Stapleton already. It is this. I must confess that so far

as I am concerned I am not a believer. But neither am I a sceptic. I am just a real agnostic in this matter. I

have read several books; and I have been impressed. But there's a great deal in them that seems to me

nonsense; perhaps I had better say which I don't understand. This materialising business, for instance. . . . I

can understand that the minds of the dead can affect ours; but I don't see how they can affect matterin

tablerapping, for instance, and still more in appearing, and our being able to touch and see them. . . . I think

The fact was that he was a little disconcerted by the other's eyes. They were, as I have said, kind and shrewd

eyes, but they had a good deal of power as well. Mr. Vincent sat motionless during this little speech, just

looking at him, not at all offensively, yet with the effect of making the young man feel rather like a defiant

"I understand perfectly," said the steady voice. "You are in a very reasonable position. I wish all were as

"Exactly," said Laurie. "Our theologians tell usby the way, I am a Catholic." (The other bowed a little.)

"Our theologians, I believe, tell us that such a thing cannot be, except under peculiar circumstances, as in the

"Are you bound to believe all that your theologians say?" asked the other quietly.

"Exactly, I see. But what if you approach it from the other side, and try to find out instead whether these

things actually do happen. I do not wish to be rude, Mr. Baxter; but you remember that your theologiansI

am not so foolish as to say the Church, for I know that that was not sobut your theologians, you know,

"Now I don't ask you to accept anything contrary to your faith," went on the other gently; "but if you really

wish to look into this matter, you must set aside for the present all other presuppositions. You must not begin

by assuming that the theologians are always right, nor even in asking how or why these things should happen.

His last words had a curious little effect as of a sudden flame. He had spoken smoothly and quietly; then he

had suddenly put an unexpected emphasis into the little sentence at the end. Laurie jumped, internally. Yes,

"Now," went on the other, again in that slow, reassuring voice, flicking off the ash of his cigarette, "is it

possible for you to doubt that these things happen? May I ask you what books you have read?"

"Yet you accept human evidence for a great many much more remarkable things than theseas a Catholic."

"Pardon me," said the other. "I do not in the least say it is not Divine Revelationthat is another

questionbut you receive the statement that it is so, on the word of man. Is that not true?"

Laurie was silent. He did not quite know what to say; and he almost feared the next words. But he was

"Think over that, Mr. Baxter. That is all I ask. And now for the real thing. You sincerely wish to be

The medium paused an instant, looking intently at the fire. Then he tossed the stump of his cigarette away

"You seem fond of a priori arguments, Mr. Baxter," he began, with a kindly smile. "Let us have one or two,

"Consider first the relation of your soul to your body. That is infinitely mysterious, is it not? An emotion rises

in your soul, and a flush of blood marks it. That is the subconscious mechanism of your body. But to say that,

does not explain it. It is only a label. You follow me? Yes? Or still more mysterious is your conscious power.

You will to raise your hand, and it obeys. Muscular action? Oh yes; but that is but another label." He turned

his eyes, suddenly sombre, upon the staring, listening young man, and his voice rose a little. "Go right behind

all that, Mr. Baxter, down to the mysteries. What is that link between soul and body? You do not know! Nor

Laurie was aware of a rising halfexcited interest far beyond the power of the words he heard. Yet the

manner of these too was striking. It was not the sham mysticism he had expected. There was a certain

reverence in them, an admitting of mysteries, that seemed hard to reconcile with the ideas he had formed of

"Now begin again," continued the quiet, virile voice. "You believe, as a Christian, in the immortality of the

soul, in the survival of personality after death. Thank God for that! All do not, in these days, Then I need not

"Now, Mr. Baxter, imagine to yourself some soul that you have loved passionately, who has crossed over to

the other side." Laurie drew a long, noiseless breath, steadying himself with clenched hands. "She has come

to the unimaginable glories, according to her measure; she is at an end of doubts and fears and suspicions.

She knows because she sees. . . . But do you think that she is absorbed in these things? You know nothing of

human love, Mr. Baxter" (the voice trembled with genuine emotion) . . . "if you can think that! . . . If you can

think that her thought turns only to herself and her joys. Why, her life has been lived in your love by our

hypothesisyou were at her bedside when she died, perhaps; and she clung to you as to God Himself, when

the shadow deepened. Do you think that her first thought, or at least her second, will not be of you? . . . In all

that she sees, she will desire you to see it also. She will strive, crave, hunger for younot that she may

possess you, but that you may be one with her in her own possession; she will send out vibration after

vibration of sympathy and longing; and you, on this side, will be tuned to her as none other can be you, on

this side, will be empty for her love, for the sight and sound of her. . . . Is death then so strong?stronger

The change in the man was extraordinary. His heavy beard and brows hid half his face, but his whole being

glowed passionately in his voice, even in his little trembling gestures, and Laurie sat astonished. Every word

uttered seemed to fit his own case, to express by an almost perfect vehicle the vague thoughts that had

struggled in his own heart during this last week. It was Amy of whom the man spoke, Amy with her eyes and

hair, peering from the glorious gloom to catch some glimpse of her lover in his meaningless light of earthly

Mr. Vincent cleared his throat a little, and at the sound the two motionless women stirred and rustled a little.

The sound of a hansom, the spanking trot and wintry jingle of bells swelled out of the distance, passed, and

went into silence before he spoke again. Then it was in his usual slow voice that he continued.

"Conceive such a soul as that, Mr. Baxter. She desires to communicate with one she loves on earth, with you

or me, and it is a human and innocent desire. Yet she has lost that connection, that machinery of which we

have spokenthat connection of which we know nothing, between matter and spirit, except that it exists.

What is she to do? Well, at least she will do this, she will bend every power that she possesses upon that

mediumI mean matterthrough which alone the communication can be made; as a man on an island,

beyond the power of a human voice, will use any instrument, however grotesque, to signal to a passing ship.

Would any decent man, Mr. Baxter, mock at the pathos and effort of that, even if it were some grotesque

thing, like a flannel shirt on the end of an oar? Yet men mock at the tapping of a table! . . .

"Well, then, this longing soul uses every means at her disposal, concentrates every power she possesses. Is it

so very unreasonable, so very unchristian, so very dishonouring to the love of God, to think that she

sometimes succeeds? . . . that she is able, under comparatively exceptional circumstances, to reestablish that

connection with material things, that was perfectly normal and natural to her during her earthly life. . . . Tell

"I cannot say that it is," he said, in a voice that seemed strange in his own ears. The medium smiled a little.

"So much for a priori reasoning," he said. "There remains only the fact whether such things do happen or not.

A murmur broke from the ladies' lips simultaneously, resembling applause. Mr. Jamieson sat back and

"You have said so much, sir," went on Laurie deliberately, "that you have, so to speak, put yourself in my

"Mr. Vincent, Mr. Vincent," cried Lady Laura. "He is quite right, you must help him. You must help us all."

"No, no; now, Mr. Vincent, now. Do something now. Surely the circumstances are favourable."

"If you can show me anything of this, sir, you can surely show it now. If you do not show it now"

"Well, Mr. Baxter?" put in the voice, sharp and incisive, as if expecting an insult and challenging it.

"I can only say," he cried, "that I beg and entreat of you to do what you cannow and here."

"II must be going, Lady Laura," he said. "I had no idea it was so late. II have a confirmation class."

"That is as well," observed the medium. "And you are sure, Mr. Baxter, that you wish me to try? You must

"If nothing happens, I will promise toto continue my search. I shall know then thatthat it is at least

"A little table just here, Lady Laura, if you please, and a pencil and paper. . . . Will you kindly take your

seats? . . . Yes, Mr. Baxter, draw up your chair . . . here. Now, please, we must have complete silence, and, so

The table, a small, round rosewood one, stood, bare of any cloth, upon the hearthrug. The two ladies sat,

motionless statues once more, upon the side furthest from the fire, with their hands resting lightly upon the

surface. Laurie sat on one side and the medium on the other. Mr. Vincent had received his paper and pencil

almost immediately, and now sat resting his right hand with the pencil upon the paper as if to write, his left

And now he began to be aware of a certain quite indefinable change in the face at which he looked. The eyes

were openno, it was not in them that the change lay, nor in the lines about the mouth, so far as he could see

them, nor in any detail, anywhere. Neither was it the face of a dreamer or a sleepwalker, or of the dead, when

the lines disappear and life retires. It was a living, conscious face, yet it was changed. The lips were slightly

parted, and the breath came evenly between them. It was more like the face of one lost in deep, absorbed,

He looked at the hand on the paperwell shaped, brownish, capableperfectly motionless, the pencil held

They too were perfectly motionless, but there was no change in them. The eyes of both were downcast, fixed

steadily upon the paper. And as he looked he saw Lady Laura begin to lift her lids slowly as if to glance at

He was astonished at the speed with which the situation had developed. Five minutes ago he had been

listening to talk, and joining in it. The clergyman had been here; he himself had been sitting a yard further

back. Now they sat here as if they had sat for an hour. It seemed that the progress of events had stopped. . . .

Then he began to listen for the sounds of the world outside, for within here it seemed as if a silence of a very

strange quality had suddenly descended and enveloped them. It was as if a sectionthat place in which he

sathad been cut out of time and space. It was apart here, it was different altogether. . . .

He began to be intensely and minutely conscious of the world outsideso entirely conscious that he lost all

perception of that at which he stared; whether it was the paper, or the strong, motionless hand, or the

introspective face, he was afterwards unaware. But he heard all the quiet roar of the London evening, and was

able to distinguish even the note of each instrument that helped to make up that untiring, inconclusive

orchestra. Far away to the northwards sounded a great thoroughfare, the rolling of wheels, a myriad hoofs, the

pulse of motor vehicles, and the cries of street boys; upon all these his attention dwelt as they came up

through the outward windows into that dead silent, lamplit room of which he had lost consciousness. Again

a hansom came up the street, with the rap of hoofs, the swish of a whip, the wintry jingle of bells. . . .

He began gently to consider these things, to perceive, rather than to form, little inward pictures of what they

signified; he saw the lighted omnibus, the little swirl of faces round a news board.

Then he began to consider what had brought him here; it seemed that he saw himself, coming in his dark suit

across the park, turning into the thoroughfare and across it. He began to consider Amy; and it seemed to him

that in this intense and living silence he was conscious of her for the first time without sorrow since ten days

Something brought him back in an instant to the room and his perception of it, but he had not an idea what

this was, whether a movement or a sound. But on considering it afterwards he remembered that it was as that

sound is that wakes a man at the very instant of his falling asleep, a sharp momentary tick, as of a clock. Yet

On the contrary, he perceived now with an extreme and alert attention the hand on the paper; he even turned

his head slightly to see if the pencil had moved. It was as motionless as at the beginning. He glanced up, with

a touch of surprise, at his hostess's face, and caught her in the very act of turning her eyes from his. There

was no impatience in her movement: rather her face was of one absorbed, listening intently, not like the

bearded face opposite, introspective and intuitive, but eagerly, though motionlessly, observant of the

objective world. He looked at Mrs. Stapleton. She too bore the same expression of intent regarding thought

This time, however, his progress was swifter and more sure. He passed with the speed of thought through

those processes that had been measurable before, faintly conscious of the words spoken before the sitting

He thought he understood now what this signified, and that he was experiencing it. No longer did he dwell

upon, or consider, with any voluntary activity, the images that passed before him. Rather they moved past

him while he simply regarded them without understanding. His perception ran swiftly outwards, as through

concentric circles, yet he was not sure whether it were outwards or inwards that he went. The roar of London,

with its flight of ocular visions, sank behind him, and without any further sense of mental travel, he found

himself perceiving his own home, whether in memory, imagination, or fact he did not know. But he perceived

his mother, in the familiar lamplit room, over her needlework, and MaggieMaggie looking at him with a

strange, almost terrified expression in her great eyes. Then these too were gone; and he was out in some

warm silence, filled with a single presencethat which he desired; and there he stopped.

He was not in the least aware of how long this lasted. But he found himself at a certain moment in time,

looking steadily at the white paper on the table, from which the hand had gone, again conscious of the sudden

passing of some clear sound that left no echoas sharp as the crack of a whip. Oh! the paper that was the

important point! He bent a little closer, and was aware of a sharp disappointment as he saw it was stainless of

writing. Then he was astonished that the hand and pencil had gone from it, and looked up quickly.

At first he thought he might have interrupted, and wondered with dismay whether this were so. But there was

Lady Laura too was looking at him with the same strange interest as the medium. Mrs. Stapleton, he noticed,

was just folding up, in an unobtrusive manner, several sheets of paper that he had not noticed before.

He felt a little stiff, and moved as if to stand up but, to his astonishment, the big man was up in an instant,

"Just sit still quietly for a few minutes," said the kindly voice. "Just sit still."

Laurie began to wonder what this was all about. Certainly he felt tired, yet strangely elated, But he felt no

inclination to move; and sat back, passive, looking at his own hands on his knees. But he was disappointed

Then the thought of time came into his mind. He supposed that it would be about ten minutes past six. The

sitting had begun a little before six. He glanced up at the clock on the mantelpiece; but it was one of those

bulgyfaced Empire gilt affairs that display everything except the hour. He still waited a moment, feeling all

this to be very unusual and unconventional. Why should he sit here like an invalid, and why should these

He shifted a little in his chair, feeling that an effort was due from him. The question of the time of day struck

him as a suitably conventional remark with which to break the embarrassing silence.

With a sudden movement Laurie was on his feet, peering at the clock, knowing that something was wrong

"Please sit down again, Mr. Baxter," repeated the voice, with a touch of imperiousness that there was no

He saw Lady Laura whisper something in an undertone he could not hear. Mr. Vincent stood up with a nod

and leaned himself against the mantelpiece, looking down at the rather indignant young man.

"You passed into trance about five minutes past six; you came out of it five minutes ago."

"Certainly. A very deep and satisfactory trance. There is nothing to be frightened of, Mr. Baxter. It is an

unusual gift, that is all. I have seldom seen a more satisfactory instance. May I ask you a question or two,

Laurie nodded vaguely. He was still trying hopelessly to take in what had been said.

"You nearly passed into trance a little earlier. May I ask whether you heard or saw anything that recalled

Laurie shut his eyes tight in an effort to think. He felt dimly rather proud of himself.

"It was quite short. Then you came back and looked at Lady Laura. Try to remember."

"Now can you give any account of the last hour and a half?" continued the medium tranquilly.

"I remember thinking about the streets," he said, "and then of my own home, and then . . ." He stopped.

"Ah! We must not pry then. But can you answer one question more? Was it connected with any person who

"I think I had better tell you, Mr. Baxter; it is more straightforward, though you will not like it. You will be

surprised to hear that you talked very considerably during this hour and a half; and from all that you said I

should suppose you were controlled by a spirit recently crossed overa young girl who on being questioned

"Sit down, Mr. Baxter, or you shall not hear a word more," rang out the imperious, unruffled voice. "Sit down

"I am not at all angry, Mr. Baxter," came the voice, suave and kindly again. "Your thought was very natural.

Mr. Vincent glanced at Mrs. Stapleton with an almost imperceptible frown, then back at Laurie.

"Let me see, Mr. Baxter. . . . Is there anyone on earth besides yourself who knew that you had sat out, about

ten days ago or so, under some yew trees in your garden at home, and thought of this young girlthat

"Dear Mr. Baxter, you need not be in the least alarmed. All that has passed here is, of course, as sacred as in

"Yes," he said, "of course that is the first answer." He placed one hand on the table, leaning forward, and

began to play his fingers as if on a piano. Laurie watched the movement, which seemed vaguely familiar.

"Can you account for that, Mr. Baxter? You did that several times. It seemed uncharacteristic of you,

Laurie looked at him, mute. He remembered now. He half raised a hand in protest.

"Stop, sir," cried the boy; and then, "But those too might be unconscious imitation."

"They might," said the other. "But then we had the advantage of watching you. And there were other things."

"There was the loud continuous rapping, at the beginning and the end. You were awakened twice by these."

Laurie remained perfectly motionless without a word. He was still striving to marshal this flood of mad ideas.

He went out without a word, followed by the medium. The two ladies sat eyeing one another.

"It has been astonishing . . . astonishing," sighed Mrs. Stapleton. "What a find!"

"You must not lose sight of that young man," he said abruptly. "It is an extraordinary case."

AS the weeks went by Maggie's faint uneasiness disappeared. She was one of those fortunate persons who,

possessing what are known as nerves, are aware of the possession, and discount their effects accordingly.

That uneasiness had culminated a few days after Laurie's departure one evening as she sat with the old lady

Maggie was reading, but it appeared that Mrs. Baxter had noticed her lower her book suddenly, with an odd

But since then she had been able to reassure herself. Her fancies were but fancies, she told herself; and they

had ceased to trouble her. The boy's letters to his mother were ordinary and natural: he was reading fairly

hard; his coach was as pleasant a person as he had seemed; he hoped to run down to Stantons for a few days

at Christmas. There was nothing whatever to alarm anyone; plainly his ridiculous attitude about Spiritualism

had been laid by; and, better still, he was beginning to recover himself after his sorrow in September.

It was an extraordinarily peaceful and uneventful life that the two led togetherthe kind of life that

strengthens previous proclivities and adds no new ones; that brings out the framework of character and

motive as dropping water clears the buried roots of a tree. This was all very well for Mrs. Baxter, whose

character was already fully formed, it may be hoped; but not so utterly satisfactory for the girl, though the

After Mass and breakfast she spent the morning as she wished, overseeing little extra details of the

housegardening plans, the poultry, and so forthand reading what she cared to. The afternoon was

devoted to the old lady's airing; the evening till dinner to anything she wished; and after dinner again to

gentle conversation. Very little happened. The Vicar and his wife dined there occasionally, and still more

occasionally Father Mahon. Now and then there were vague entertainments to be patronised in the village

schoolroom, in an atmosphere of ink and hairoil. and a mild amount of rather dreary and stately gaiety

connected with the big houses round. Mrs. Baxter occasionally put in appearances, a dignified and

aristocratic old figure with her gentle eyes and black lace veil; and Maggie went with her.

The pleasure of this life grew steadily upon Maggie. She was one of that fraction of the world that finds

entertainment to lie, like the kingdom of God, within. She did not in the least wish to be "amused" or

stimulated and distracted. She was perfectly and serenely content with the fowls, the garden, her small

The result was, as it always is in such cases, she began to revolve about three or four main lines of thought,

and to make a very fair progress in the knowledge of herself. She knew her faults quite well; and she was not

unaware of her virtues. She knew perfectly that she was apt to give way to internal irritation, of a strong

though invisible kind, when interruptions happened; that she now and then gave way to an unduly fierce

contempt of tiresome people, and said little bitter things that she afterwards regretted. She also knew that she

was quite courageous, that she had magnificent physical health, and that she could be perfectly content with a

Her own character then was one thing that she had studied not in the least in a morbid wayduring her

life at Stantons. And another thing she was beginning to study, rather to her own surprise, was the character

of Laurie. She began to become a little astonished at the frequency with which, during a silent drive, or some

mild mechanical labour in the gardens, the image of that young man would rise before her.

Indeed, as has been said, she had new material to work on. She had not realised till the affaire Amy that boy's

astonishing selfishness; and it became for her a rather pleasant psychological exercise to build up his

characteristics into a consistent whole. It had not struck her, till this specimen came before her notice, how

generosity and egotism, for example, so far from being mutually exclusive, can very easily be complements,

So then she passed her daysexteriorly a capable and occupied person, interested in half a dozen simple

things; interiorly rather introspective, rather scrupulous, and intensely interested in the watching of two

charactersher own and her adopted brother's. Mrs. Baxter's character needed no dissection; it was a

It was still some five weeks before Christmas that Maggie became aware of what, as a British maiden, she

ought, of course, to have known long beforenamely, that she was thinking just a little too much about a

young man who, so far as was apparent, thought nothing at all about her. It was true that once he had passed

through a period of sentimentality in her regard; but the extreme discouragement it had met with had been

There was a pause. She watched Mrs. Baxter's lips moving slowly, her glasses in place; saw the page turned,

and turned again. She took another piece of toast. There are few things more irritating than to have fragments

"He doesn't say. He just says he's very busy indeed, and has a great deal of way to make up." The old lady

"He's been to the theatre once or twice. . . . Dear Laurie! I'm glad he's recovering his spirits."

Maggie was very angry indeed. She thought it abominable of the boy to treat his mother like that. And then

there was the shootingnot much, indeed, beyond the rabbits, which the man who acted as occasional

keeper told her wanted thinning, and a dozen or two of wild pheasantsyet this shooting had always been

done, she understood, at Christmas, ever since Master Laurie had been old enough to hold a gun.

When breakfast was over, with a resolved face she went to her room. She would really tell this boy a

hometruth or two. It was aa sister's place to do so. The mother, she knew well enough, would do no more

than send a little wail, and would end by telling the dear boy that, of course, he knew best, and that she was

very happy to think that he was taking such pains about his studies. Someone must point out to the boy his

overwhelming selfishness, and it seemed that no one was at hand but herself. Therefore she would do it.

She did it, therefore, politely enough but unmistakably; and as it was a fine morning, she thought that she

would like to step up to the village and post it. She did not want to relent; and once the letter was in the

It was, indeed, a delicious morning. As she passed out through the iron gate the trees overhead, still with a

few brown belated leaves, soared up in filigree of exquisite workmanship into a sky of clear November blue,

as fresh as a hedgesparrow's egg. The genial sound of cockcrowing rose, silver and exultant, from the farm

beyond the road, and the tiny street of the hamlet looked as clean as a Dutch picture.

She noticed on the right, just before she turned up to the village on the left, the grocer's shop, with the name

"Nugent" in capitals as bright and flamboyant as on the depot of a merchant king. Mr. Nugent could be

faintly descried within, in white shirtsleeves and an apron, busied at a pile of cheeses. Overhead, three pairs

of lace curtains, each decked with a blue bow, denoted the bedrooms. One of them must have been Amy's.

All up the road to the village, some halfmile in length, she pondered Amy. She had never seen her, to her

knowledge; but she had a tolerably accurate mental picture of her from Mrs. Baxter's account. . . . Ah! how

could Laurie? How could he? . . . Laurie, of all people! It was just one more example. . . .

After dropping her letter into the box at the corner, she hesitated for an instant. Then, with an odd look on her

face, she turned sharply aside to where the church tower pricked above the leafless trees.

It was a typical little country church, with that odour of the respectable and rather stuffy sanctity peculiar to

the class; she had wrinkled her nose at it more than once in Laurie's company. But she passed by the door of

it now, and, stepping among the wet grasses, came down the little slope among the headstones to where a

very white marble angel clasped an equally white marble cross. She passed to the front of this, and looked,

The cross, she perceived, was wreathed with a spray of white marble ivory; the angel was a German female,

with a very rounded leg emerging behind a kind of button; and there, at the foot of the cross, was the

inscription, in startling black AMY NUGENT THE DEAR AND ONLY DAUGHTER OF AMOS AND

Below, as vivid as the inscription, there stood out the maker's name, and of the town where he lived.

So she lay there, reflected Maggie. It had ended in that. A mound of earth, cracking a little, and sunken. She

lay there, her nervous fingers motionless and her stammer silent. And could there be a more eloquent

monument of what she was? . . . Then she remembered herself, and signed herself with the cross, while her

lips moved an instant for the repose of the poor girlish soul. Then she stepped up again on to the path to go

It was as she came near the church gate that she understood herself, that she perceived why she had come,

and was conscious for the first time of her real attitude of soul as she had stood there, reading the inscription,

and, in a flash, there followed the knowledge of the inevitable meaning of it all.

She had come there, she told herself, to triumph, to gloat. Oh! she spared herself nothing, as she stood there,

crimson with shame, to gloat over the grave of a rival. Amy was nothing less than that, and she herselfshe,

Margaret Marie Deronnais had given way to jealousy of this grocer's daughter, because . . . because . . .

she had begun to care, really to care, for the man to whom she had written that letter this morning, and this

man had scarcely said one word to her, or given her one glance, beyond such as a brother might give to a

Her mind fled back. She understood a hundred things now. She perceived that that sudden anger at breakfast

had been personal disappointmentnot at all that lofty disinterestedness on behalf of the mother that she had

pretended. She understood too, now, the meaning of those long contented meditations as she went up and

down the garden walks, alert for plantains, the meaning of the zeal she had shown, only a week ago, on

"You had better wait till Mr. Laurence comes home," she had said. "I think he once said he liked the tree to

She understood now why she had been so intuitive, so condemnatory, so critical of the boyit was that she

was passionately interested in him, that it was a pleasure even to abuse him to herself, to call him selfish and

selfcentred, that all this lofty disapproval was just the sop that her subconsciousness had used to quiet her

Little scenes rose before herall passed almost in a flash of timeas she stood with her hand on the

medievallooking latch of the gate, and she saw herself in them all as a proud, unmaidenly, pharisaical prig,

She made an effort, unlatched the gate, and moved on, a beautiful, composed figure, with great steady eyes

and wellcut profile, a model of dignity and grace, interiorly a raging, self contemptuous, abject wretch.

By the time that Laurie's answer came, poor Maggie had arranged her emotions fairly satisfactorily. She came

to the conclusion, arrived at after much heartsearching, that after all she was not yet actually in love with

Laurie, but was in danger of being so, and that therefore now that she knew the danger, and could guard

against it, she need not actually withdraw from her home, and bury herself in a convent or the foreign

She arrived at this astonishing conclusion by the following process of thought. It may be presented in the

Strange as it may appear to nonCatholic readers, Maggie did not confide her complications to the ear of

Father Mahon. She mentioned, no doubt, on the following Saturday, that she had given way to thoughts of

pride and jealousy, that she had deceived herself with regard to a certain action, done really for selfish

motives, into thinking she had done it for altruistic motives, and there she left it. And, no doubt, Father

Then Laurie's answer arrived, and had to be dealt with, that is, it had to be treated interiorly with a proper

"Why all this fury? What have I done? I said to mother that I didn't know for certain whether I could come or

not, as I had a lot to do. I don't think she can have given you the letter to read, or you wouldn't have written

all that about my being away from home at the one season of the year, etc. Of course I'll come, if you or

anybody feels like that. Does mother feel upset too? Please tell me if she ever feels that, or is in the least

unwell, or anything. I'll come instantly. As it is, shall we say the 20th of December, and I'll stay at least a

This was a little overwhelming, and Maggie wrote off a penitent letter, refraining carefully, however, from

any expressions that might have anything of the least warmth, but saying that she was very glad he was

She directed the letter; and then sat for an instant looking at Laurie'sat the neat Oxfordlooking hand, the

She would have liked to keep itto put it with half a dozen others she had from him; but it seemed better

Then as she tore it up into careful strips, her conscience smote her again, shrewdly; and she drew out the top

There they were, a little pile of them, neat and orderly. She looked at them an instant; then she took them out,

turned them quickly to see if all were there, and then, gathering up the strips of the one she had received that

The days went pleasantly enough after that. She would not for an instant allow to herself that any of their

smoothness arose from the fact that this boy would be here again in a few weeks. On the contrary, it was

because she had detected a weakness in his regard, she told herself, and had resolutely stamped on it, that she

was in so serene a peace. She arranged about the shootingthat is to say, she informed the acting keeper that

Master Laurie would be home for Christmas as usual all in an unemotional manner, and went about her

She found Mrs. Baxter just a little trying now and then. That lady had come to the conclusion that Laurie was

unhappy in his religioncertainly references to it had dropped out of his lettersand that Mr. Rymer must

"The Vicar must dine here at least twice while Laurie is here," she observed at breakfast one morning. "He

Maggie reflected upon a remark or two, extremely unjust, made by Laurie with regard to the clergyman.

"Just settle the boy. . . . I don't think Laurie's very happy. Not that I would willingly disturb his mind again; I

don't mean that, my dear. I quite understand that your religion is just the one for certain temperaments, and

Laurie's is one of them; but a few helpful words sometimes" Mrs. Baxter left it at an aposiopesis, a form

There was a grain of truth, Maggie thought, in the old lady's hints, and she helped herself in silence to

marmalade. Laurie's letters, which she usually read, did not refer much to religion, or to the Brompton

Oratory, as his custom had been at first. She tried to make up her mind that this was a healthy sign; that it

showed that Laurie was settling down from that slight feverishness of zeal that seemed the inevitable

atmosphere of most converts. Maggie found converts a little trying now and then; they would talk so much

about facts, certainly undisputed, and for that very reason not to be talked about. Laurie had been a marked

case, she remembered; he wouldn't let the thing alone, and his contempt of Anglican clergy, whom Maggie

herself regarded with respect, was hard to understand. In fact she had remonstrated on the subject of the

Maggie perceived that she was letting her thoughts run again on disputable lines; and she made a remark

about the Balkan crisis so abruptly that Mrs. Baxter looked at her in bewilderment.

A few days before Laurie's arrival she went to the greenhouse to see the chrysanthemums. There was an

"Oh! I had forgotten. Well, Ferris, on the nineteenth I shall want a big bunch of them. You'd better take

"Well, will you make a good wreath of them, please, for a grave? The morning of the twentieth will do.

"Very well, then. Will you remember that? A good wreath, with fern, on the morning of the twentieth. If

you'll just leave it here I'll call for it about twelve o'clock. You needn't send it up to the house."

LAURIE was sitting in his room after breakfast, filling his briar pipe thoughtfully, and contemplating his

It was more than six weeks now since his experience in Queen's Gate, and he had gone through a variety of

emotions. Bewildered terror was the first, a nervous interest the next, a truculent scepticism the third; and

At first he had been filled with unreasoning fear. He had walked back as far as the gate of the park, hardly

knowing where he went, conscious only that he must be in the company of his fellows; upon finding himself

on the south side of Hyde Park Corner, where travellers were few, he had crossed over in nervous haste to

where he might jostle human beings. Then he had dined in a restaurant, knowing that a band would be

playing there, and had drunk a bottle of champagne; he had gone to his rooms, cheered and excited, and had

leapt instantly into bed for fear that his courage should evaporate. For he was perfectly aware that fear, and a

sickening kind of repulsion, formed a very large element in his emotions. For nearly two hours, unless three

persons had lied consummately, hehis essential being, that sleepless self that underlies allhad been in

strange company, had become identified in some horrible manner with the soul of a dead person. It was as if

he had been informed some morning that he had slept all night with a corpse under his bed. He woke half a

dozen times that night in the pleasant curtained bedroom, and each time with the terror upon him. What if

stories were true, and this Thing still haunted the air? It was remarkable, he considered afterwards, how the

sign which he had demanded had not had the effect for which he had hoped. He was not at all reassured by it.

Then as the days went by, and he was left in peace, his horror began to pass. He turned the thing over in his

mind a dozen times a day, and found it absorbing. But he began to reflect that, after all, he had nothing more

than he had had before in the way of evidence. An hypnotic sleep might explain the whole thing. That little

revelation he had made in his unconsciousness, of his sitting beneath the yews, might easily be accounted for

by the fact that he himself knew it, that it had been a deeper element in his experience than he had known,

and that he had told it aloud. It was no proof of anything more. There remained the rapping and what the

medium had called his "appearance" during the sleep; but of all this he had read before in books. Why should

he be convinced any more now than he had been previously? Besides, it was surely doubtful, was it not,

whether the rapping, if it had really taken place, might not be the normal cracks and sounds of woodwork,

intensified in the attention of the listeners? or if it was more than this, was there any proof that it might not be

produced in some way by the intense willpower of some living person present? This was surely

conceivablemore conceivable, that is, than any other hypothesis. . . . Besides, what had it all got to do with

Within a week of his original experience, scepticism was dominant. These lines of thought did their work by

incessant repetition. The normal life he lived, the large, businesslike face of the lawyer whom he faced day

by day, a theatre or two, a couple of dinnerseven the noise of London streets and the appearance of

When therefore he received a nervous little note from Lady Laura, reminding him of the s�ance to be held in

Baker Street, and begging his attendance, he wrote a most proper letter back again, thanking her for her

kindness, but saying that he had come to the conclusion that this kind of thing was not good for him or his

A week or two passed, and nothing whatever happened. Then he heard again from Lady Laura, and again he

answered by a polite refusal, adding a little more as to his own state of mind; and again silence fell.

Laurie's rooms were in Mitre Court, very convenient to the Templetwo rooms opening into one another,

He had played a little on his grand piano, that occupied a third of his sittingroom, and had then dropped off

to sleep before his fire, He awakened suddenly to see the big man standing almost over him, and sat up

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Baxter; the porter's boy told me to come straight up. I found your outer door open."

Laurie hastened to welcome him, to set him down in a deep chair, to offer whisky and to supply tobacco.

"It's like this," he said; "I'm not really convinced. I don't see anything final in what happened."

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

". . . And I find it rather distracting to my work," he ended. "Please don't think me rude or ungrateful, Mr.

"Doesn't it strike you as odd that I myself was able to get no results that night?" he said presently.

"Why, as a rule, I find no difficulty at all in getting some sort of response by automatic handwriting. Are you

"Well," he said at last, "this may sound very foolish to you; but granting that I have got unusual gifts that

waythey are your own words, Mr. Vincentif that is so, I don't see why my own concentration of

thought, or hypnotic sleep or trance or whatever it wasmight not have been so intense as to"

"I quite see," interrupted the other. "That is, of course, conceivable from your point of view. It had occurred

to me that you might think that. . . . Then I take it that your theory is that the subconscious self is sufficient to

account for it all that in this hypnotic sleep, if you care to call it so, you simply uttered what was in your

"Yes . . . but I see perfectly that this is impossible. Whatever I said in my sleep, either I can't identify it as

true, in which case it is worthless as evidence, or I can identify it, because I already know it, and in that case

He sat up a little in his chair; then, putting his hand into his breast pocket, drew out a notebook, holding it

"Would you kindly tell mefirst, whether you have seen the grave of this young girl since you left the

"Certainly no one has mentioned it to me. And I have not seen it since I left the country."

"Thank you! . . ." He opened the notebook and turned the pages a moment or two. "And will you listen to

this, Mr. Baxter?`Tell Laurie that the ground has sunk a little above my grave; and that cracks are showing

"That book, Mr. Baxter, contains a few extracts from some of the things you said during your trance. The

sentence I have read is one of them, an answer given to a demand made by me that the control should give

some unmistakable proof of her identity. She . . . you hesitated some time before giving that answer."

"Mrs. Stapleton. You can see the originals if you wish. I thought it might distress you to know that such notes

"Now all you have to do," continued the medium serenely, "is to find out whether what has been said is

correct or not. If it is not correct, there will be an end of the matter, if you choose. But if it is correct"

He was back again in the confusion from which he thought he had escaped. Here was a definite test, offered

at least in good faithjust such a test as had been lacking before; and he had no doubt whatever that it would

be borne out by facts. And if it werewas there any conceivable hypothesis that would explain it except the

one offered so confidently by this grave, dignified man who sat and looked at him with something of

interested compassion in his heavy eyes? Coincidence? It was absurd. Certainly graves did sink,

sometimesbut . . . Thought transference from someone who noticed the grave? . . . But why that

And then again another thought, previously ignored, pierced him like a sword. If it were true; if Amy herself,

poor pretty Amy, had indeed been there, were indeed near him now, hammering and crying out like a child

shut out at night, against his own sceptical heart . . . if it were indeed true that during those two hours she had

had her heart's desire, and had been one with his very soul, in a manner to which no earthly union could

aspire . . . how had he treated her? Even at this thought a shudder of repulsion ran through him. . . . It was

unnatural, detestable . . . yet how sweet! . . . What did the Church say of such things? . . . But what if religion

were wrong, and this indeed were the satiety of the higher nature of which marriage was but the material

The thoughts flew swifter than clouds as he sat there, bewildering, torturing, beckoning. He made a violent

"Hush, I quite understand," said the fatherly voice. "It is a shock, I know; but Truth is a little shocking

sometimes. Wait. I perfectly understand that you must have time. You must think it all over, and verify this.

You must not commit yourself. But I think you had better have my address. The ladies are a little too

emotional, are they not? I expect you would sooner come to see me without them."

Laurie took his hand, and looked for a moment into the kind eyes. Then the man was gone.

That was a little while ago, now, and Laurie sitting over breakfast had had time to think it out, and by an act

He had come back again to the state I have describedto nervous interestno more than that. The terror

seemed gone, and certainly the scepticism seemed gone too. Now he had to face Maggie and his mother, and

Somehow he had become more accustomed to the idea that there might be real and solid truth under it all, and

familiarity had bred ease. Yet there was nervousness there too at the thought of going home. There were

moods in which, sitting or walking alone, he passionately desired it all to be true; other moods in which he

was acquiescent; but in both there was a faint discomfort in the thought of meeting Maggie, and a certain

instinct of propitiation towards her. Maggie had begun to stand for him as a kind of embodiment of a view of

life which was sane, wholesome, and curiously attractive; there was a largeness about her, a strength, a sense

of fresh air that was delightful. It was that kind of thing, he thought, that had attracted him to her during this

past summer. The image of Amy, on the other hand, more than ever now since those recent associations,

stood for something quite contrarycertainly for attractiveness, but of a feverish and vivid kind,

extraordinarily unlike the other. To express it in terms of time, he thought of Maggie in the morning, and of

Amy in the evening, particularly after dinner. Maggie was cool and sunny; Amy suited better the evening

First he reflected that he had not breathed a hint, either to her or his mother, as to what had passed. They both

would believe that he had dropped all this. There would then be no arguing, that at least was a comfort. But

Yet, after all, he asked himself indignantly, what affair was it of hers? She was not his confessor; she was just

a convent bred girl who couldn't understand. He would be aloof and polite. That was the attitude. And he

He drew a few brisk draughts of smoke from his pipe and stood up. That was settled.

It was in this determined mood then that he stepped out on to the platform at the close of this wintry day, and

saw Maggie, radiant in furs, waiting for him, with her back to the orange sunset.

These two did not kiss one another. It was thought better not. But he took her hand with a pleasant sense of

"Auntie's in the brougham," she said. "There's lots of room for the luggage on the top. . . . Oh! Laurie, how

It was a pleasant twomile drive that they had. Laurie sat with his back to the horses. His mother patted his

knee once or twice under the fur rug, and looked at him with benevolent pleasure. It seemed at first a very

delightful homecoming. Mrs. Baxter asked after Mr. Morton, Laurie's coach, with proper deference.

But places have as strong a power of retaining associations as persons, and even as they turned down into the

hamlet Laurie was aware that this was particularly true just now. He carefully did not glance out at Mr.

Nugent's shop, but it was of no use. The whole place was as full to him of the memory of Amyand more

than the memory, it seemedas if she was still alive. They drew up at the very gate where he had whispered

her name; the end of the yew walk, where he had sat on a certain night, showed beyond the house; and half a

mile behind lay the meadows, darkling now, where he had first met her face to face in the sunset, and the

sluice of the stream where they had stood together silent. And all was like a landscape seen through coloured

Laurie was rather quiet all that evening. His mother noticed it, and it produced a remark from her that for an

"You look a little peaked, dearest," she said, as she took her bedroom candlestick from him. "You haven't

"Oh, for a bit," he said lightly, "but I haven't touched the thing for over two months."

He said it so well that even Maggie was reassured. She had just hesitated for a fraction of a second to hear his

Her contentment was even deeper next morning when Laurie, calling to her through the cheerful frosty air,

They talked of this and that for the halfmile before them. At the church door she hesitated again.

"Laurie, I wish you'd come to the Protestant churchyard with me for a moment afterwards, will you?"

He looked at her still for an instant with an incomprehensible expression. Then he nodded with set lips.

When she came out he was waiting for her. She determined to say something of regret.

"Laurie, I'm dreadfully sorry if I shouldn't have said that. . . . I was stupid. . . . But perhaps"

"What is it you want me to see?" he said without the faintest expression in his voice.

They went on a few steps without another word. At the church gate he spoke again.

"Its awfully good of you, Maggie . . . I . . . I'm rather upset still, you know; that's all."

He hurried, a little in front of her, over the frosty grass beyond the church; and she saw him looking at the

"I'm afraid the monument's rather . . . rather awful. . . . Do you like the flowers, Laurie?"

She was noticing that the chrysanthemums were a little blackened by the frost; and hardly attended to the fact

"Oh yes, yes," he said; "they're . . . they're lovely. . . . Maggie, the grave's all right, isn't it: the mound, I

"Only . . . only I have heard of mounds sinking sometimes, or cracking at the sides. But this one"

"Oh yes," interrupted the girl. "But this was very bad yesterday. . . . What's the matter, Laurie?"

He had turned his face with some suddenness, and there was in it a look of such terror that she herself was

"It was nothing of any importance," said the girl hurriedly. "It wasn't in the least disfigured, if that"

"Maggie, will you please tell me exactly in what condition this grave was yesterday? When was it put right?"

"I . . . I noticed it when I brought the chrysanthemums up yesterday morning. The ground was sunk a little,

and cracks were showing at the sides. I told the sexton to put it right. He seems to have done it. . . . Laurie,

He was staring at her with an expression that might have meant anything. She would not have been surprised

The two were sitting together in the little smokingroom at the back of the house on the last night of Laurie's

Maggie had passed a thoroughly miserable week. She had had to keep her promise not to tell Mrs.

Baxternot that that lady would have been of much service, but the very telling would be a reliefand

To her the misery lay, not in any belief she had that the spiritualistic claim was true, but that the boy could be

so horribly excited by it. She had gone over the arguments again and again with him, approving heartily of

his suggestions as to the earlier part of the story, and suggesting herself what seemed to her the most sensible

explanation of the final detail. Graves did sink, she said, in two cases out of three, and Laurie was as aware of

that as herself. Why in the world should not this then be attributed to the same subconscious mind as that

which, in the hypnotic sleepor whatever it washad given voice to the rest of his imaginations? Laurie

had shaken his head. Now they were at it once more. Mrs. Baxter had gone to bed half an hour before.

"It's too wickedly grotesque," she said indignantly. "You can't seriously believe that poor Amy's soul entered

into your mind for an hour and a half in Lady Laura's drawingroom. Why, what's purgatory, then, or

heaven? It's so utterly and ridiculously impossible that I can't speak of it with patience."

"The point," he said, "is this: Which is the simplest hypothesis? You and I both believe that the soul is

somewhere; and it's natural, isn't it, that she should wantoh! dash it all! Maggie, I think you should

"I don't deny for an instant that it's a very odd story," she said. "But this kind of explanation is justoh, I

can't speak of it. You allowed yourself that up to this last thing you didn't really believe it; and now because

of this coincidence the whole thing's turned upside down. Laurie, I wish you'd be reasonable."

She was sitting with her back to the curtained and shuttered window, beyond which lay the yewwalk; and

the lamplight from the tall stand fell full upon her. She was dressed in some rich darkish material, her breast

veiled in filmy white stuff, and her round, strong arms lay, bare to the elbow, along the arms of her chair. She

was a very pleasant wholesome sight. But her face was troubled, and her great serene eyes were not so serene

as usual. He was astonished at the persistence with which she attacked him. Her whole personality seemed

"Maggie," he said, "please listen. I've told you again and again that I'm not actually convinced. What you say

is just conceivably possible. But it doesn't seem to me to be the most natural explanation. The most natural

seems to me to be what I have said; and you're quite right in saying that it's this last thing that has made the

difference. It's exactly like the grain that turns the whole bottle into solid salt. It needed that. . . . But, as I've

said, I can't be actually and finally convinced until I've seen more. I'm going to see more. I wrote to Mr.

"Don't be silly, please. . . . Yes, I did. I told him I'd be at his service when I came back to London. Not to

"It'sit's morbid," said Maggie, "morbid and horrible. Of course it's nonsense; but it'sit's wicked

"You seem to think I've got no heart," he cried. "Suppose it was truesuppose really and truly Amy was

A sudden clear sharp sound like the crack of a whip sounded from the corner of the room. Even Maggie

started and glanced at the boy. He was dead white on the instant; his lips were trembling.

Again came the little sharp crack, and she stopped. For an instant she was disturbed; certain possibilities

opened before her, and she regarded them. Then she crushed them down, impatiently and half timorously.

She sat down again, wondering at his childishness, and yet conscious that her own nerves, too, were ever so

slightly on edge. She would not look at him, for fear that the meeting of eyes might hint at more than she

meant. She threw her head back on her chair and remained looking at the ceiling. But to think that the souls

The hard frost had kept the world ironbound in a sprinkle of snow during the last two or three days, but this

afternoon the thaw had begun. Twice during dinner there had come the thud of masses of snow falling from

the roof on to the lawn outside, and the clear sparkle of the candles had seemed a little dim and hazy. "It

And now that the two sat here in the windless silence the thaw became more apparent every instant. The

silence was profound, and the little noises of the night outside, the drip from the eaves slow and deliberate,

the rustle of released leaves, and even the gentle thud on the lawn from the yew branchesall these helped to

emphasise the stillness. It was not like the murmur of day; it was rather like the gnawing of a mouse in the

It requires almost superhumanly strong nerves to sit at night, after a conversation of this kind, opposite an

apparently reasonable person who is white and twitching with terror, even though one resolutely refrains

from looking at him, without being slightly affected. One may argue with oneself to any extent, tap one's foot

cheerfully on the floor, fill the mind most painstakingly with normal thoughts; yet it is something of a

It was not that now for one single moment she allowed that the two little sudden noises in the room could

possibly proceed from any cause whatever except that which she had statedthe relaxation of stiffened

wood under the influence of the thaw. Nor had all Laurie's arguments prevailed to shake in the smallest

degree her resolute conviction that there was nothing whatever preternatural in his certainly queer story.

Yet, as she sat there in the lamplight, with Laurie speechless before her, and the great curtained window

behind, she became conscious of an uneasiness that she could not entirely repel. It was just physical, she said;

it was the result of the change of weather; or, at the most, it was the silence that had now fallen and the

He was lying back in the old green armchair, his eyes rather shadowed from the lamp overhead, quite still

and quiet, his hands still clasping the lionbosses of his chairarms. Beside him, on the little table, lay his

Maggie suddenly sprang to her feet, slipped round the table, and caught him by the arm.

Was the boy acting? Surely it was good acting! Maggie threw herself down on her knees by the chair.

"Laurie! Laurie! I beg you not to go to see Mr. Vincent. It's bad for you. . . . I do wish you wouldn't."

"Not see Mr. Vincent? Nonsense; of course I shall. You don't understand, Maggie."

The three were sitting once again in Lady Laura's drawing room soon after lunch. Mr. Vincent had just

looked in with Laurie's note to give the news. It was a heavy fog outside, woolly in texture and orange in

colour, and the tall windows seemed opaque in the lamplight; the room, by contrast, appeared a safe and

Mrs. Stapleton had been lunching with her friend. The Colonel had returned for Christmas, so his wife's

duties had recalled her for the present from those spiritual conversations which she had enjoyed in the

autumn. It was such a refreshment, she had said with a patient smile, to slip away sometimes into the purer

"We must be careful with him," he said. "He is extraordinarily sensitive. I almost wish he were not so

For herself she was not perfectly happy. She had lately come across one or two rather deplorable cases. A

very promising girl, daughter of a publican in the suburbs, had developed the same kind of powers, and the

end of it all had been rather a dreadful scene in Baker Street. She was now in an asylum. A friend of her own,

too, had lately taken to lecturing against Christianity in rather painful terms. Lady Laura wondered why

"I think he had better not come to the public s�ances at present," went on the medium. "That, no doubt, will

"That bother about the rooms is not yet settled, and the Sunday s�ances will have to cease for the present. I

wonder if you would let us come here, just a few of us only, for three or four Sundays, at any rate."

"Why, it would be the greatest pleasure," she said. "But what about the cabinet?"

"If necessary, I would send one across. Will you allow me to make arrangements?"

"What a privilege!" she said. "Dearest, I quite envy you. I am afraid dear Tom would never consent"

"There are just one or two things on my mind," went on Mr. Vincent so pleasantly that the interruption

seemed almost a compliment, "and the first is this. I want him to see for himself. Of course, for ourselves, his

trance is the point; but hardly for him. He is tremendously impressed; I can see that; though he pretends not

to be. But I should like him to see something unmistakable as soon as possible. We must prevent his going

The ladies had never seen him so interested in an amateur. Usually his manner was remarkable for its

detachment and severe assurance; but it seemed that this case excited even him. Lady Laura was filled again

"There is always danger," he said. "We know that well enough. We can but take precautions. But pioneers

"But I mean special danger. He is extraordinarily sensitive, you know. There was that girl from Surbiton. . . ."

"Oh! she was exceptionally hysterical. Mr. Baxter's not like that. I do not see that he runs any greater risk

Mrs. Stapleton rustled excitedly, and Lady Laura grabbed at her retreating opportunity.

"No, no," she cried. "I didn't mean that for one moment. Please, please come here. I only wondered whether

"I will think about it," said the medium. "But I am sure we must be careful not to shock him. Of course, we

don't all take the same view about religion; but we can leave that for the present. The point is that Mr. Baxter

should, if possible, see something unmistakable. The rest can take care of itself. . . . Then, if you consent,

Lady Laura, we might have a little sitting here next Sunday night. Would nine o'clock suit you?"

"That will do very well," said the mistress of the house. "And, about preparations"

"I will look in on Saturday afternoon. Is there anyone particular you think of asking?"

"Mr. Jamieson came to see me again a few days ago," suggested Lady Laura tentatively.

"That will do very well. Then we three and those two. That will be quite enough for the present."

He stood upa big, dominating figurea reassuring man to look at, with his kindly face, his bushy, square

beard, and his appearance of physical strength. Lady Laura sat vaguely comforted.

Lady Laura's little anxious face did not move. She was staring thoughtfully at the fire. Mrs. Stapleton laid a

Meanwhile the medium was picking his way through the foggy streets. Figures loomed up, sudden and

enormous, and vanished again. Smoky flares of flame shone like spots of painted fire, bright and

unpenetrating, from windows overhead; and sounds came to him through the woolly atmosphere, dulled and

sonorous. It would, so to speak, have been a suitably dramatic setting for his thoughts if he had been thinking

in character, vaguely suggestive of presences and hints and peeps into the unknown.

But he was a very practical man. His spiritualistic faith was a reality to him, as unexciting as Christianity to

Beyond all the fraud, the selfdeception, the amazing feats of the subconscious self, there remained certain

facts beyond doubtingfacts which required, he believed, an objective explanation, which none but the

spiritualistic thesis offered. He had far more evidence, he considered sincerely enough, for his spiritualism

He had no very definite theory as to the spiritual world beyond thinking that it was rather like this world. For

him it was peopled with individualities of various characters and temperaments, of various grades and

achievements; and of these a certain number had the power of communicating under great difficulties with

persons on this side who were capable of receiving such communications. That there were dangers connected

with this process, he was well aware; he had seen often enough the moral sense vanish and the mental powers

decay. But these were to him no more than the honourable wounds to which all who struggle are liable. The

point for him was that here lay the one certain means of getting into touch with reality. Certainly that reality

was sometimes of a disconcerting nature, and seldom of an illuminating one; he hated, as much as anyone,

the tambourine business, except so far as it was essential; and he deplored the fact that, as he believed, it was

often the most degraded and the least satisfactory of the inhabitants of the other world that most easily got

into touch with the inhabitants of this. Yet, for him, the main tenets of spiritualism were as the bones of the

universe; it was the only religion which seemed to him in the least worthy of serious attention.

He had not practised as a medium for longer than ten or a dozen years. He had discovered, by chance as he

thought, that he possessed mediumistic powers in an unusual degree, and had begun then to take up the life as

a profession. He had suffered, so far as he was aware, no ill effects from this life, though he had seen others

It is necessary, then, to understand that he was not a conscious charlatan; he loathed mechanical tricks such as

he occasionally came across; he was perfectly and serenely convinced that the powers which he possessed

were genuine, and that the personages he seemed to come across in his mediumistic efforts were what they

professed to be; that they were not hallucinatory, that they were not the products of fraud, that they were not

necessarily evil. He regarded this religion as he regarded science; both were progressive, both liable to error,

both capable of abuse. Yet as a scientist did not shrink from experiment for fear of risk, neither must the

As he picked his way to his lodgings on the north of the park, he was thinking about Laurie Baxter. That this

boy possessed in an unusual degree what he would have called "occult powers" was very evident to him. That

these powers involved a certain risk was evident too. He proposed, therefore, to take all reasonable

precautions. All the catastrophes he had witnessed in the past were due, he thought, to a too rapid

development of those powers, or to inexperience. He determined, therefore, to go slowly.

First, the boy must be convinced; next, he must be attached to the cause; thirdly, his religion must be knocked

out of him; fourthly, he must be trained and developed. But for the present he must not be allowed to go into

trance if it could be prevented. It was plain, he thought, that Laurie had a very strong "affinity," as he would

have said, with the disembodied spirit of a certain "Amy Nugent." His communication with her had been of a

very startling nature in its rapidity and perfection. Real progress might be made, then, through this channel.

Laurie came back to town in a condition of interior quietness that rather astonished him. He had said to

Maggie that he was not convinced; and that was true so far as he knew. Intellectually, the spiritualistic theory

was at present only the hypothesis that seemed the most reasonable; yet morally he was as convinced of its

truth as of anything in the world. And this showed itself by the quietness in which he found his soul plunged.

Moral convictionthat conviction on which a man actsdoes not always coincide with the intellectual

process. Occasionally it outruns it; occasionally lags behind; and the first sign of its arrival is the cessation of

strain. The intellect may still be busy, arranging, sorting, and classifying; but the thing itself is done, and the

A certain amount of excitement made itself felt when he found Mr. Vincent's letter waiting for his arrival to

congratulate him on his decision, and to beg him to be at Queen's Gate not later than halfpast eight o'clock

on the following Sunday; but it was not more than momentary. He knew the thing to be inevitably true now;

He dined out at a restaurant, returned to his rooms, and sat down to arrange his ideas.

He had already, in the days that had passed since his shock, no lighter because expected, when he had learned

from Maggie that the test was fulfilled, and that a fact known to no one present, not even himself, in Queen's

Gate, had been communicated through his lipssince that time the idea had become familiar that the veil

between this world and the next was a very thin one. After all, a large number of persons in the world believe

that, as it is; and they are not, in consequence, in a continuous state of exaltation. Laurie had learned this, he

thought, experimentally. Very well, then, that was so; there was no more to be said.

Next, the excitement of the thought of communicating with Amy in particular had to a large extent burned

itself out. It was nearly four months since her death; and in his very heart of hearts he was beginning to be

aware that she had not been so entirely his twinsoul as he would still have maintained. He had reflected a

little, in the meantime, upon the grocer's shop, the dissenting teaparties, the odour of cheeses. Certainly

these things could not destroy an "affinity" if the affinity were robust; but it would need to be. . . .

He was still very tender towards the thought of her; she had gained too, inevitably, by dying, a dignity she

had lacked while living, and it might well be that intercourse with her in the manner proposed would be an

extraordinarily sweet experience. But he was no longer excitedpassionately and overwhelmingly by the

Then Laurie began to look at his religion, and at that view he stopped dead. He had no ideas at all on the

subject; he had not a notion where he stood. All he knew was that it had become uninteresting. True? Oh, yes,

he supposed so. He retained it still as many retain faith in the supernaturala reserve that could be drawn

He had not yet missed hearing Mass on Sunday; in fact, he proposed to go even next Sunday. "A man must

have a religion," he said to himself; and, intellectually, there was at present no other possible religion for him

He drew himself up in his chair and began to fill his pipe. . . . In three days he would be seated in a room with

three or four persons, he supposed. Of these, twoand certainly the two strongest charactershad no

religion except that supplied by spiritualism, and he had read enough to know this was, at any rate in the long

run, nonChristian. And these three or four persons, moreover, believed with their whole hearts that they

were in relations with the invisible world, far more evident and sensible than those claimed by any other

believers on the face of the earth. And, after all, Laurie reflected, there seemed to be justice in their claim. He

would be seated in that room, he repeated to himself, and it might be that before he left it he would have seen

with his own eyes, and possibly handled, living persons who had, in the common phrase, "died" and been

buried. Almost certainly, at the very least, he would have received from such intelligences unmistakable

He was astonished that he was not more excited. He asked himself again whether he really believed it; he

compared his belief in it with his belief in the existence of New Zealand. Yes, if that were belief, he had it.

But the excitement of doubt was gone, as no doubt it was gone when New Zealand became a geographical

He was astonished at its naturalnessat the extraordinary manner in which, when once the evidence had

been seen and the point of view grasped, the whole thing fell into place. It seemed to him as if he must have

known it all his life; yet, he knew, six months ago he had hardly known more than that there were upon the

face of the earth persons called Spiritualists, who believed, or pretended to believe, what he then was quite

He was being drawn forward, it seemed, by a process as inevitable as that of spring or autumn; and, once he

had yielded to it, the conflict and the excitement were over. Certainly this made very few demands.

Christianity said that those were blessed who had not seen and yet believed; Spiritualism said that the only

Once or twice that evening he looked round him tranquilly without a touch of that terror that had seized him

If all this were trueand he repeated to himself that he knew it was truethese presences were about him

He looked carefully into the dark corner behind him, beyond the low jutting bookshelf, in the angle between

the curtained windows, at his piano, glossy and mysterious in the gloom, at the door halfopen into his

bedroom. All was quiet here, shut off from the hum of Fleet Street; circumstances were propitious. Why was

he not frightened? . . . Why, what was there to frighten him? These presences were natural and normal; even

as a Catholic he believed in them. And if they manifested themselves, what was there to fear in that?

He looked steadily and serenely; and as he looked, like the kindling of a fire, there rose within him a sense of

Laurie smiled a little, wearily. He felt tired; he would sleep a little. He beat out his pipe, crossed his feet

There followed that smooth rush into gulfs of sleep that provides perhaps the most exquisite physical

sensation known to man, as the veils fall thicker and softer every instant, and the consciousness gathers itself

inwards from hands and feet and limbs, like a dog curling himself up for rest; yet retains itself in continuous

being, and is able to regard its own comfort. All this he remembered perfectly half an hour later; but there

followed in his memory that inevitable gap in which self loses itself before emerging into the phantom land

But that into which he emerged, he remembered afterwards, was a different realm altogether from that which

is usual from that country of grotesque fancy and jumbled thoughts, of thin shadows of truth and echoes

He was still in his room, he thought, but no longer in his chair. Instead, he stood in the very centre of the

floor, or at least poised somewhere above it, for he could see at a glance, without turning, all that the room

contained. He directed his attentionfor it was this, rather than sight, through which he perceivedto the

piano, the chiffonier, the chairs, the two doors, the curtained windows; and finally, with scarcely even a touch

of surprise, to himself still sunk in the chair before the fire. He regarded himself with pleased interest,

remembering even in that instant that he had never before seen himself with closed eyes. . . .

All in the room was extraordinarily vivid and clearcut. It was true that the firelight still wavered and sank

again in billows of soft colour about the shadowed walls, but the changing light was no more an interruption

to the action of that steady medium through which he perceived than the movement of summer clouds across

the full sunlight. It was at that moment that he understood that he saw no longer with eyes, but with that

faculty of perception to which sight is only analogousthat faculty which underlies and is common to all the

His reasoning powers, too, at this moment, seemed to have gone from him like a husk. He did not argue or

deduce; simply he understood. And, in a flash, simultaneous with the whole vision, he perceived that he was

behind all the slow processes of the world, by which this is added to that, and a conclusion drawn; by which

light travels, and sounds resolve themselves and emotions run their course. He had reached, he thought, the

Now it is impossible to set down, except progressively, all this sum of experiences that occupied for him one

interminable instant. Neither did he remember afterwards the order in which they presented themselves; for it

But he understood plainly by intuition that all was open to him. Space no longer existed for him; nothing, to

his perception, separated this from that. He was able, he saw, without stirring from his attitude to see in an

instant any place or person towards which he chose to exercise his attention. It seemed a marvellously simple

point, thisthat space was little more than an illusion; that it was, after all, nothing else but a translation into

rather coarse terms of what may be called "differences." "Here" and "There" were but relative terms; certainly

they corresponded to facts, but they were not those facts themselves. . . . And since he now stood behind them

he saw them on their inner side, as a man standing in the interior of a globe may be said to be equally present

The fascination of the thought was enormous; and, like a child who begins to take notice and to learn the laws

of extension and distance, so he began to learn their reverse. He saw, he thought (as he had seen once before,

only, this time, without the sense of movement), the interior of the lighted drawingroom at home, and his

mother nodding in her chair; he directed his attention to Maggie, and perceived her passing across the landing

toward the head of the stairs with a candle in her hand. It was this sight that brought him to a further

discovery, to the effect that time also was of very nearly no importance either; for he perceived that by

bending his attention upon her he could restrain her, so to speak, in her movement. There she stood, one foot

outstretched, the candle flame leaning motionless backward; and he knew too that it was not she who was

thus restrained, but that it was the intensity and directness of his thought that fixed, so to say, in terms of

So it went on; or, rather, so it was with him. He pleased himself by contemplating the London streets outside,

the darkness of the garden in some square, the interior of the Oratory where a few figures kneeledall seen

beyond the movements of light and shadow in this clear invisible radiance that was to his perception as

common light to common eyes. The world of which he had had experiencefor he found himself unable to

see that which he had never experiencedlay before his will like a movable map: this or that person or place

He understood that he wished to awake, or, rather, to be reunited with the body that lay there in deep sleep

before the fire. He observed it for a moment or two, interested and pleased, the face sunk a little on the hand,

the feet lightly crossed on the fender. He looked at his own profile, the straight nose, the parted lips through

which the breath came evenly. He attempted even to touch the face, wondering with gentle pleasure what

Then, suddenly, an impulse came to him to enter the body, and with the impulse the process, it seemed,

That process was not unlike that of falling asleep. In an instant perception was gone; the lighted room was

gone, and that obedient world which he had contemplated just now. Yet selfconsciousness for a while

remained; he still had the power of perceiving his own personality, though this dwindled every moment down

But at the very instant in which consciousness was passing there met him an emotion so fierce and

overwhelming that he recoiled in terror back from the body once more and earth perceptions; and a panic

It was such a panic as seizes a child who, fearfully courageous, has stolen at night from his room, and turning

in halfsimulated terror finds the door fast against him, or is aware of a malignant presence come suddenly

On the one side his fear drove him onwards; on the other a Horror faced him. He dared not recoil, for he

understood where security lay; he longed, like the child screaming in the dark and beating his hands, to get

back to the warmth and safety of bed; yet there stood before him a Presence, or at the least an Emotion of

some kind, so hostile, so terrible, that he dared not penetrate it. It was not that an actual restraint lay upon

him: he knew, that is, that the door was open; yet it needed an effort of the will of which his paralysis of

And in an instant the threshold was vacated; the swift rush asserted itself, and the space was passed.

Mr. Vincent was beginning to think about going to bed. He had come in an hour before, had written half a

His rooms were not remarkable in any way, except for half a dozen objects standing on the second shelf of

his bookcase, and the selection of literature ranged below them. For the rest, all was commonplace enough; a

mahogany kneehold table, a couple of easy chairs, much worn, and a long, extremely comfortable sofa

standing by itself against the wall with evident signs, in its tumbled cushions and rubbed fabric, of continual

It was at this instant that he heard the sudden tinkle of the electric bell in the lobby outside, and, wondering at

the interruption at this hour, went quickly out and opened the door on to the stairs.

Laurie came in without a word, went straight up to the fire place, and faced about.

"I'm not going to apologise," he said, "for coming at this time. You told me to come and see you at any time,

The young man had an odd embarrassed manner, thought the other; an air of having come in spite of

"First a cigarette," he said; "next a little whisky; and then I shall be delighted to listen. . . . No; please do as I

Laurie permitted himself to be managed; there was a strong, almost paternal air in the other's manner that was

difficult to resist. He lit his cigarette, he sipped his whisky; but his movements were nervously quick.

"Well, then . . ." and he interrupted himself. "What are those things, Mr. Vincent?" He nodded towards the

He lifted down a crystal ball on a small black polished wooden stand and handed it over.

"And this," said the medium, setting a curious windmill shaped affair, its sails lined with lookingglass, on

Mr. Vincent wound a small handle at the back of the windmill to a sound of clockwork, set it down again,

and released it. Instantly the sails began to revolve, noiseless and swift, producing the effect of a rapidly

flashing circle of light across which span lines, waxing and waning with extraordinary speed.

"It's a little machine for inducing sleep. Oh! I haven't used that for months. But it's useful sometimes. The

hypnotic subject just stares at that steadily. . . . Why, you're looking dazed yourself, already, Mr. Baxter,"

The medium, with quite a different air, took down and set before him an object resembling a tiny

heartshaped table on three wheeled legs, perhaps four or five inches across. Through the centre ran a pencil

perpendicularly of which the point just touched the tablecloth on which the thing rested. Laurie looked at it,

"Yes," he said. "The experimenter puts his fingers lightly upon that, and there's a sheet of paper beneath. That

"Please sit down, Mr. Baxter. . . . I know you haven't come about that kind of thing. Will you kindly tell me

He, too, sat down, and, without looking at the other, began slowly to fill his pipe again, with his strong

"Well, I will," he said. "I know it's absurdly childish; but I'm a little frightened. It's about a dream."

For about ten minutes he talked without ceasing. Mr. Vincent smoked tranquilly, putting what seemed to

Laurie quite unimportant questions now and again, and nodding gently from time to time.

"And I'm frightened," ended Laurie; "and I want you to tell me what it all means."

The other drew a long inhalation through his pipe, expelled it, and leaned back.

"Oh, it's comparatively common," he said; "common, that is, with people of your temperament, Mr.

Baxterand mine. . . . You tell me that it was prayer that enabled you to get through at the end? That is

"Mr. Baxter, just listen to me for a minute or two. You can ask any questions you like at the end. First, you

are a Catholic, you told me; you believe, that is to say, among other things, that the spiritual world is a real

thing, always present more or less. Well, of course, I agree with you; though I do not agree with you

altogether as to the geography andand other details of that world. But you believe, I take it, that this world

is continually with usthat this room, so to speak, is a great deal more than that of which our senses tell us

that there are with us, now and always, a multitude of influences, good, bad, and indifferent, really present to

"Now begin again. There are two kinds of dreams. I am just stating my own belief, Mr. Baxter. You can

make what comments you like afterwards. The one kind of dream is entirely unimportant; it is merely a hash,

a r�chauff�e, of our own thoughts, in which little things that we have experienced reappear in a hopeless sort

of confusion. It is the kind of dream that we forget altogether, generally, five minutes after waking, if not

before. But there is another kind of dream that we do not forget. It leaves as vivid an impression upon us as if

"That is fortunate," he said. "It's being run to death just now. . . . Well, I'll put it in an untechnical way. There

is a part of us, is there not, that lies below our ordinary waking thoughtsthat part of us in which our dreams

reside, our habits take shape, our instincts, intuitions, and all the rest, are generated. Well, in ordinary dreams,

when we are asleep, it is this part that is active. The pot boils, so to speak, all by itself, uncontrolled by

reason. A madman is a man in whom this part is supreme in his waking life as well. Well, it is through this

part of us that we communicate with the spiritual world. There are, let us say, two doors in itthat which

leads up to our senses, through which come down our waking experiences to be stored up; andand the

"Well," he said, "in some naturesyours, for instance, Mr. Baxterthis door opens rather easily. It was

through that door that you went, I think, in what you call your `dream.' You yourself said it was quite unlike

"And I am the more sure that this is so, since your experience is exactly that of so many others under the

"Certainly not. At least, not a dream in the ordinary sense. It was an actual experience."

"Certainly. That is one of the usual conditionsan almost indispensable condition, in fact. The objective

selfI mean the ordinary workaday facultieswas lulled; and your subjective selfcall it what you

likebut it is your real self, the essential self that survives deaththis self, simply went through the inner

Laurie looked at him intently. But there was a touch of apprehension in his face, too.

"You mean," he said slowly, "thatthat all I sawthe limitations of space, and so forththat these were

"Who can tell that?" he said. "Why should one man be an artist, and another not? It is a matter of

temperament. You see you've begun to develop that temperament at last; and it's a very marked one to begin

"Yes, yes," he said. "But there's another point. What about that fear I had when I tried toto awaken?"

There passed over the medium's face a shade of gravity. It was no more than a shade, but it was there. He

reached out rather quickly for his pipe which he had laid aside, and blew through it carefully before

"That?" he said, with what seemed to the boy an affected carelessness. "That? Oh, that's a common

experience. Don't think about that too much, Mr. Baxter. It's never very healthy"

"I am sorry," said Laurie deliberately. "But I must ask you to tell me what you think. I must know what I'm

The medium filled his pipe again. Twice he began to speak, and checked himself; and in the long silence

"Please tell me at once, Mr. Vincent," he said. "Unless I know everything that is to be known, I will not go

"And what if I do tell you?" he said in his slow virile voice. "Are you sure you will not be turned back?"

"If it is a wellknown danger, and can be avoided with prudence, I certainly shall not turn back."

"Very well, Mr. Baxter, I will take you at your word. . . . Have you ever heard the phrase, `The Watcher on

"Well," said the medium quietly, "that is what we call the Fear you spoke of. . . . No; don't interrupt. I'll tell

He paused again, stretched his hand for the matches, and took one out. Laurie watched him as if fascinated by

Outside roared Oxford Street in one long rolling sound as of the sea; but within here was that quiet retired

silence which the boy had noticed before in the same company. Was that fancy, too, he wondered? . . .

"I'll tell you all we know," he said again quietly. "It's not very much. Really the phrase I used just now sums

it up pretty well. We who have tried to get beyond this world of sense have become aware of certain facts of

which the world generally knows nothing at all. One of these facts is that the door between this life and the

other is guarded by a certain being of whom we know really nothing at all, except that his presence causes the

most appalling fear in those who experience it. He is set thereGod only knows whyand his main

business seems to be to restrain, if possible, from reentering the body those who have left it. Just

occasionally his presence is perceived by those on this side, but not often. But I have been present at

"Oh! yes. Seen by the dying person. It is usually only a glimpse; it might be said to be a mistake. For myself I

believe that that appalling terror that now and then shows itself, even in people who do not fear death itself,

who are perfectly resigned, who have nothing on their conscience,well, personally, I believe the fear

Laurie licked his dry lips. He told himself that he did not believe one word of it.

"Isn't that a relative term?" he said. "From one point of view, certainly; but not necessarily from all."

"That's a question we soon cease to ask. You must remember that we hardly know anything at all yet. But one

thing seems more and more certain the more we investigate, and that is that our point of view is not the only

one, nor even the principal one. Christianity, I fancy, says the same thing, does it not? The `glory of God,'

"Ah! that is another question. . . . But, in short, if you hadn't succeeded in getting pastwell, you'd have

It seemed to Laurie as if his world were falling about him. Yet he was far from sure whether it were not all an

illusion. But the extreme quietness and confidence of this man in enunciating these startling theories had their

effect. It was practically impossible for the boy to sit here, still nervous from his experience, and hear,

unmoved, this apparently reasonable and connected account of things that were certainly incomprehensible

on any other hypothesis. His remembrance of the very startling uniqueness of his dream was still vivid. . . .

"But there is one thing," broke in the medium's quiet voice. "Should you ever experience this kind of thing

again, I should recommend you not to pray. Just exercise your own individuality; assert yourself; don't lean

"I mean exactly what I say. What is called Prayer is really an imaginative concession to weakness. Take the

"Oh! pray if you want to," said the medium. "But you must remember, Mr. Baxter, that you are quite an

exceptional person. I assure you that you have no conception of your own powers. I must say that I hope you

will take the strong line." He paused. "These s�ances, for instance. Now that you know a little more of the

His overhung kindly eyes looked out keenly for an instant at the boy's restless face.

"Look here, Mr. Vincent," he said, "it seems to me you're extraordinarilyerextraordinarily plausible. But

I'm even now not quite sure whether I'm not going mad. It's like a perfectly mad dreamall these things one

"You see what I mean, don't you?" he said. "I'm not disputing eryour point of view, nor your sincerity.

"Oh! I suppose I haveif I were reasonable. But, you know, it all seems to me as if you suddenly

"Yes; I know. I quite see that. Yet I want onesomething quite absolutely ordinary. If you can do all these

things spirits and all the restcan't you do something ever so much simpler, that's beyond mistake?"

On the little table by the armchair, a couple of feet from Laurie, stood the whisky apparatus and a box of

cigarettes. These the medium, without moving from his chair, lifted off and set on the floor beside him,

leaving the wovengrass surface of the table entirely bare. He then laid the pencil gently in the centreall

"Now kindly do not speak one word or make one movement," said the man peremptorily. "Wait! You're

"Just go round the room, look out of the window, poke the fireanything you like."

The medium leaned a little forward in his chair, bending his eyes steadily upon the little wooden cylinder

lying, like any other pencil, on the top of the table. Laurie glanced once at him, then back again. There it lay,

For at least a minute nothing happened at all, except that from the intentness of the elder man there seemed

once more to radiate out that curious air of silence that Laurie was beginning to know so wellthat silence

that seemed impenetrable to the common sounds of the world and to exist altogether independent of them.

Once and again he glanced round at the ordinarylooking room, the curtained windows, the dull furniture;

and the second time he looked back at the pencil he was almost certain that some movement had just taken

place with it. He resolutely fixed his eyes upon it, bending every faculty he possessed into one tense attitude

of attention. And a moment later he could not resist a sudden movement and a swift indrawing of breath; for

there, before his very eyes, the pencil tilted, very hesitatingly and quiveringly, as if pulled by a spider's

He glanced at the medium, who jerked his head impatiently, as if for silence. Then once more the silence

There before the boy's eyes, as he stared, whitefaced, with parted lips, the pencil rose, hesitated, quivered;

but, instead of falling back again, hung so for a moment on its point, forming with itself an acute angle with

the plane of the table in an entirely impossible position; then, once more rising higher, swung on its point in a

quarter circle, and after one more pause and quiver, rose to its full height, remained poised one instant, then

"Yes, I know," said the man. "It's startling, isn't it? and indeed it's not as easy as it looks. I wasn't at all

Laurie sat down suddenly, unconscious that he had done so. The medium put out his hand for his pipe once

"Now, I'm going to be quite honest," he said. "I have quite a quantity of comments to make on that. First, it

"Certainly. . . . Oh, yes; I saw it too; and there's the pencil on the floor"he stooped and picked it up.

"But what if we were both hypnotisedboth acted upon by selfsuggestion? We can't prove we weren't."

"Secondly, it doesn't prove anything, in any case, as regards the other matters we were speaking of. It only

showsif it really happened, as I saythat the mind has extraordinary control over matter. It hasn't

"Merely fireworks . . . only to show off. People are convinced by such queer things."

Laurie sat regarding, still with an unusual pallor in his face and brightness in his eyes. He could not in the last

degree put into words why it was that the tiny incident of the pencil affected him so profoundly. Vaguely,

only, he perceived that it was all connected somehow with the ordinariness of the accessories, and more

impressive therefore than all the paraphernalia of planchette, spinning mirrors, or even his own dreams.

"It's no good, Mr. Vincent," he said, putting out his hand, "I'm knocked over. I can't imagine why. It's no use

"HER ladyship told me to show you in here, sir," said the footman at halfpast eight on Sunday evening.

The table was still littered with dessertplates and napkins. Two people had dined there he observed. He went

round to the fire, wondering vaguely as to why he had not been shown upstairs, and stood, warming his hands

In spite of himself he felt slightly more excited than he had thought he would be; it was one thing to be

philosophical at a prospect of three days' distance; and another when the gates of death actually rise in sight.

He wondered in what mood he would see his own rooms again. Then he yawned slightlyand was a little

"Forgive me, Mr. Baxter," she said. "I wanted to have just a word with you first. Please sit down a moment."

She seemed a little anxious and upset, thought Laurie, as he sat down and looked at her in her evening dress

with the emblematic chain more apparent than ever. Her frizzed hair sat as usual on the top of her head, and

"It is this," she said hurriedly. "I felt I must just speak to you. I wasn't sure whether you quite realised the . . .

the dangers of all this. I didn't want you to . . . to run any risks in my house. I should feel responsible, you

"Oh . . . you know . . . nerves, and so on. I . . . I have seen people very much upset at s�ances, more than

"I don't think you need be afraid, Lady Laura. It's awfully kind of you; but, do you know, I'm ashamed to say

"Oh yes, I believe it; but, you know, it seems to me so natural now. Even if nothing happens tonight, I don't

"It's very awful," she said; "but, you know, people's nerves do break down entirely sometimes, even though

"Itit was a very awful case. A girla sensitivebroke down altogether under the strain. She's in an

"I don't think that's likely for me," said Laurie, with a touch of humour in his voice. "And, after all, you run

"Well, even I feel sometimes rather overcome. . . . Mr. Baxter, do you quite realise what it all means?"

"Yes; but the thing itself is really overwhelming. . . . There'sthere's an extraordinary power sometimes.

"I saw him too, you know. . . . Oh! there was no possibility of fraud. It was with Mr. Vincent. Itit was

"Maud fainted. . . . Please don't tell her I told you, Mr. Baxter; she wouldn't like you to know that. And then

other things happen sometimes which aren't nice. Do you think me a great coward? II think I've got a fit of

"I think you're very kind," he said, "to take the trouble to tell me all this. But indeed I was quite ready to be

"Mr. Baxter, you can't understand unless you've experienced it. And, you know, the other day here you knew

nothing at all: you were not conscious. Now tonight you're to keep awake; Mr. Vincent's going to arrange to

"Mr. Baxter, I suppose you realise that it's you that they whoever they areare interested in? There's no

kind of doubt that you'll be the centre tonight. And I did just want you to understand fully that there are

"I understand perfectly," he said. "Certainly, I always knew there were risks. I hold myself responsible, and

The wire of the frontdoor bell suddenly twitched in the hall, and a peal came up the stairs.

"He's come," said the other. "Come upstairs, Mr. Baxter. Please don't say a word of what I've said."

She hurried out, and he after her, as the footman came up from the lower regions.

The drawingroom presented an unusual appearance to Laurie as he came in. All the small furniture had been

moved away to the side where the windows looked into the street, and formed there what looked like an

amateur barricade. In the centre of the room, immediately below the electric light, stood a solid small round

table with four chairs set round it as if for Bridge. There was on the side further from the street a kind of

anteroom communicating with the main room by a high, wide archway nearly as large as the room to which

it gave access; and within this, full in sight, stood a curious erection, not unlike a confessional, seated within

for one, roofed, walled, and floored with thin wood. The front of this was open, but screened partly by two

curtains that seemed to hang from a rod within. The rest of the little extra room was entirely empty except for

There were two persons standing rather disconsolately on the vacant hearthrugMrs. Stapleton and the

clergyman whom Laurie had met on his last visit here. Mr. jamieson wore an expression usually associated

He was in evening clothes; and, more than ever, Laurie thought how average and conventional he looked. His

manner was not in the least pontifical, and he shook hands cordially and naturally, but gave one quick glance

"It struck me as extraordinarily cold," he said. "I see you have an excellent fire." And he stooped, rubbing his

"First, I must ask you gentlemen to give me your word on a certain point. I have not an idea how things will

go, or whether we shall get any results; but we are going to attempt materialisation. Probably, in any case,

this will not go very far; we may not be able to do more than to see some figure or face. But in any case, I

want you two gentlemen to give me your word that you will attempt no violence. Anything in the nature of

seizing the figure may have very disastrous results indeed to myself. You understand that what you will see,

if you see anything, will not be actual flesh or blood; it will be formed of a certain matter of which we

understand very little at present, but which is at any rate intimately connected with myself or with someone

present. Really we know no more of it than that. We are all of us inquirers equally. Now will you gentlemen

give me your words of honour that you will obey me in this; and that in all other matters you will follow the

directions of . . . (he glanced at the two ladies)"of Mrs. Stapleton, and do nothing without her consent?

He spoke in a brisk, matteroffact way, and looked keenly from face to face of the two men as he ended.

"Now there is one matter more," went on the medium. "Mr. Baxter, you are aware that you are a sensitive of a

very high order. Now I do not wish you to pass into trance tonight. Kindly keep your attention fixed upon

me steadily. Watch me closely: you will be able to see me quite well enough, as I shall explain presently.

Mrs. Stapleton will sit with her back to the fire, Lady Laura opposite, Mr. Jamieson with his back to the

cabinet, and you, Mr. Baxter, facing it. (Yes, Mr. Jamieson, you may turn round freely, so long as you keep

your hands upon the table.) Now, if you feel anything resembling sleep or unconsciousness coming upon you

irresistibly, Mr. Baxter, I wish you just lightly to tap Mrs. Stapleton's hand. She will then, if necessary, break

up the circle. Give the signal directly you feel the sensation is really coming on, or if you find it very difficult

"By the way, I may as well just tell you our methods. I shall take my place within the cabinet, drawing the

curtains partly across at the top so as to shade my face. But you will be able to see the whole of my body, and

probably even my face as well, You four will please to sit at the table in the order I have indicated, with your

hands resting upon it. You will not speak unless you are spoken to, or until Mrs. Stapleton gives the signal.

That is all. You then wait. Now it may be ten minutes, half an hour, an houranything up to two hours

before anything happens. If there is no result, Mrs. Stapleton will break up the circle at eleven o'clock, and

"Kindly just examine the cabinet and the whole room first, gentlemen. We mediums must protect ourselves."

Laurie went straight across the open floor to the cabinet. It was raised on four feet, about twelve inches from

the ground. Heavy green curtains hung from a bar within. Laurie took these, and ran them to and fro; then he

went into the cabinet. It was entirely empty except for a single board that formed the seat. As he came out he

encountered the awestruck face of the clergyman who had followed him in dead silence, and now went into

the cabinet after him. Laurie passed round behind: the little room was empty except for the piano at the back,

and two low bookshelves on either side of the fireless hearth. The window looking presumably into the

garden was shuttered from top to bottom, and barred, and the curtains were drawn back so that it could be

seen. A cat could not have hidden in the place. It was all perfectly satisfactory.

He came back to where the others were standing silent, and the clergyman followed him.

He indicated the chairs, and himself went past towards the cabinet, his heavy step making the room vibrate as

he went. As he came near the door, he fumbled with the button, and all the lights but one went out.

The four sat down. Laurie watched Mr. Vincent step up into the cabinet, jerk the curtains this way and that,

and at last sit easily back, in such a way that his face could be seen in a kind of twilight, and the rest of his

The cat of the next house decided to go awalking after an excellent supper of herringheads. He had an

appointment with a friend. So he cleaned himself carefully on the landing outside the pantry, evaded a couple

of caresses from the young footman lately come from the country, and finally leapt on the window sill, and

sat there regarding the back garden, the smoky wall beyond seen in the light of the pantry window, and the

chimney pots high and forbidding against the luminous night sky. His tail moved with a soft ominous

Presently he climbed cautiously out beneath the sash, gathered himself for a spring, and the next instant was

Here again he paused. That which served him for a mind, that mysterious bundle of intuitions and instincts by

which he reckoned time, exchanged confidences, and arranged experiences, informed him that the night was

yet young, and that his friend would not yet be arrived. He sat there so still and so long, that if it had not been

for his resolute head and the blunt spires of his ears, he would have appeared to an onlooker below as no

more than a humpy finial on an otherwise regularly built wall. Now and again the last inch of his tail twitched

Overhead the last glimmer of day was utterly gone, and in the place of it the mysterious glow of night over a

city hung high and luminous. He, a townbred cat, descended from generations of townbred cats, listened

passively to the gentle roar of traffic that stood, to him, for the running of brooks and the sighing of forest

trees. It was to him the auditory background of adventure, romance, and bitter war.

The energy of life ran strong in his veins and sinews. Once and again as that, which was for him imaginative

vision and anticipation, asserted itself, he crisped his strong claws into the crumbling mortar, shooting them,

by an unconscious muscular action, from the padded sheaths in which they lay. Once a furious yapping

sounded from a lighted window far beneath; but he scorned to do more than turn a slow head in the direction

The time came at last, conveyed to him as surely as by a punctual clock, and he rose noiselessly to his feet.

Then again he paused, and stretched first one strong foreleg and then the other to its furthest reach, shooting

again his claws, conscious with a faint sense of wellbeing of those tightlystrung muscles rippling beneath

his loose striped skin. They would be in action presently. And, as he did so, there looked over the parapet six

feet above him, at the top of the trellis up which presently he would ascend, another resolute little head and

bluntspired cars, and a soft indescribable voice spoke a gentle insult. It was his friend . . . and, he knew well

enough, on some high ridge in the background squatted a young female beauty, with flattened ears and

As he saw the head above him, to human eyes a shapeless silhouette, to his eyes a greypencilled picture

perfect in all its details, he paused in his stretching. Then he sat back, arranged his tail, and lifted his head to

answer. The cry that came from him, not yet fortissimo, sounded in human ears beneath no more than a soft

brokenhearted wail, but to him who sat above it surpassed in insolence even his own carefully modulated

Again the other answered, this time lifting himself to his full height, sending a message along the nerves of

his back that prickled his own skin and passed out along the tail with an exquisite ripple of movement. And

So the preliminary challenge went on. Already in the voice of each there had begun to show itself that faint

note of hysteria that culminates presently in a scream of anger and a torrent of spits, leading again in their

turn to an ominous silence and the first fierce clawing blows at eyes and ears. In another instant the watcher

above would recoil for a moment as the swift rush was made up the trellis, and then the battle would be

joined: but that instant never came. There fell a sudden silence; and he, peering down into the grey gloom,

chin on paws, and tail twitching eighteen inches behind, saw an astonishing sight. His adversary had broken

off in the midst of a long crescendo cry, and was himself crouched flat upon the narrow wall staring now not

upwards, but downwards, diagonally, at a certain curtained window eight feet below.

This was all very unusual and contrary to precedent. A dog, a human hand armed with a missile, a furious

minatory face these things were not present to account for the breach of etiquette. Vaguely he perceived

this, conscious only of inexplicability; but he himself also ceased, and watched for developments.

Very slowly they came at first. That crouching body beneath was motionless now; even the tail had ceased to

twitch and hung limply behind, dripping over the edge of the narrow wall into the unfathomable pit of the

garden; and as the watcher stared, he felt himself some communication of the horror so apparent in the other's

attitude. Along his own spine, from neck to flank, ran the paralysing nervous movement; his own tail ceased

to move; his own ears drew back instinctively, flattening themselves at the sides of the square strong head.

There was a movement near by, and he turned quick eyes to see the lithe young love of his heart stepping

Yet he still watched. Still there was no sound from the window at which the other had stared just now: no

oblong of light shone out into the darkness to explain that sudden withdrawal from the fray.

All was as silent as it had been just now; on all sides windows were closed; now and then came a human

voice, just a word or two, spoken and answered from one of those pits beneath, and the steady rumble of

traffic went on far away across the roofs; but here, in the immediate neighbourhood, all was at peace. He

knew well enough the window in question; he had leapt himself upon the sill once and again and seen the

Yet as he watched and waited his own horror grew. That for which in men we have as yet no term was strong

within him, as in every beast that lives by perception rather than reason; and he too by this strange faculty

knew well enough that something was abroad, raying out from that silent curtained unseen window

something of an utterly different order from that of dog or flung shoe and furious vituperationsomething

that affected certain nerves within his body in a new and awful manner. Once or twice in his life he had been

conscious of it before, once in an empty room, once in a room tenanted by a mere outline beneath a sheet and

His heart too seemed melted within him; his tail too hung limply behind the stucco parapet, and he made no

Presently he withdrew one claw from the crumbling edge, raising his head delicately; and then the other. For

an instant longer he waited, feeling his back heave uncontrollably. Then, dropping noiselessly on to the lead,

he fled beneath the sheltering parapet, a noiseless shadow in the gloom; and his mate fled with him.

LAURIE turned slowly over in bed, drew a long breath, expelled it, and, releasing his arms from the

bedclothes, sat up. He switched on the light by his bed, glanced at his watch, switched off the light, and

When an event of an entirely new order comes into experience, it takes a little time to be assimilated. It is as

when a large piece of furniture is brought into a room; all the rest of the furniture takes upon itself a different

value. A picture that did very well up to then over the fireplace must perhaps be moved. Values, relations,

Now up to last night Laurie had indeed been convinced, in one sense, of spiritualistic phenomena; but they

had not yet for him reached the point of significance when they affected everything else. The new sideboard,

so to speak, had been brought into the room, but it had been put temporarily against the wall in a vacant space

to be looked at; the owner of the room had not yet realised the necessity of rearranging the whole. But last

night something had happened that changed all this. He was now beginning to perceive the need of a

As he lay there, quiet indeed, but startlingly alert, he first reviewed the single fact.

About an hour or so had passed away before anything particular happened. They had sat there, those four, in

complete silence, their hands upon the table, occasionally shifting a little, hearing the sound of one another's

breathing or the faint rustle of one of the ladies' dresses, in sufficient light from the screened fire and the

single heavily shaded electric burner to recognise faces, and even, after the first few minutes, to distinguish

For the most part Laurie had kept his eyes upon the medium in the cabinet. There the man had leaned back,

plainly visible for the most part, with even the paleness of his face and the dark blot of his beard clearly

discernible in the twilight. Now and then the boy's eyes had wandered to the other faces, to the young

clergyman's opposite downcast and motionless, with a sort of apprehensive look and a determination not to

give way to the threequarter profiles of the two women, and the gleam of the pincenez below Lady

So he had sat, the thoughts at first racing through his brain, then, as time went on, moving more and more

slowly, with his own brain becoming ever more passive, until at last he had been compelled to make a little

effort against the drowsiness that had begun to envelop him. He had had to do this altogether three or four

times, and had even begun to wonder whether he should be able to resist much longer, when a sudden

trembling of the table had awakened him, alert and conscious in a moment, and he had sat with every faculty

That trembling was a curious sensation beneath his hands. At first it was no more than might be caused by the

passing of a heavy van in the street; only there was no van. But it had increased, with spasms and recoils, till

it resembled a continuous shudder as of a living rigid body. It began also to tilt slightly this way and that.

Now all this, Laurie knew well, meant nothing at allor rather, it need not. And when the movement passed

again through all the reverse motions, sinking at last into complete stillness, he was conscious of

disappointment. A moment later, however, as he glanced up again at the medium in the cabinet, he drew his

breath sharply, and Mr. Jamieson, at the sound, wheeled his head swiftly to look.

There, in the cabinet, somewhere overhead behind the curtain, a faint but perfectly distinct radiance was

visible. It was no more than a diffused glimmer, but it was unmistakable, and it shone out faintly and clearly

upon the medium's face. By its light Laurie could make out every line and every feature, the drooping clipped

moustache, the strong jutting nose, the lines from nostril to mouth, and the closed eyes. As he watched the

light deepened in intensity, seeming to concentrate itself in the hidden corner at the top. Then, with a smooth,

steady motion it emerged into full sight, in appearance like a softly luminous globe of a pale bluish colour,

undefined at the edges, floating steadily forward with a motion like that of an air balloon, out into the room.

Once outside the cabinet it seemed to hesitate, hanging at about the height of a man's headthen, after an

instant, it retired once more, reentered the cabinet, disappeared in the direction from which it had come, and

Well, there it had been; there was no doubt about it. . . . And Laurie was unacquainted with any mechanism

The clergyman too had seemed affected. He had watched, with turnedback head, the phenomenon from

beginning to end, and at the close, with a long indrawing of breath, had looked once at Laurie, licked his dry

lips with a motion that was audible in that profound silence, and once more dropped his eyes. The ladies had

Once more, after the lapse of a few minutes, the radiance had begun to reform; but this time it had emerged

almost immediately, diffused and misty like a nebula; had hung again before the cabinet, and then, with a

strange, gently whirling motion, had seemed to arrange itself in lines and curves.

Gradually, as he stared at it, it had begun to take the shape and semblance of a head, swathed in drapery, with

that same drapery, hanging, as it appeared in folds, dripping downwards to the ground, where it lost itself in

vagueness. Then, as he still stared, conscious of nothing but the amazing fact, features appeared to be

formingfirst blots and lines as of shadow, finally eyes, nose, mouth, and chin as of a young girl. . . .

A moment later there was no longer a doubt. It was the face of Amy Nugent that was looking at him, grave

and steadyas when he had seen it in the moonlight above the sluiceand behind, seen half through the

strange drapery, and half apart from it, a couple of feet behind, the face of the sleeping medium.

At that sight he had not moved nor spoken. it was enough that the fact was there. Every power he possessed

He heard from somewhere a gasping sigh, and there rose up between him and the face the figure of the

clergyman, with his head turned back staring at the apparition, and one hand only on the table, yet with that

When the clergyman had again sunk down into his seat with that same strong shudder, the luminous face was

already incoherent; the features had relapsed again into blots and shadows, the drapery was absorbing itself

upwards into the centre from which it came. Once more the nebula trembled, moved backwards, and

disappeared. The next instant the radiance went out, as if turned off by a switch. The medium groaned gently

Well, that had ended it. Laurie scarcely remembered the talking that followed, the explanations, the

apologies, the hardly concealed terror of the young clergyman. The medium had come out presently, dazed

and confused. They had talked . . . and so forth. Then Laurie had come home, still trying to assimilate the

amazing fact, of which he said that it could make no differencethat he had seen with his own eyes the face

Now here he was in bed on the following morning, trying to assimilate it once more.

It seemed to him as if sleep had done its workthat the subconscious intelligence had been able to take the

fact in and that henceforth it was an established thing in his experience. He was not excited now, but he

was intensely and overwhelmingly interested. There the thing was. Now what difference did it make?

First, he understood that it made an enormous difference to the value of the most ordinary things. It really

was trueas true as tables and chairsthat there was a life after this, and that personality survived. Never

again could he doubt that for one instant, even in the gloomiest mood. So long as a man walks by faith, by the

acceptance of authority, human or Divine, there is always psychologically possible the assertion of self, the

instinct that what one has not personally experienced may just conceivably be untrue. But when one has

seenso long as memory does not disappearthis agnostic instinct is an impossibility. Every single act

therefore has a new significance. There is no venture about it any more; there is, indeed, very little

opportunity for heroism. Once it is certain, by the evidence of the senses, that death is just an interlude, this

Now as to the conduct of that lifewhat of religion? And here, for a moment or two, Laurie was genuinely

dismayed. For, as he looked at the Catholic religion, he perceived that the whole thing had changed. It no

longer seemed august and dominant. As he contemplated himself as he had been at Mass on the previous

morning, he seemed to have been rather absurd. Why all this trouble, all this energy, all these innumerable

acts and efforts of faith? It was not that his religion seemed necessarily untrue; it was certainly possible for a

man to hold simultaneously Catholic and spiritualistic beliefs; there had not been a hint last night against

Christianity, and yet, in the face of this evidence of the senses, Catholicism seemed a very shadowy thing. It

might well be true, as any philosophy may be true, butdid it matter very much? To be enthusiastic about it

was the frenzy of an artist, who loves the portrait more than the originaland possibly a very misleading and

inadequate portrait. Laurie had seen for himself the original last night; he had seen a disembodied soul in a

garb assumed for the purpose of identification. . . . Did he need, then, a "religion?" Was not his experience

Then suddenly all speculation fled away in the presence of the personal element.

Three days ago he had contemplated the thought of Amy with comparative indifference. She had been to him

lately little more than a "test case" of the spiritual world, clothed about with the memory of sentiment. Now

once more she sprang into vivid vital life as a person. She was not lost; his relations with her were not just

incidents of the past; they were as much bound up with the present as courtship has a continuity with married

life. She existedher very selfand communication was possible between them. . . .

Laurie rolled over on to his back. The thought was violently overwhelming; there was a furious, absorbing

fascination in it. The gulf had been bridged; it could be bridged again. Even if tales were true, it could be

bridged far more securely yet. It was possible that the phantom he had seen could be brought yet more

forward into the world of sense, that he could touch again with his very hand a tabernacle enclosing her soul.

So far spiritualism had not failed him; why should he suspect it of failure in the future? It had been done

before; it could, and should, be done again. Besides, there was the pencil incident. . . .

He threw off the clothes and sprang out of bed. It was time to get up; time to begin again this fascinating,

absorbingly interesting earthly life, which now had such enormous possibilities.

The rooms of Mr. James Morton were conveniently situated up four flights of stairs in one of those blocks of

buildings, so mysterious to the layman, that lie not a very long way from Charing Cross. There is a silence

always here as of college life, and the place is frequented by the same curious selections from the human race

as haunt University courts. Here are to be seen cooks, aged and dignified men, errandboys, and rather

The interior of the rooms, too, is not unlike that of an ordinary rather secondrate college; and Mr. James

Morton's taste did not redeem the chambers in which he sat. From roof to floor the particular apartment in

which he sat was lined with bookshelves filled with unprepossessing volumes and large black tin boxes. A

large table stood in the middle of the room, littered with papers, with bulwarks of the same kind of tin boxes

Mr. Morton himself was a squarebuilt man of some forty years, cleanshaven, and rather pale and stout,

with strongly marked features, a good loud voice, and the pleasant, brusque manners that befit a University

Laurie and he got on excellently together. The younger man had an admiration for the older, whose reputation

as a rather distinguished barrister certainly deserved it, and was sufficiently in awe of him to pay attention to

his directions in all matters connected with law. But they did not meet much on other planes. Laurie had

asked the other down to Stantons once, and had dined with him three or four times in return. And there their

This morning, however, the boy's interested air, with its hints of suppressed excitement and his marked

inattention to the books and papers which were his business, at last caused the older man to make a remark. It

"Oh!ernothing particular," he murmured. And he set himself down to his books again in silence,

About halfpast twelve Mr. Morton shut his own book with a slap, leaned back, and began to fill his pipe.

As the last uttered word had been spoken an hour previously, Laurie was bewildered, and looked it.

"It won't do, Baxter," went on the other. "You haven't turned a page an hour this morning."

Laurie smiled doubtfully, and leaned back too. Then he had a spasm of confidence.

The other got up with an abrupt movement, pushed his books together, selected a hat, and put it on.

Then he began. He described carefully his experiences of the night before, explaining so much as was

necessary of antecedent events. The other during the course of it tilted his hat back, and half leaned, half sat

against a sidetable, watching the boy at first with a genial contempt, and finally with the same curious

"Of course, if you take it like that," he said. "But I don't know what respect you can possibly have for any

"My dear chap, that isn't evidence. No evidence in the world could make me believe that the earth was upside

"I don't explain," said Mr. Morton. "The thing's simply not worth looking into. If you really saw that, you're

"No, indeed you're not. . . . Look here, Baxter, that sort of thing plays the devil with nerves. Just drop it once

and for all. I knew a chap once who went in for all that. Well, the end was what everybody knew would

"Went off his chump," said the other briefly. "Nasty mess all over the floor. Now come to lunch."

"Wait a second. You can't argue from particulars to universals. Was he the only one you ever knew?"

"No," he said. "As it happens, he wasn't. I knew another chap he's a solicitor. . . . Oh! by the way, he's one

"Oh! he's all right," admitted Mr. Morton, with a grudging air. "But he gave it up and took to religion

Laurie was far too exalted to be much depressed by this counsel's opinion; and had, indeed, several minutes

of delightful meditation on the crass complacency of a clever man when taken off his ground. It was

deplorable, he said to himself, that men should be so content with their limitations. But it was always the

way, he reflected. To be a specialist in one point involved the pruning of all growth on every other. Here was

Morton, almost in the front rank of his particular subject, and, besides, very far from being a bookworm; yet,

when taken an inch out of his rut, he could do nothing but flounder. He wondered what Morton would make

In the course of the afternoon Morton himself turned up again. The case had ended unexpectedly soon. Laurie

waited till the closing of the shutters offered an opportunity for a break in the work, and once more returned

"Lord!" he said, "I thought we'd done with that. No, thank you: Egyptian Hall's all I need."

"Look here, Baxter," said the other almost kindly, "I advise you to give this up. It plays the very devil with

nerves, as I told you. Why, you're as jumpy as a cat yourself. And it isn't worth it. If there was anything in it,

"I . . . I wouldn't give it up for all the world," stammered Laurie in his zeal. "You simply don't know what

you're talking about. Why . . . why, I'm not a fool . . . I know that. And do you think I'm ass enough to be

taken in by a trick? And as if a trick could be played like that in a drawingroom! I tell you I examined every

"Look here," said Morton, looking curiously at the boyfor there was something rather impressive about

Laurie's manner "look here; you'd better see old Cathcart. Know him? . . . Well, I'll introduce you any

time. He'll tell you another tale. Of course, I don't believe all the rot he talks; but, at any rate, he's sensible

enough to have given it all up. Says he wouldn't touch it with a pole. And he was rather a big bug at it in his

"Got frightened, I suppose," he said. "Of course, I know well enough that it's rather startling"

"My dear man, he was in the thick of it for ten years. I'll acknowledge his stories are hairraising, if one

"Find him there," he said. "I'll give you an introduction if you want it. Though, mind you, I think he talks as

Mr. Morton was indeed, as Laurie had reflected, extraordinarily uninterested in things outside his beat; and

his beat was not a very extended one. He was a quite admirable barrister, competent, alert, merciless and

kindly at the proper times, and, while at his business, thought of hardly anything else at all. And when he was

not at his business, he threw himself with equal zest into two or three other occupations golf, dining out,

and the collection of a particular kind of chairs. Beyond these things there was for him really nothing of

But, owing to circumstances, his beat had been further extended to include Laurie Baxter, whom he was

beginning to like extremely. There was an air of romance about Laurie, a pleasant enthusiasm, excellent

manners, and a rather delightful faculty of heroworship. Mr. Morton himself, too, while possessing nothing

even resembling a religion, was, like many other people, not altogether unattracted towards those who had,

though he thought religiousness to be a sign of a slightly incompetent character; and he rather liked Laurie's

Catholicism, such as it was. It must be rather pleasant, he considered (when he considered it at all), to believe

So this new phase of Laurie's interested him far more than he would have allowed, so soon as he became

aware that it was not merely superficial; and, indeed, Laurie's constant return to the subject, as well as his air

Further, after a week or two, he became aware that the young man's work was suffering; and he heard from

his lips the expression of certain views that seemed to the elder man extremely unhealthy.

For example, on a Friday evening, not much afterwards, as Laurie was putting his books together, Mr.

"Oh! I'm going to my brother's cottage. Care to come? Afraid there's no Catholic church near."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Laurie. "Nothanks awfully, but I've got to stop in town."

"Look here," he said, "I know you don't mean anything; but I wish you'd understand."

"Do you understand," he said, "that this is just everything to me? Do you know it's beginning to seem to me

just the only thing that matters? I'm quite aware that you think it all the most utter bunkum; but, you see, I

know it's true. And the whole thing is just like heaven opening. . . . Look here . . . I didn't tell you half the

other day. The fact is, that I was just as much in love with this girl asas a man could be. She died; and

"And then this girl writes through my hand," said Laurie deliberately, "when I'm unconscious. See?"

"Of course it's all rot! Do you think I believe for one instant" He broke off. "And so's a nervous

"I tell you," he said, "that it's all the world to me. And so would it be to you, if"

Morton rose, put his pens in the drawer, locked it; slid half a dozen papers into a black tin box, locked that

"Who? Vincent? Oh! another month yet. We're going to have another try when he comes."

"A young fool," he said. "I repeat it. . . . Lock up when you come. . . . Good night."

MRS. BAXTER possessed one of the two secrets of serenity. The other need not be specified; but hers arose

from the most pleasant and most human form of narrowmindedness. As has been said before, when things did

not fit with her own scheme, either they were not things, but only fancies of somebody inconsiderable, or else

she resolutely disregarded them. She had an opportunity of testing her serenity on one day early in February.

She rose as usual at a fixed houreight o'clockand when she was ready knelt down at her prieDieu. This

was quite an elaborate structure, far more elaborate than the devotions offered there. It was a very beautiful

inlaid Florentine affair, and had a little shelf above it filled with a number of the little leatherbound books in

which her soul delighted. She did not use these books very much; but she liked to see them there. It would

not be decent to enter the sanctuary of Mrs. Baxter's prayers; it is enough to say that they were not very long.

Then she rose from her knees, left her large comfortable bedroom, redolent with soap and hot water, and

came downstairs, a beautiful slender little figure in black lace veil and rich dress, through the sunlight of the

There she took up her letters and packets. They were not exciting. There was an unimportant note from a

friend, a couple of bills, and a Bon March� catalogue; and she scrutinised these through her spectacles, sitting

by the fire. When she had done she noticed a letter lying by Maggie's place, directed in a masculine hand. An

instant later Maggie came in herself, in her hat and furs, a charming picture, fresh from the winter sunlight

While Mrs. Baxter poured out tea she addressed a remark or two to the girl, but only got back those vague

inattentive murmurs that are the sign of a distracted mind; and, looking up presently with a sense of injury,

"My dear, I am speaking to you," said Mrs. Baxter, with an air of slightly humorous dignity.

Mrs. Baxter put out her hand for the Bon March� catalogue in order to drive home her sense of injury, and

met Maggie's eyes, suddenly raised to meet her own, with a curious strained look in them.

Maggie still stared at her a moment, as if questioning both herself and the other, and finally handed the letter

It was rather a business to read it. It involved spectacles, a pushing aside of a plate, and a slight turning to

catch the light. Mrs. Baxter read it, and handed it back, making three or four times the sound written as "Tut."

"What are we to do? You see, Mr. Morton thinks we ought to do something. He mentions a Mr. Cathcart."

"My dear, there's nothing to be done. You know what Laurie is. It'll only make him worse."

"My dear, he'd have written to meMr. Morton, I meanif Laurie had been really unwell. You see he only

Maggie took up the letter, put it carefully back into the envelope, and went on with breakfast. There was

But she was uneasy, and after breakfast went out into the garden, spud in hand, to think it all over, with the

Certainly the letter was not alarming per se, but per accidensthat is to say, taking into account who it was

that had written, she was not so sure. She had met Mr. Morton but once, and had formed of him the kind of

impression that a girl would form of such a man in the hours of a weekenda brusque, ordinary kind of

barrister without much imagination and a good deal of shrewd force. It was surely rather an extreme step for

a man like this to write to a girl in such a condition of things, asking her to use her influence to dissuade

Laurie from his present course of life. Plainly the man meant what he said; he had not written to Mrs. Baxter,

as he explained in the letter, for fear of alarming her unduly, and, as he expressly said, there was nothing to

Maggie stopped at the lower end of the orchard path, took out the letter, and read the last three or four

"Please forgive me if you think it was unnecessary to write. Of course I have no doubt whatever that the

whole thing is nothing but nonsense; but even nonsense can have a bad effect, and Mr. Baxter seems to me to

be far too much wrapt up in it. I enclose the address of a friend of mine in case you would care to write to

him on the subject. He was once a Spiritualist, and is now a devout Catholic. He takes a view of it that I do

not take; but at any rate his advice could do no harm. You can trust him to be absolutely discreet.

It really was very odd and unconventional; and Mr. Morton had not seemed at all an odd or unconventional

person. He mentioned, too, a particular date, February 25, as the date by which the medium would have

returned, and some sort of further effort was going to be made; but he did not attempt to explain this, nor did

She turned over the page, and there was the address he had mentioneda Mr. Cathcart. Surely he did not

She walked up and down with her spud for another halfhour before she could come to any conclusion.

Certainly she agreed with Mr. James Morton that the whole thing was nonsense; yet, further, that this

nonsense was capable of doing a good deal of harm to an excitable person. Besides, Laurie obviously had a

She caught sight of Mrs. Baxter presently through the thick hedge, walking with her dainty, dignified step

along the paths of the kitchen garden; and a certain impatience seized her at the sight. This boy's mother was

so annoyingly serene. Surely it was her business, rather than Maggie's own, to look after Laurie; yet the girl

knew perfectly well that if Laurie was left to his mother nothing at all would be done. Mrs. Baxter would

deplore it all, of course, gently and tranquilly, in Laurie's absence, and would, perhaps, if she were hard

pressed, utter a feeble protest even in his presence; and that was absolutely all. . . .

"Maggie! Maggie!" came the gentle old voice, calling presently; and then to some unseen person, "Have you

"Come in, my dear, and tell me what you think of those new teacups in the Bon March� catalogue," said the

Maggie bowed to the inevitable. But as they passed up the garden her resolution was precipitated.

"Can you let me go by twelve," she said. "I rather want to see Father Mahon about something."

Father Mahon was a conscientious priest. He said his mass at eight o'clock; he breakfasted at nine; he

performed certain devotions till halfpast ten; read the paper till eleven, and theology till twelve. Then he

considered himself at liberty to do what he liked till his dinner at one. (The rest of his day does not concern us

He, too, was looking round his garden this morninga fine, solid figure of a man, in rather baggy trousers,

short coat, and expansive waistcoat, with every button doing its duty. He too, like Mr. James Morton, had his

beat, an even narrower one than the barrister's, and even better trodden, for he never strayed off it at all,

except for four short weeks in the summer, when he hurried across to Ireland and got up late, and went on

picnics with other ecclesiastics in straw hats, and joined in cheerful songs in the evening. He was a priest,

with perfectly defined duties, and of admirable punctuality and conscientiousness in doing them. He disliked

the English quite extraordinarily; but his sense of duty was such that they never suspected it; and his flock of

Saxons adored him as people only can adore a brisk, businesslike man with a large heart and peremptory

ways, who is their guide and father, and is perfectly aware of it. His sermons consisted of coldcut blocks of

dogma taken perseveringly from sermon outlines and served up Sunday by Sunday with a sauce of a slight

and delightful brogue. He could never have kindled the Thames, nor indeed any river at all, but he could

Maggie had begun by disliking him. She had thought him rather coarse and stupid; but she had changed her

mind. He was not what may be called subtle; he had no patience at all with such things as scruples, nuances,

and shades of tone and meaning; but if you put a plain question to him plainly, he gave you a plain answer, if

he knew it; if not, he looked it up then and there; and that is always a relief in this intricate world. Maggie

therefore did not bother him much; she went to him only on plain issues; and he respected and liked her

"Good morning, my child," he said in his loud, breezy voice, as he came in to find her in his hideous little

The room indeed reeked; he had started a cigar, according to rule, as the clock struck twelve, and had left it

just now upon a stump outside when his housekeeper had come to announce a visitor.

"Not in the least, thanks, father. . . . May I sit down? It's rather a long business, I'm afraid."

Then he sat down himself, opposite her, in his trousers at once tight and baggy, with his rather large boots

"It's not about myself, father," she began rather hurriedly. "It's about Laurie Baxter. May I begin at the

He nodded. He was not sorry to hear something about this boy, whom he didn't like at all, but for whom he

knew himself at least partly responsible. The English were bad enough, but English converts were

indescribably trying; and Laurie had been on his mind lately, he scarcely knew why.

Then Maggie began at the beginning, and told the whole thing, from Amy's death down to Mr. Morton's

letter. He put a question or two to her during her story, looking at her with pressed lips, and finally put out his

"Mrs. Baxter doesn't know what I've come about," said the girl. "You won't give her a hint, will you, father?"

He nodded reassuringly to her, absorbed in the letter, and presently handed it back, with a large smile.

"Ah! that's what I wanted to ask you, father. I don't know anything at all about spiritualism. Is itis it really

"I don't think you need be afraid," he said. "Of course we know that souls don't come back like that. They're

"It's practically all fraud," he said, "but it's very superstitious, and is forbidden by the Church."

This was straight enough. It was at least a clear issue to begin to attack Laurie upon.

"Thenthen that's the evil of it?" she said. "There's no real power underneath? That's what Mr. Rymer said

He ran his finger down the heavy paragraphs, turned a page or two, and began a running comment and

translation: "`Necromantia ex' . . . `Necromancy arising from invocation of the dead.' . . . Let's see . . . yes,

`Spiritism, or the consulting of spirits in order to know hidden things, especially that pertain to the future life,

certainly is divination properly so called, and is . . . is full of even more impiety than is magnetism, or the use

of turning tables. The reason is, as the Baltimore fathers testify, that such knowledge must necessarily be

ascribed to Satanic intervention, since in no other manner can it be explained.'"

"One moment, my child. . . . Yes . . . just so. `Express divination.' . . . No, no. Ah! here we are, `Tacit

divination, . . . even if it is openly protested that no commerce with the Demon is intended, is per se grave

sin; but it can sometimes be excused from mortal sin, on account of simplicity or ignorance or a lack of

certain faith.' You see, my child"he set the book back in its place"so far as it's not fraud it's diabolical.

"I should pay just no attention to it all. Tell him, if you like, what I've said, and that it's grave sin for him to

"I should suspect it was a clever trick," he said. "I don't think Master Laurie's likely to get mixed up with the

"Just tell Master Laurie not to play tricks," said the priest. "He's got a good, sensible friend in Mr. Morton. I

When Maggie was gone, he went out to finish his cigar, and found to his pleasure that it was still alight, and

He thought about his interview for a few minutes as he walked up and down, taking the bright winter air. It

explained a good deal. He had begun to be a little anxious about this boy. It was not that Laurie had actually

neglected his religion while at Stantons; he was always in his place at mass on Sundays, and even, very

occasionally, on weekdays as well. And he had had a mass said for Amy Nugent. But even as far back as the

beginning of the previous year, there had been an air about him not altogether reassuring.

Well, this at any rate was a small commentary on the present situation. . . . (The priest stopped to look at

some bulbs that were coming up in the bed beside him, and stooped, breathing heavily, to smooth the earth

round one of them with a large finger.) . . . And as for this Spiritualistic nonsenseof course the whole thing

was a trick. Things did not happen like that. Of course the devil could do extraordinary things: or at any rate

had been able to do them in the past; but as for Master Laurie Baxterwhose home was down there in the

hamlet, and who had been at Oxford and was now reading lawas for the thought that this rather superior

Saxon young man was in direct communication with Satan at the present timewell, that needed no

Yet it was very unwholesome and unhealthy. That was the worst of these converts; they could not be content

with the sober workaday facts of the Catholic creed. They must be always running after some novelty or

A large dinnerbell pealed from the back door; and the priest went in to roast beef with Yorkshire pudding,

It was strange how Maggie felt steadied and encouraged in the presence of something at least resembling

danger. So long as Laurie was merely tiresome and foolish, she distrusted herself, she made little rules and

resolutions, and deliberately kept herself interiorly detached from him. But now that there was something

As to what that something was, she did not trust herself to decide. Father Mahon had given her a point to

work atthe fact that the thing, as a serious pursuit, was forbidden; as to what the reality behind was,

whether indeed there were any reality at all, she did not allow herself to consider. Laurie was in a state of

nerves sufficiently troublesome to bring a letter from his friend and guide; and he was in that state through

Her interview with Father Mahon precipitated her halfformed resolution; and after tea she went upstairs to

It was an unconventional thing to do, but she was sufficiently perturbed to disregard that drawback, and she

wrote a very sensible letter, explaining first who she was; then, without any names being mentioned, she

described her adopted brother's position, and indicated his experiences: she occupied the last page in asking

Mrs. Baxter displayed some symptoms after dinner which the girl recognised well enough. They comprised a

resolute avoidance of Laurie's name, a funny stiff little air of dignity, and a touch of patronage. And the

interpretation of these things was that the old lady did not wish the subject to be mentioned again, and that,

interiorly, she was doing her best ignore and forget it. Maggie felt, again, vaguely comforted; it left her a

Her room was a little square one on the top of the stairs, above the smokingroom where she had that odd

scene with Laurie a month or so before, and looking out upon the yew walk that led to the orchard. It was a

cheerful little place enough, papered in brown, hung all over with water colours, with her bed in one corner;

and it looked a reassuring familiar kind of place in the firelight, as she lay openeyed and thinking.

It was not that she was at all frightened; it was no more than a little natural anxiety; and half a dozen times in

the hour or two that she lay thinking, she turned resolutely over in bed, dismissed the little pictures that her

But the images recurred. They were no more than little vignettesLaurie talking to a severelooking tall

man with a sardonic smile; Laurie having tea with Mrs. Stapleton; Laurie in an empty room, looking at a

It was this last picture that recurred three or four times at the very instant that the girl was drowsing off into

sleep; and it had therefore that particular vividness that characterises the thoughts when the conscious

attention is dormant. It had too a strangely perturbing effect upon her; and she could not imagine why.

After the third return of it her sense of humour came to the rescue: it was too ridiculous, she said, to be

alarmed at an empty room and Laurie's back. Once more she turned on her side, away from the firelight, and

Again the moments passed: thought followed thought, in those quiet waves that lull the mind towards sleep;

It was a bare room, wainscoted round the walls a few inches up, papered beyond in some common palish

pattern. Laurie stood in the centre of the uncarpeted boards, with his back turned to her, looking, it seemed,

with an intense expectation at the very dull door in the wall opposite him. He was in his evening dress, she

saw, kneebreeches and buckles all complete; and his hands were clenched, as they hung held out a little

She, too, looked at the door, at its conventional panels and its brass handle; and it appeared to her as if both

he and she were expectant of some visitor. The door would open presently, she perceived; and the reason why

Laurie was so intent upon the entrance, was that he, no more than she, had any idea as to the character of the

person who was to come in. She became quite interested as she watchedit was a method she followed

sometimes when wooing sleepand she began, in her fancy, to go past Laurie as if to open the door. But as

she passed him she was aware that he put out a hand to check her, as if to hold her back from some danger;

She began then, with the irresponsibility of deepening sleep, to imagine instead what lay beyond the

doorto perceive by intuitive vision the character of the house. She got so far as understanding that it was

all as unfurnished as this room, that the house stood solitary among trees, and that even these, and the tangled

garden that she determined must surround the house, were as listening and as expectant as herself and the

waiting figure of the boy. Once more, as if to verify her semi passive imaginative excursion, she moved to

Ah! what nonsense it was. Here she was, wide awake again, in her own familiar room, with the firelight on

THE "Cock Inn" is situated in Fleet Street, not twenty yards from Mitre Court and scarcely fifty from the

passage that leads down to the court where Mr. James Morton still has his chambers.

It was a convenient place, therefore, for Laurie to lunch in, and he generally made his appearance there a few

minutes before one o'clock to partake of a small rump steak and a pewter mug of beer. Sometimes he came

alone, sometimes in company; and by a carefully thought out system of tips he usually managed to have

reserved for him at least until one o'clock a particular seat in a particular partition in that row of stablelike

On the twentythird of February, howeverit was a Friday, by the way, and boiled plaice would have to be

eaten instead of rump steakhe was a little annoyed to find his seat already occupied by a small,

brisklooking man with a grey beard and spectacles, who, with a newspaper propped in front of him, was

The little man looked up at him sharply, like a bird disturbed in a meal, and then down again upon the paper.

Laurie noticed that his hat and stick were laid upon the adjoining chair as if to retain it. He hesitated an

instant; then he slid in on the other side, opposite the stranger, tapped his glass with his knife, and sat down.

When the waiter came, a familiarly deferential man with whiskers, Laurie, with a slight look of peevishness,

gave his order, and glanced reproachfully at the occupied seat. The waiter gave the ghost of a shrug with his

A minute later Mr. Morton entered, glanced this way and that, nodding imperceptibly to Laurie, and was just

"Mr. Morton," he cried, "Mr. Morton!" in an odd voice that seemed on the point of cracking into falsetto.

The other turned round, nodded with short geniality, and slid into the chair from which the old man moved

Laurie was conscious of a touch of interest. This man was a Catholic, then, he supposed.

"Oh, by the way," said Mr. Morton, "have youer" and he indicated Laurie. "No? . . . Baxter, let me

For a moment the name meant nothing to Laurie; then he remembered; but his rising suspicions were quelled

"Indeed! I am flattered," said the old man perkily. Yes, "perky" was the word, thought Laurie.

"Mr. Baxter here is interested in Spiritualismrump steak, waiter, and pint of bitterand I told him you

"Aeran experimenter?" asked the old man, with courteous interest, his eyes giving a quick gleam

"Ah, yesyou must forgive me, sir; but I have had a good deal of experience, and I must say You are a

"So'm I. But I gave up spiritualism as soon as I became one. Very interesting experiences, too; butwell, I

It was really rather trying, thought Laurie, to be catechised in this way; so he determined to show superiority.

Laurie pushed his plate on one side, and drew the cheese towards him. This was a little more interesting, he

"Yes, Mr. Baxter. Of course there's plenty of fraud and trickery; we all know that. But it's the part that's not

"Oh, yes; he's perfectly honest," said the other deliberately. "I'll trouble you for the sugar, Mr. Morton."

Laurie was determined not to begin the subject again. He felt that he was being patronised and lectured, and

did not like it. And once again the suspicion crossed his mind that this was an arranged meeting. It was so

very neattwo days before the s�ancethe entry of Mortonhis own seat occupied. Yet he did not feel

quite courageous enough to challenge either of them. He ate his cheese deliberately and waited, listening to

the talk between the two on quite irrelevant subjects, and presently determined on a bit of bravado.

"There is no doubt of his guilt," the old man said, as he handed the paper across (the two were deep in a law

But there was no more word of spiritualism. Laurie propped the paper before him as he finished his cheese,

and waited for coffee, and read with unseeing eyes. He was resenting as hard as he could the abruptness of

the opening and closing of the subject, and the complete disregard now shown to him. He drank his coffee,

"You are going, Mr. Baxter? . . . Good day. . . . Well then; and as I was waiting in court"

So that was Mr. Cathcart. Well, he was thankful he hadn't written to him, after all. He was not his kind in the

The moment he passed out of the door the old man stopped his fluent talking and waited, looking after the

"I've put him against me nowLord knows how; but I've done it; and he won't listen to me."

"Gad!" said Mr. Morton; "what funny people you all are! And you really meant what you said?"

"Every word," said the old man cheerfully. . . . "Well; our little plot's over."

"First," said the old man, with the same unruffled cheerfulness, "he wouldn't have come. We've muddled it.

We'd much better have been straightforward. Secondly, he thinks me an old foolas you do, only more so.

No; we must set to work some other way now. . . . Tell me about Miss Deronnais: I showed you her letter?"

"I told her that I was at her service, of course; and I haven't heard again. Sensible girl?"

"He's in a devil of a mess," he said, with abrupt cheerfulness. "That man Vincent"

"Good God!" broke in the other again suddenly. "Do all Catholics believe this rubbish?"

"My dear friend, of course they don't. Not one in a thousand. I wish they did. That's what's the matter. But

they laugh at it laugh at it!" . . . His voice cracked into shrill falsetto. . . . "Laugh at hellfire. . . . Is Sunday

"I heard they were at their games there again," said Mr. Cathcart with meditative geniality. "I'd like to blow

"You're the youngest man of your years I've ever come across," he said. "No wonder you believe all that

"Wellthat plot's over," he said again. "Now for Miss Deronnais. But we can't stop this Sunday affair; that's

"My dear Morton, for a lawyer, you're the worst witness I've ever Well, I'm off. No more to be done

It seemed to him quite amazing that a sensible man like Cathcart could take such rubbish seriously. In every

other department of life the solicitor was an eminently shrewd and sane man, with, moreover, a youthful kind

of brisk humour that is perhaps the surest symptom of sanity that it is possible to have.

He had seen him in court for years past under every sort of circumstance, and if it had been required of him to

select a character with which superstition and morbid humbug could have had nothing in common, he would

have laid his hand upon the senior partner of Cathcart and Cathcart. Yet here was this sane man, taking this

fantastic nonsense as if there were really something in it. He had first heard him speak of the subject at a

small bachelor dinner party of four in the rooms of a mutual friend; and, as he had listened, he had had the

same sensation as one would have upon hearing a Cabinet Minister, let us say, discussing stumpcricket with

enthusiasm. Cathcart had said all kinds of things when once he was startedall with that air of businesslike

briskness that was so characteristic of him and so disconcerting in such a connection. If he had apologised for

it as an amiable weakness, if he had been in the least shamefaced or deprecatory, it would have been another

matter; one would have forgiven it as one forgives any little exceptional eccentricity. But to hear him speak

of materialisation as of a process as normal (though unusual) as the production of radium, and of planchette

as of wireless telegraphyas established, indubitable facts, though out of the range of common

experiencethis had amazed this very practical man. Cathcart had hinted too of other thingsthings which

he would not amplifyof a still more disconcertingly impossible naturematters which Morton had

scarcely thought had been credible even to the darkest medievalists; and all this with that same sharp, sane

For romantic young asses like Laurie Baxter such things were not so hopelessly incongruous, though

obviously they were bad for him; they were all part of the wild credulousness of a religious youth; but for

Cathcart, aged sixtytwo, a solicitor in good practice, with a wife and two grownup daughters, and a

reputation for exceptionally sound shrewdness! But it must be remembered he was a Catholic!

So Mr. James Morton sat in the "Cock" and pondered. He was not sorry he had tried to take steps to choke off

this young fool, and he was just a little sorry that so far they had failed. He had written to Miss Deronnais in

an impulse, after an unusually feverish outburst from the boy; and she, he had learnt later, had written to Mr.

He paid his bill, left twopence for the waiter, and went out. He had a case that afternoon.

Laurie left chambers as it was growing dark that afternoon, and went back to his rooms for tea. He had

passed, as was usual now, an extremely distracted couple of hours, sitting over his books with spasmodic

efforts only to attend to them. He was beginning, in fact, to be not quite sure whether Law after all was his

His kettle was singing pleasantly on the hob, and a tray glimmered in the firelight on the little table, as the

woman had left it; and it was not until he had poured himself out a cup of tea that he saw on the white cloth

an envelope, directed to him, inscribed "By hand," in the usual handwriting of persons engaged in business.

Even then he did not open it at once; it was probably only some note connected with his chief's affairs.

For half an hour more he sat on, smoking after tea, pondering that which was always in his mind now, and

dwelling with a vague pleasant expectancy on what Sunday night should bring forth. Mr. Vincent, he knew,

was returning to town that afternoon. Perhaps, even, he might look in for a few minutes, if there were any last

The effect of the medium on the young man's mind had increased enormously during these past weeks. That

air of virile masterfulness, all the more impressive because of its extreme quiet assurance, had proved even

It is very hard to analyse the elements of a boy's adoration for a solid middleaged gentleman with a

"personality"; yet the thing is an enormously potent fact, and plays at least as big a part in the subcurrents

that run about the world as any more normal human emotions. Psychologists of the materialistic school

would probably say that it was a survival of the tribe andwar instinct. At any rate, there it is.

Added to all this was the peculiar relation in which the medium stood to the boy; it was he who had first

opened the door towards that strange otherworld that so persistently haunts the imaginations of certain

temperaments; it was through him that Laurie had had brought before the evidence of his senses, as he

thought, the actuality of the things of which he had dreamedan actuality which his religion had somehow

succeeded in evading. It was not that Laurie had been insincere in his religion; there had been moments, and

there still were, occasionally, when the world that the Catholic religion preached by word and symbol and

sacrament, became apparent; but the whole thing was upon a different plane. Religion bade him approach in

one way, spiritualism in the other. The senses had nothing to do with one; they were the only ultimate

channels of the other. And it is extraordinarily easy for human beings to regard as more fundamentally real

Here then were the two choicesa world of spirit, to be taken largely on trust, to be discerned only in

shadow and outline upon rare and unusual occasions of exaltation, of a particular quality which had almost

lost its appeal; and a world of spirit that took shape and form and practical intelligibility, in ordinary rooms

and under very nearly ordinary circumstancesa world, in short, not of a transcendent God and the spirits of

just men made perfect, of vast dogmas and theories, but of a familiar atmosphere, impregnated with

experience, inhabited by known souls who in this method or that made themselves apparent to those senses

which, Laurie believed, could not lie. . . . And the point of contact was Amy Nugent herself. . . .

As regards his exact attitude to this girl it is more difficult to write. On the one side the human

elementthose associations directly connected with the sensesher actual face and hands, physical

atmosphere and surroundingsthose had disappeared; they were dispersed, or they lay underground; and it

had been with a certain shock of surprise, in spite of the explanations given to him, that he had seen what he

believed to be her face in the drawingroom in Queen's Gate. But he had tried to arrange all this in his

imagination, and it had fallen into shape and proportion again. In short, he thought he understood now that it

is character which gives unity to the transient qualities of a person on earth, and that, when those qualities

disappear, it is as unimportant as the wasting of tissue: when, according to the spiritualists' gospel that

character manifests itself from the other side, it naturally reconstitutes the form by which it had been

Yet, in spite of this sense of familiarity with what he had seen, there had fallen between Amy and himself that

august shadow that is called Death. . . . And in spite of the assurances he had received, even at the hands of

his own senses, that this was indeed the same girl that he had known on earth, there was a strange awe

mingled with his old rather shallow passion. There were moments, as he sat alone in his rooms at night, when

it rose almost to terror; just as there were other moments when awe vanished for a while, and his whole being

was flooded with an extraordinary ecstatic semiearthly happiness at the thought that he and she could yet

speak with one another. . . . Imagine, if you please, a child who on returning home finds that his mother has

But the real deciding pointwhich, somehow, he knew must comethe moment at which these conflicting

notes should become a chord, was fixed for Sunday evening next. Up to now he had had evidence of her

presence, he had received intelligible messages, though fragmentary and half stammered through the

mysterious veil, he had for an instant or two looked upon her face; but the real point, he hoped, would come

in two days. The public s�ances had not impressed him. He had been to three or four of these in a certain road

off Baker Street, and had been astonished and disappointed. The kind of people that he had met

theresentimental bourgeois with less power of sifting evidence than the average child, with a credulity that

was almost supernaturalthe medium, a stout woman who rolled her eyes and had damp fat fingers; the

hymnsinging, the wheezy harmonium, the amazing pseudomystical oracular messages that revealed

nothing which a religiose fool could not inventin fact the whole affair, from the sham stainedglass

lampshade to the ghostly tambourines overhead, the puerility of the tricks played on the inquirers, and all

the rest of itthis seemed as little connected with what he had experienced with Mr. Vincent as a dervish

dance with High Mass. He had reflected with almost ludicrous horror upon the impression it would make on

They were going to attempt a further advance. It had, indeed, been explained to him that these attempts were

but tentative and experimental; it was impossible to dictate exactly what should fall; but the object on Sunday

night was to go a step further, and to bring about, if possible, the materialisation process to such a point that

the figure could be handled, and could speak. And it seemed to Laurie as if this would be final indeed. . . .

So he sat this evening, within fortyeight hours of the crisis, thinking steadily. Half a dozen times, perhaps,

the thought of Maggie recurred to him; but he was learning how to get rid of that.

Then he took up the note and opened it. It was filled with four pages of writing. He turned to the end and read

It was very quiet as he sat there thinking over what he had read. The noise of Fleet Street came up here only

as the soothing murmur of the sea upon a beach; and he himself sat motionless, the firelight falling upwards

upon his young face, his eyes, and his curly hair. About him stood his familiar furniture, the grand piano a

pool of glimmering dark wood in the background, the tall curtained windows suggestive of shelter and

Yet, if he had but known it, he was making an enormous choice. The letter was from the man he had met at

midday, and he was deciding how to answer it. He was soothed and quieted by his loneliness, and his

irritation had disappeared: he regarded the letter from a youthfully philosophical standpoint, pleased with his

moderation, as the work of a fanatic; he was considering only whether he would yield, for politeness' sake, to

the importunity, or answer shortly and decisively. It seemed to him remarkable that a mature and experienced

At last he got up, went to his writingtable, and sat down. Still he hesitated for a minute; then he dipped his

When he had finished and directed it, he went back to the fire. He had an hour yet in which to think and think

before he need dress. He had promised to dine with Mrs. Stapleton at half past seven. He had a touch of

LADY LAURA crossed the road by Knightsbridge Barracks and turned again homewards through the Park.

It was one of those days that occasionally fall in late February which almost cheer the beholder into a belief

that spring has really begun. Overhead the sky was a clear pale blue, flecked with summerlooking clouds,

gauzy and white; beneath, the whole earth was waking drowsily from a frost so slight as only to emphasise

the essential softness of the day that followed: the crocuses were alight in the grass, and an indescribable tint

lay over all that had life, like the flush in the face of an awakening child. But these days are too good to last,

and Lady Laura, who had looked at the forecast of a Sunday paper, had determined to take her exercise

She had come out not long before from All Saints'; she had listened to an excellent though unexciting sermon

and some extremely beautiful singing; and even now, saturated with that atmosphere and with the soothing

physical air in which she walked, her anxieties seemed less acute. There were enough of her acquaintances,

too, in groups here and thereshe had to bow and smile sufficiently oftento prevent these anxieties from

reasserting themselves too forcibly. And it may be supposed that not a creature who observed her, in her

exceedingly graceful hat and mantle, with her fair head a little on one side, and her goldrimmed pincenez

delicately gleaming in the sunlight, had the very faintest suspicion that she had any anxieties at all.

The men were to set about clearing the drawingroom while she was at church; and somehow the thought

that it would be done when she got home, that the temple would, so to speak, be cleared for sacrifice, was a

She did not quite know when the change had begun; in fact, she was scarcely yet aware that there was a

change at all. Upon one point only her attention fixed itself, and that was the increasing desire she felt that

Up to within a few weeks ago she had been all ardour. It had seemed to her, as has been said, that the

apparent results of spiritualism were all to the good, that they were in no point contrary to the religion she

happened to believein fact, that they made real, as does an actual tree in the foreground of a panorama, the

rather misty sky and hills of Christianity. She had even called them very "teaching."

It was about eighteen months since she had first taken this up under the onslaught of Mrs. Stapleton's

enthusiasm; but things had not been as satisfactory as she wished, until Mr. Vincent had appeared. Then

indeed matters had moved forward; she had seen extraordinary things, and the effect of them had been

doubled by the medium's obvious honesty and his strong personality. He was to her as a resolute priest to a

timid penitent; he had led her forward, supported by his own conviction and his extremely steady will, until

she had begun to feel at home in this amazing new world, and eager to make proselytes.

Then Laurie had appeared, and almost immediately a dread had seized her that she could neither explain nor

understand. She had attempted a little tentative conversation on the point with dearest Maud, but dearest

Maud had appeared so entirely incapable of understanding her scruples that she had said no more. But her

inexplicable anxiety had already reached such a point that she had determined to say a word to Laurie on the

subject. This had been done, without avail; and now a new step forward was to be made.

The "controls," she believedthe spirits that desired to communicatehad a series of graduated steps by

which the communications could be made, from mere incoherent noises (as a man may rap a message from

one room to another), through appearances, also incoherent and intangible, right up to the final point of

assuming visible tangible form, and of speaking in an audible voice. This process, she believed, consisted

first in a mere connection between spirit and matter, and finally passed into an actual assumption of matter,

moulded into the form of the body once worn by the spirit on earth. For nearly all of this process she had had

the evidence of her own senses; she had received messages, inexplicable to her except on the hypothesis put

forward, from departed relations of her own; she had seen lights, and faces, and even figures formed before

her eyes, in her own drawingroom; but she had not as yet, though dearest Maud had been more fortunate,

been able to handle and grasp such figures, to satisfy the sense of touch, as well as of sight, in proof of the

Yes; she was satisfied even with what she had seen; she had no manner of doubt as to the theories put before

her by Mr. Vincent; yet she shrank (and she scarcely knew why) from that final consummation which it was

proposed to carry out if possible that evening. But the shrinking centred round some halfdiscerned danger to

It was these kinds of thoughts that beset her as she walked up beneath the trees on her way

homewardschecked and soothed now somewhat by the pleasant air and the radiant sunlight, yet perceptible

beneath everything. And it was not only of Laurie Baxter that she thought; she spared a little attention for

For she had begun to be aware, for the first time since her initiation, of a very faint distasteas slight and yet

as suggestive as that caused by a halfperceived consciousness of a delicately disagreeable smell. There

comes such a moment in the life of cut flowers in water, when the impetus of growing energy ceases, and a

new tone makes itself felt in their scent, of which the end is certain. It is not sufficient to cause the flowers to

be thrown away; they still possess volumes of fragrance; yet these decrease, and the new scent increases, until

So it was now to the perceptions of this lady. Oh! yes. spiritualism was very "teaching" and beautiful; it was

perfectly compatible with orthodox religion; it was undeniably true. She would not dream of giving it up.

Only it would be better if Laurie Baxter did not meddle with it: he was too sensitive. . . . However, he was

As she turned southwards at last, crossing the road again towards her own street, it seemed to her that the day

even now was beginning to cloud over. Over the roofs of Kensington a haze was beginning to make itself

visible, as impalpable as a skein of smoke; yet there it was. She felt a little languid, too. Perhaps she had

walked too far. She would rest a little after lunch, if dearest Maud did not mind; for dearest Maud was to

As she came, slower than ever, down the broad opulent pavement of Queen's Gate, through the silence and

emptiness of Sundayfor the church bells were long ago silentshe noticed coming towards her, with a

sauntering step, an old gentleman in frock coat and silk hat of a slightly antique appearance, spatted and

gloved, carrying his hands behind his back, as if he were waiting to be joined by some friend from one of the

houses. She noticed that he looked at her through his glasses, but thought no more of it till she turned up the

steps of her own house. Then she was startled by the sound of quick footsteps and a voice.

There was a pleasant brisk ring about his voice that inclined her rather favourably towards him.

"Is there anything . . . Did you want to speak to me? . . . Yes, I am Lady Laura Bethell."

"I was told you were at church, madam, and that you were not at home to visitors on Sunday."

"Only a few minutes, Lady Laura, I promise you. Will you forgive my persistence?"

He had his cardcase ready, and without answering her at once, he came up the steps and handed it to her.

"Tomorrow will be too late," said the old gentleman. "I beg of you, Lady Laura. It is on an extremely

She was so taken aback by the sudden situation that she forgot completely that the drawingroom would be

upside down, and led the way straight upstairs; and it was not till she was actually within the door, with the

old gentleman close on her heels, that she saw that, with the exception of three or four chairs about the fire

"I forgot," she said; "but will you mind coming in here. . . . We . . . we have a meeting here this evening."

She led the way to the fire, and at first did not notice that he was not following her. When she turned round

she saw the old gentleman, with his air of antique politeness completely vanished, standing and looking about

him with a very peculiar expression. She also noticed, to her annoyance, that the cabinet was already in place

in the little anteroom and that his eyes almost immediately rested upon it. Yet there was no look of wonder

in his face; rather it was such a look as a man might have on visiting the scene of a wellknown

For an instant his bearded face looked so strangely at her that she half moved towards the bell. Then he

"Please sit down, Lady Laura. . . . May I say in a sentence what I have come to say?"

"I have come to beg you not to allow Mr. Baxter to enter the house. . . . No, I have no authority from anyone,

least of all from Mr. Baxter. He has no idea that I have come. He would think it an unwarrantable piece of

"Allow me," he said, with a little compelling gesture that silenced her. "I have been asked to interfere by a

couple of people very much interested in Mr. Baxter; one of them, if not both, completely disbelieves in

"Of course I know," he said. "Why, I was a spiritualist for ten years myself. No, not a medium; not a

professional, that is to say. I know all about Mr. Vincent; all about Mrs. Stapleton and yourself, Lady Laura. I

"I have given it up for a long while," he said quietly. "And I have come to ask you to forbid Mr. Baxter to be

present this evening, forfor the same reason for which I have given it up myself."

"I don't think we need go into that," he said. "It is enough, is it not, for me to say that Mr. Baxter's work, and,

in fact, his whole nervous system, is suffering considerably from the excitement; that one of the persons who

have asked me to do what I can is Mr. Baxter's own lawcoach: and that even if he had not asked me, Mr.

"Practically, no. I lunched at the same table with him on Friday; the symptoms are quite unmistakable."

"Well, we will say symptoms of nervous excitement. You are aware, no doubt, that he is exceptionally

"Wait a moment," said Lady Laura, her own heart beating furiously. "Why do you not go to Mr. Baxter

"I have done so. I arranged to meet him at lunch, and somehow I took a wrong turn with him: I have no tact

whatever, as you perceive. But I wrote to him on Friday night, offering to call upon him, and just giving him

"Oh yes," chirped the old gentleman almost gaily. "It would be quite unusual and unconventional. I just ask

you to send him a lineI will take it myself, if you wish ittelling him that you think it would be better for

him not to come, and saying that you are making other arrangements for tonight."

He looked at her with that odd little air of birdlike briskness that she had noticed in the street; and it

pleasantly affected her even in the midst of the uneasiness that now surged upon her again tenfold more than

before. She could see that there was something else behind his manner; it had just looked out in the glance he

had given round the room on entering; but she could not trouble at this moment to analyse what it was. She

was completely bewildered by the strangeness of the encounter, and the extraordinary coincidence of this

man's judgment with her own. Yet there were a hundred reasons against her taking his advice. What would

"I don't see how it's possible now," she began. "I think I know what you mean. But"

"Indeed, I trust you have no idea," cried the old gentleman, with a queer little falsetto note coming into his

voice"no idea at all. I come to you merely on the plea of nervous excitement; it is injuring his health, Lady

"Oh, I will go further," he said. "Have you never heard ofof insanity in connection with all this? We will

For a moment her heart stood still. The word had a sinister sound, in view of an incident she had once

witnessed; but it seemed to her that some meaning behind, unknown to her, was still more sinister. Why had

"Well," said the old gentleman, "is it not enough when I tell you that II who was a spiritualist for ten

yearshave never seen a more dangerous subject than Mr. Baxter? Is the risk worth it? . . . Lady Laura, do

He leaned forward a little; and again she felt anxiety, sickening and horrible, surge within her. Yet, on the

There was silence for a moment; then the old gentleman turned round, and in an instant was on his feet, quiet,

"I beg your pardon, Lady Laura," he said courteously. "Your man told me to wait here; I think he did not

"Wellerthis gentleman . . ." began Lady Laura. "Why, do you know Mr. Vincent?" she asked suddenly,

Lady Laura was conscious of distinct relief at the interruption: it seemed to her a providential escape from a

"I think there is nothing more to be said, Mr. Cathcart. . . . No, don't go, Mr. Vincent. We had finished our

"Lady Laura," said the old gentleman with a rather determined air, "I beg of you to give me ten minutes more

"There is no necessity today," she said. "If you care to make an appointment for one day next week, Mr.

"One moment, sir," put in the medium, with that sudden slight air of imperiousness that Lady Laura knew

very well by now. "If Lady Laura consents to hear you, I must take it on myself to see that nothing offensive

The old gentleman drew a breath as if to steady himself. It was plain that he was very strongly moved beneath

"I will say it in one sentence," he said. "It is this: You are ruining that boy between you, body and soul; and

"And if you wish to know my reasons for saying this," went on Mr. Cathcart, "you have only to ask for them

from Mr. Vincent. He knows well enough why I left spiritualismif he dares to tell you."

Lady Laura glanced at the medium. He was perfectly still and quietlooking, watching the old man

"And I understand," went on the other, "that tonight you are to make an attempt at complete materialisation.

Very good; then after tonight it may be too late. I have tried to appeal to the boy: he will not hear me. And

you too have refused to hear me out. I could give you evidence, if you wished. Ask this gentleman how many

The medium turned a little to the fire, sighing as if for weariness: and at the sound the old man stopped,

trembling. It was more obvious than ever that he only held himself in restraint by a very violent effort: it was

"I am sick of talking," he cried"sick of it! I have warned you. That is enough. I cannot do more."

He wheeled on his heel and went out. A minute later the two heard the front door bang.

She looked at Mr. Vincent. He was twirling softly in his strong fingers a little bronze candlestick that stood

on the mantelpiece: his manner was completely unconcerned; he even seemed to be smiling a little.

For herself she felt helpless. She had taken her choice, impelled to it, though she scarcely recognised the fact,

by the entrance of this strong personality; and now she needed reassurance once again. But before she had a

"Yes, yes," he said. "I remember now. I used to know Mr. Cathcart once. A very violent old gentleman."

"His reasons for leaving us? Indeed I scarcely remember. I suppose it was because he became a Catholic."

"Why, I daresay there was. I really can't remember, Lady Laura. I suppose he had his nerves shaken. You can

"Safe? Why, he's as safe as any of us can be. We all have nervous systems, of course."

"Indeed, yes. That is why even this evening he must not go into trance. That must come later, after a good

"Lady Laura," he said, "have I ever yet told you that there was no danger? I think not. There is always danger,

for every one of us, as there is for the scientist in the laboratory, and the engineer in his machinery. But what

we can do is to reduce that danger to a minimum, so that, humanly speaking, we are reasonably and

sufficiently safe. No doubt you remember the case of that girl? Well, that was an accident: and accidents will

happen; but do me the justice to remember that it was the first time that I had seen her. It was absolutely

impossible to foresee. She was on the very edge of a nervous breakdown before she entered the room. But

with regard to Mr. Baxter, I have seen him again and again; and I tell you that I consider him to be running a

certain riskbut a perfectly justifiable one, and one that is reduced to a minimum. if I did not think that we

were taking every precaution, I would not have him in the room for all the world. . . . Are you satisfied, Lady

Every word he said helped her back to assurance. It was all so reasonable and well weighed. If he had said

there was no danger, she would have feared the more, but his very recognition of it gave her security. And

"You can see what he is," he said. "I should advise you not to see him again. It's of no sort of use."

THE weather forecasts had been in the right; and the few that struggled homewards that night from church

fought against a southwest wind that tore, laden with driving rain, up the streets and across the open spaces,

till the very lights were dimmed in the tall street lamps and shone only through streaming panes that seemed

half opaque with mist and vapour. In Queen's Gate hardly one lighted window showed that the houses were

inhabited. So fierce was the clamour and storm of the broad street that men made haste to shut out every

glimpse of the night, and the fanlights above the doors, or here and there a line of brightness where some

draught had tossed the curtains apart, were the only signs of human life. Outside the broad pavements stared

like surfaces of some canal, black and mirrorlike, empty of passengers, catching every spark or hint of light

The housekeeper's room in this house on the right was the more delightful from the contrast. It was here that

the august assembly was held every evening after supper, set about with rigid etiquette and ancient rite. Its

windows looked on to the little square garden at the back, but were now tight shuttered and curtained; and the

room was a very model of comfort and warmth. Before the fire a square table was drawn up, set out with

pudding and fruit, for it was here that the upper servants withdrew after the cold meat and beer of the

servants' hall, to be waited upon by the butler's boy: and it was round this that the four sat in

It was already after ten o'clock; and Mr. Parker was permitted to smoke a small cigar. They had discussed the

weather, the sermon that Miss Baker had heard in the morning, and the prospects of a Dissolution; and they

had once more returned to the mysteries that were being enacted upstairs. They were getting accustomed to

them now, and there was not a great deal to say, unless they repeated themselves, which they had no

objection to do. Their attitude was one of tolerant scepticism, tempered by an agreeable tendency on the part

of Miss Baker to become agitated after a certain point. Mr. Vincent, it was generally conceded, was a

respectable sort of man, with an air about him that could hardly be put into words, and it was thought to be a

pity that he lent himself to such superstition. Mrs. Stapleton had been long ago dismissed as a silly sort of

woman, though with a will of her own; and her ladyship, of course, must have her way; it could not last long,

But young Mr. Baxter was another matter, and there was a deal to say about him. He was a gentlemanthat

was certain; and he seemed to have sense; but it was a pity that he was so often here now on this business. He

had not said one word to Mr. Parker this evening as he took off his coat; Mr. Parker had not thought that he

As to the details of the affair upstairsthese were considered in a purely humorous light. It was understood

that tables danced a hornpipe, and that tambourines were beaten by invisible hands; and it was not necessary

to go further into principles, particularly since all these things were done by machinery at the Egyptian Hall.

Faces also, it was believed, were seen looking out of the cabinet which Mr. Parker had once more helped to

erect this morning; but these, it was explained, were "done" by luminous paint. Finally, if people insisted on

looking into causes, Electricity was a sufficient answer for all the rest. No one actually suggested

As for human motives, these were not called in question at all. It appeared to amuse some people to do this

kind of thing, as others might collect old china or practise the cotillon. There it was, a fact, and there was no

more to be said about it. Old Lady Carraden, where Mr. Parker had once been underbutler, had gone in for

pouter pigeons; and Miss Baker had heard tell of a nobleman who had a carpenter's shop of his own.

These things were so, then; and meantime here was a cigar to be smoked by Mr. Parker, and a little weak tea

It was about a quarterpast ten when a reversion was made to the weather. Within here all was supremely

comfortable. A black stuff mat, with a red fringed border, lay before the blazing fire, convenient to the feet;

the heavy red curtains shut out the darkness, and where the glass cases of china permitted it, large

photographs of wedding groups and the houses of the nobility hung upon the walls. A King Charles' spaniel,

in another glass case, looked upon the company with an eternal snarl belied by the mildness of his brown

eyes; and, corresponding to him on the other side of the fire, a numerous family of hummingbirds, a little

dusty and dim, poised perpetually above the flowers of a lichened tree, with a flaming sunset to show them

But, without, the wind tore unceasingly, laden with rain, through the gusty darkness of the little garden, and,

in the pauses, the swift dripping from the roof splashed and splashed upon the paved walk. It was a very wild

night, as Mr. Parker observed four times: he only hoped that no one would require a hansom cab. He had

been foolish enough to take the responsibility tonight of letting the guests out himself, and of allowing

William to go to bed when he wished. And these were late affairs, seldom over before eleven, and often not

Mrs. Martin, in her blouse, moved a little nearer the fire, and said she must be off soon to bed; Mrs. Mayle, in

her black silk, added that there was no telling when her ladyship would get to bed, what with Mrs. Stapleton

and all, and commiserated Miss Baker; Miss Baker moaned a little in selfpity; and Mr. Parker remarked for

the fifth time that it was a wild night. It was an astonishingly serene and domestic atmosphere: no effort of

imagination or wit was required from anybody; it was enough to make observations when they occurred to

As halfpast ten tinkled out from the little yellow marble clock on the mantelpieceit had been won by Mrs.

Mayle's deceased husband in a horticultural exhibitionMrs. Martin said that she must go and have a look at

the scullery to see that all was as it should be; there was no knowing with these girls nowadays what they

might not leave undone; and Mrs. Mayle preened herself gently with the thought that her responsibilities were

on a higher plane. Mr. Parker made a courteous movement as if to rise, and remained seated, as the cook

rustled out. Miss Baker sighed again as she contemplated the long conversation that might take place between

Once more the tranquil atmosphere settled down on the warm room; the brass lamp burned brightly with a

faint and reassuring smell of paraffin; the fire presented a radiant cavern of red coals fringed by dancing

Then, on a sudden, he paused, for from the passage outside came the passionless tinkle of an electric

bellthen another, and another, and another, as if some person overhead strove by reiteration on that single

Overhead in the great empty drawingroom the noise of the wind and rain, the almost continuous spatter on

the glass, and the long hooting of the gusts, had been far more noticeable than in the basement beneath.

Below stairs the company had been natural and normal, talking of this and that, in a brightly lighted room,

dwelling only on matters that fell beneath the range of their senses, lulled by warmth and food and cigar

smoke into a kind of rapt selfcontemplation. But up here, in the gloom, lighted only on this occasion by a

single shaded candle, in a complete interior silence, three persons had sat round a table for more than an hour,

striving by passivity and a kind of indescribable concentration to ignore all that was presented by the senses,

Lady Laura had sat down that night in a state of mind which she could not analyse. It was not that her

anxieties had been lulled so much as counterbalanced; they were still there, at once poignant and heavy, but

on the other side there had been the assured air of the medium, his reasonableness and his personality, as well

as the enthusiasm of her friend, and her astonished remonstrances. She had decided to acquiesce, not because

she was satisfied, but because on the whole anxiety was outweighed by confidence. She could not have taken

Laurie, as Mr. Parker had noticed, had been "quietlike"; he had said very little indeed, but a nervous strain

was evident in the brightness of his eyes; but in answer to a conventional inquiry he had declared himself

extremely well. Mr. Vincent had looked at him for just an instant longer than usual as he shook hands, but he

said nothing. Mrs. Stapleton had made an ecstatic remark or two on the envy with which she regarded the

At the beginning of the s�ance the medium had repeated his warnings as to Laurie's avoiding of trance, and

had added one or two other precautions. Then he had gone into the cabinet; the fire had been pressed down

under ashes, and a single candle lighted and placed behind the angle of the little adjoining room in such a

position that its shaded light fell upon the cabinet only and the figure of the medium within.

When the silence became fixed, Lady Laura for the first time perceived the rage of wind and rain outside. The

very intensity of the interior stillness and the rapture of attention emphasised to an extraordinary degree the

windy roar without. Yet the silence seemed to her, now as always, to have a peculiar faculty of detaching the

psychical from the physical atmosphere. In spite of the batter of rain not ten feet away, the sighing between

the shutters, and even the lift now and again of the heavy curtains in the draught, she seemed to herself as

remote from it as does a man crouching in the dark under some ruin feel himself at an almost infinite distance

from the pick and the hammer of the rescuers. These were in one world, she in another.

For over an hour no movement was made. She herself sat facing the fire, Laurie on her left looking towards

An endless procession of thoughts defiled before her as she sat, yet these too were somewhat remotefar up,

so to speak, on the superficies of consciousness: they did not approach that realm of the will poised now and

attentive on another range of existence. Once and again she glanced up without moving her head at the

threequarter profile on her left, at the somewhat Zululike outline opposite to her; then down again at the

polished little round table and the six hands laid upon it. And meanwhile her brain revolved images rather

than thoughts, memories rather than reflectionsvignettes, so to speak,old Mr. Cathcart in his spats and

frockcoat, the look on the medium's face, there and gone again in an instant as he had heard the stranger's

name; the carved oak stalls of the chancel towards which she had faced this morning, the look of the park, the

It must have been, she thought, after a little over an hour that the first expected movement made itself felta

long trembling shudder through the wood beneath her hands, followed by a strange sensation of lightness, as

if the whole table rose a little from the floor. Then, almost before the movement subsided, a torrent of little

taps poured itself out, as delicate and as swift and, it seemed, as perfectly calculated, as the rapping of some

minute electric hammer. This was new to her, yet not so unlike other experiences as to seem strange or

perturbing in any way. . . . Again she bent her attention to the table as the vibration ceased.

It must have been about ten minutes later that she became aware of the next phenomenon; and her attention

had been called to it by a sudden noiseless uplifting of the profile on her left. She turned her face to the

cabinet and looked; and there, perfectly discernible, was some movement going on between the curtains. For

the moment she could see the medium clearly, his arms folded, indicated by the white lines of his cuffs across

his breast, his head sunk forward in deep sleep; and at the next instant the curtains flapped two or three times,

She glanced quickly at the boy on her left, and in the diffused light from the other room could see him

distinctly, his eyes open and watching, his lips compressed as if in some tense effort of selfcontrol.

When she looked at the cabinet again she could see that some movement had begun again behind the curtains,

for these swayed and jerked convulsively, as if some person with but little room was moving there. And she

could hear now, as the gusts outside lulled for a moment, the steady rather stertorous breathing of the

medium. Then once again the wind gathered strength outside; the rain tore at the glass like a streaming

handful of tiny pebbles, and the great curtains at her side lifted and sighed in the draught through the shutters.

When it quieted again the breathing had become a measured moaning, as that which a dreaming dog emits at

the end of each expiration; and she herself drew a long trembling breath, overwhelmed by the sense of some

It was impossible for her to express this even to herself; yet the perception was clearas clear as some

presentment of the senses. She knew during those moments, as she watched the swaying curtains of the

cabinet in the shaded light that fell upon them, and heard now and again that low moan from behind them,

that some kind of stress lay upon something that was new to her in this connection. For the time she forgot

her undertone of anxiety as to this boy at her side, and a curious terrified excitement took its place. Once,

even then, she glanced at him again, and saw the motionless profile watching, always watching. . . .

The commotion of the curtains ceased suddenly, and they hung in straight folds from roof to floor of the little

cabinet. Then they gently partedshe saw the long fingers that laid hold of themand the form of a person

came out, descended the single step, and stood on the floor before her eyes, in the plain candlelight, not four

It was the figure of a young girl, perfectly formed in all its parts, swathed in some light stuff resembling

muslin that fell almost to the feet and shrouded the upper part of the head. Her hands were clasped across her

breast, her bare feet were visible against the dark floor, and her features were unmistakably clear. There was a

certain beauty in the facein the young lips, the open eyes, and the dark lines of the brows over them; and

the complexion was waxen, clear as of a blonde. But, as the observer had noticed before on the three or four

occasions on which she had seen these phenomena, there was a strange mask like set of the features, as if

the life that lay behind them had not perfectly saturated that which expressed it. It was something utterly

different from the face of a dead person, yet also not completely alive, though the eyes turned a little in their

sockets, and the young downcurved lips smiled. Behind her, plain between the tossedback curtains, was

It seemed to the watcher that during those seconds the whole world was still. Whether in truth the wind had

dropped, or whether the absorbed attention perceived nothing but the marvel before it, yet so it seemed. Even

the breathing of the medium had stopped; Lady Laura heard only the ticking of the watch upon her own wrist.

Then, as once more a gust tore up from the southwest, the figure moved forward a step nearer the table,

coming with a motion as of a living person, causing, it even appeared, that faint vibration on the floor as of a

She stood so near now, though with her back to the diffused light of the anteroom, that her features were

more plain than beforethe stained lips, the open eyes, the shadow beneath the nostrils and chin, even the

white fingers clasped across the breast. There was none of that vague mistiness that had been seen once

before in that room; every line was as clearcut as in the face of a living person; even the swell of the breast

beneath the hands, the slender sloping shoulders, the long curved line from hip to ankle, all were real and

discernible. And once again the staring eyes of the watcher took in, and her mind perceived, that slight

Once again the figure came forward, straight on to the table; and then, so swift that not a motion or a word

There was a violent movement on Lady Laura's left hand, a chair shot back and fell, and with a horrible

tearing cry from the throat, the boy dashed himself face forwards across the table, snatched at and for an

instant seized something real and concrete that stood there; and as the two women sprang up, losing sight for

an instant of the figure that had been there a moment ago, the boy sank forward, moaning and sobbing, and a

For a space of reckonable time there was complete silence. Then once more a blast of wind tore up from the

AS the date approached Maggie felt her anxieties settle down, like a fire, from turbulence to steady flame. On

the Sunday she had with real difficulty kept it to herself, and the fringe of the storm of wind and rain that

broke over Hertfordshire in the evening had not been reassuring. Yet on one thing her will kept steady hold,

and that was that Mrs. Baxter must not be consulted. No conceivable good could result, and there might even

be harm: either the old lady would be too much or not enough concerned: she might insist on Laurie's return

to Stantons, or might write him a cheering letter encouraging him to amuse himself in any direction that he

pleased. So Maggie passed the evening in fits of alternate silence and small conversation, and succeeded in

Monday morning, however, broke with a cloudless sky, an air like wine, and the chatter of birds; and by the

time that Maggie went to look at the crocuses immediately before breakfast, she was all but at her ease again.

Enough, however, of anxiety remained to make her hurry out to the stableyard when she heard the postman

There was one letter for her, in Mr. Cathcart's handwriting; and she opened it rather hastily as she turned in

It was reassuring. It stated that the writer had approached that was the wordMr. Baxter, though

unfortunately with ill success, and that he proposed on the following daythe letter was dated on Saturday

eveningalso to approach Lady Laura Bethell. He felt fairly confident, he said, that his efforts would

succeed in postponing, at any rate, Mr. Baxter's visit to Lady Laura; and in that case he would write further as

to what was best to be done. In the meanwhile Miss Deronnais was not to be in the least anxious. Whatever

happened, it was extremely improbable that one visit more or less to a s�ance would carry any great harm: it

was the habit, rather than the act, that was usually harmful to the nervous system. And the writer begged to

Maggie's spirits rose with a bound. How extraordinarily foolish she had been, she told herself, to have been

filled with such forebodings last night! It was more than likely that the s�ance had taken place without

Laurie; and, even at the worst, as Mr. Cathcart said, he was probably only a little more excited than usual this

So she began to think about future arrangements; and by the time that Mrs. Baxter looked benignantly out at

her from beneath the Queen Anne doorway to tell her that breakfast was waiting, she was conceiving of the

possibility of going up herself to London in a week or two on some shopping excuse, and of making one

During her visit to the fowlyard after breakfast she began to elaborate these plans.

She was clear now, once again, that the whole thing was a fantastic delusion, and that its sole harm was that it

was superstitious and nerveshaking. (She threw a large handful of maize, with a meditative eye.) It was on

that ground and that only that she would approach Laurie. Perhaps even it would be better for her not to go

and see him; it might appear that she was making too much of it: a good sensible letter might do the work

equally well. . . . Well, she would wait at least to hear from Mr. Cathcart once more. The second post would

She was out again in the spring sunshine, walking up and down before the house with a book, by the time that

the second post was due. But this time, through the iron gate, she saw the postman go past the house without

stopping. Once more her spirits rose, this time, one might say, to par; and she went indoors.

Her window looked out on to the front; and she moved her writingtable to it to catch as much as possible of

the radiant air and light of the spring day. She proposed to begin to sketch out what she would say to Laurie,

and suggest, if he wished it, to come up and see him in a week or two. She would apologise for her fussiness,

and say that the reason why she was writing was that she did not want his mother to be made anxious.

She bit her pen gently, and looked out of the window to catch inspiration for the particular frame of words

with which she should begin. And as she looked an old gentleman suddenly appeared beyond the iron gate,

shook it gently, glanced up in vain for a name on the stone posts, and stood irresolute. It was an old trap, that

of the front gate; there was no bell, and it was necessary for visitors to come straight in to the front door.

Then, so swiftly that she could not formulate it, an anxiety leapt at her, and she laid her pen down, staring.

She went quickly to the bell and rang it; standing there waiting, with beating heart and face suddenly gone

"Susan," she said, "there is an old gentleman at the gate. Go out and see who it is. . . . Stop: if it is anyone for

me . . . if if he gives the name of Mr. Cathcart, ask him to be so kind as to go round the turn to the village

and wait for me. . . . Susan, don't say anything to Mrs. Baxter; it may just possibly be bad news."

From behind the curtain she watched the maid go down the path, saw a few words pass between her and the

"I will go," she said. "Remember, please do not say a word to anyone. It may be bad news, as I said."

As she walked through the hamlet three minutes later, she began to recognise that the news must be really

serious; and that beneath all her serenity she had been aware of its possibility. So intense now was that

anxietythough perfectly formless in its detailsthat all other faculties seemed absorbed into it. She could

not frame any imagination as to what it meant; she could form no plan, alternative or absolute, as to what

must be done. She was only aware that something had happened, and that she would know the facts in a few

About fifty yards up the turning she saw the old gentleman waiting. He was in his London clothes,

silkhatted and spatted, and made a curiously incongruous picture there in the deep banked lane that led

upwards to the village. On either side towered the trees, still leafless, yet bursting with life; and overhead

"The facts or the interpretation?" he asked in his brisk manner. "I will just say first that I have seen him this

"One moment, please. . . . Oh! he is not seriously ill, as the world counts illness. He thought he was just very

tired this morning. I went round to call on him. He was in bed at half past ten when I left him. Then I came

For a moment she thought the old man mad. The relief was so intense that she flushed scarlet, and stopped

He looked at her gravely, in spite of the incessant twinkle in his eyes. She perceived that this old man's eyes

"Yes; you thought that he was dead, perhaps? Oh, no. But for all that, Miss Deronnais, it is just as serious as

"Listen, please. I am telling you simply the facts. I was anxious, and I went round this morning first to Lady

Laura Bethell. To my astonishment she saw me. I will not tell you all that she said, just now. She was in a

terrible state, though she did not know onetenth of the harm Well, after what she told me I went round

straight to Mitre Court. The porter was inclined not to let me in. Well, I went in, and straight into Mr. Baxter's

"I found Mr. Baxter in bed. I made no apology at all. I said simply that I had come to see how he was after

"Oh! yes. . . . I forgot to mention that Lady Laura would pay no attention to me yesterday. . . . Yes, it took

place. . . . Well, Mr. Baxter did not seem surprised to see me. He told me he felt tired. He said that the s�ance

had been a success. And while he talked I watched him. Then I came away and caught the tenfifty."

"So I suppose," said the other drily. "I imagine you do not believe in spiritualism at allI mean that you

"So do most sensible people. Well, Miss Deronnais, I have come to warn you. I did not write, because it was

impossible to know what to say until I had seen you and heard your answer to that question. At the same

time, I wanted to lose no time. Anything may happen now at any moment. . . . I wanted to tell you this: that I

am at your service now altogether. When" he stopped; then he began again, "If you hear no further news

"That is a fortnight off. . . . Do you think you could persuade him to come down here next week instead? I

She was still hopelessly confused with these apparent alternations. She still wondered whether Mr. Cathcart

were as mad as he seemed. They turned, as the village came in sight ahead, up the hill.

"Wait till you have seen him," he said. "For myself, I shall make a point of seeing Mr. Morton every day to

hear the news. . . . Miss Deronnais, I tell you plainly that you alone will have to bear the weight of all this,

He looked at her with those irresistibly twinkling eyes, but she perceived a very steady will behind them.

"I will explain nothing at all," he said, "now that I have seen you, and heard what you think, except this single

point. What you have to be prepared for is the news that Mr. Baxter has suddenly gone out of his mind."

It was said in exactly the same tone as his previous sentences, and for a moment she did not catch the full

"Yes, you took that very well," he said, still meeting her eyes steadily. "Stop . . . Keep a strong hold on

yourself. That is the worst you have to hear, for the present. Now tell me immediately whether you think Mrs.

Her leaping heart slowed down into three or four gulping blows at the base of her throat. She swallowed with

"No: not one word. She is his mother. Besidesshe is not the kindshe would be of no use."

"Yes: it is as I thought. Very well, Miss Deronnais; you will have to be responsible. You can wire for me at

"Then I have one or two things to add. Whatever happens, do not lose heart for one moment. I have seen

these cases again and again. . . . Whatever happens, too, do not put yourself into a doctor's hands until I have

seen Mr. Baxter for myself. The thing may come suddenly or gradually. And the very instant you are

convinced it is coming, telegraph to me. I will be here two hours after. . . . Do you understand?"

They halted twenty yards from the turning into the hamlet. He looked at her again with his kindly humorous

She nodded slowly and deliberately, repeating in her own mind his instructions; and beneath, like a whirl of

waters, questions surged to and fro, clamouring for answer. But her selfcontrol was coming back each

"I will write this evening. . . . Once more, then. Get him down next week. Watch him carefully when he

comes. Consult no doctor until you have telegraphed to me, and I have seen him."

"Goodbye, Miss Deronnais. Let me tell you that you are taking it magnificently. Fear nothing; pray much."

He took her hand for a moment. Then he raised his hat and left her standing there.

Mrs. Baxter was exceedingly absorbed just now in a new pious book of meditations written by a clergyman.

A nicely bound copy of it, which she had ordered specially, had arrived by the parcels post that morning; and

she had been sitting in the drawingroom ever since looking through it, and marking it with a small silver

pencil. Religion was to this lady what horticulture was to Maggie, except of course that it was really

important, while horticulture was not. She often wondered that Maggie did not seem to understand: of course

she went to mass every morning, dear girl; but religion surely was much more than that; one should be able to

sit for two or three hours over a book in the drawingroom, before the fire, with a silver pencil.

So at lunch she prattled of the book almost continuously, and at the end of it thought Maggie more unsubtle

than ever: she looked rather tired and strained, thought the old lady, and she hardly said a word from

The drive in the afternoon was equally unsatisfactory. Mrs. Baxter took the book with her, and the pencil, in

order to read aloud a few extracts here and there; and she again seemed to find Maggie rather vacuous and

But after tea Mrs. Baxter did not feel very well herself. She said she thought she must have taken a little chill.

"Dearest, you don't seem very overwhelmed. I think perhaps I shall have dinner in bed. Give me my book,

Mrs. Baxter's room was so comfortable, and the book so fascinatingly spiritual, that she determined to keep

her resolution and go to bed. She felt feverish, just to the extent of being very sleepy and at her ease. She rang

"A little of the volaille," she said, "with a spoonful of soup before it. . . . No, no meat; but a custard or so, and

a little fruit. Oh! yes, Charlotte, and tell Miss Maggie not to come and see me after dinner."

It seemed that the message had roused the dear girl at last, for Maggie appeared ten minutes later in quite a

"Dear Auntie, I am so very sorry. . . . Yes; do go to bed, and breakfast there in the morning too. I'm just

"Why shouldn't he come next week instead, Auntie, and be with us for Easter? You'd like that, wouldn't

"And you don't think it's influenza?" put in Maggie swiftly, laying a cool hand on the old lady's.

She maintained it was not. It was just a little chill, such as she had had this time last year: and it became

necessary to rouse herself a little to enumerate the symptoms. By the time she had done, Maggie's attention

had begun to wander again: the old lady had never known her so unsympathetic before, and said so with

"I'm sorry, Auntie," she said. "I was just thinking of something. Sleep well; and don't get up in the morning."

Then she left her to a spoonful of soup, a little volaille, a custard, some fruit, her spiritual book and

Downstairs she dined alone in the greenhung diningroom; and she revolved for the twentieth time the

thoughts that had been continuously with her since midday, moving before her like a kaleidoscope,

incessantly changing their relations, their shapes, and their suggestions. These tended to form themselves into

two main alternative classes. Either Mr. Cathcart was a harmless fanatic, or he was unusually sharp. But these

again had almost endless subdivisions, for at present she had no idea of what was really in his mindas to

what his hints meant. Either this curious old gentleman with shrewd, humorous eyes was entirely wrong, and

Laurie was just suffering from a nervous strain, not severe enough to hinder him from reading law in Mr.

Morton's chambers; and this was all the substratum of Mr. Cathcart's mysteries: or else Mr. Cathcart was

right, and Laurie was in the presence of some danger called insanity which Mr. Cathcart interpreted in some

strange fashion she could not understand. And beneath all this again moved the further questions as to what

spiritualism really waswhat it professed to be, or mere superstitious nonsense, or something else.

She was amazed that she had not demanded greater explicitness this morning; but the thing had been so

startling, so suggestive at first, so insignificant in its substance, that her ordinary common sense had deserted

her. The old gentleman had come and gone like a wraith, had uttered a few inconclusive sentences, and

promised to write, had been disappointed with her at one moment and enthusiastic the next. Obviously their

planes ran neither parallel nor opposing; they cut at unexpected points; and Maggie had no notion as to the

direction in which his lay. All she saw plainly was that there was some point of view other than hers.

So, then, she revolved theories, questioned, argued, doubted with herself. One thing only emergedthe old

lady's feverish cold afforded her exactly the opportunity she wished; she could write to Laurie with perfect

truthfulness that his mother had taken to her bed, and that she hoped he would come down next week instead

After dinner she sat down and wrote it, pausing many times to consider a phrase.

It was a little before sunset on that day that Mr. James Morton turned down on to the Embankment to walk up

to the Westminster underground to take him home. He was a great man on physical exercise, and it was a

matter of principle with him to live far from his work. As he came down the little passage he found his friend

waiting for him, and together they turned up towards where in the distance the Westminster towers rose high

"My dear man," he said, "there's absolutely nothing to say. I did exactly what you said: I hardly spoke to him

at all: I watched him very carefully indeed. I really can't go on doing that day after day. I've got my own work

"There was nothing odd at all, except that the boy looked tired, as you saw for yourself this morning."

The other held up a gloved hand in deprecation; but he did not seem at all ruffled.

"Yes, yes; we can take all that as said. . . . I'm accustomed to it, my dear fellow. Well, I saw Miss Deronnais,

"She's one in a thousand. I told her right out, you know, that I feared insanity."

"Ah! that's not finished yet," he said. "I'm on my way to her now. I don't think she'll play with the thing again

"Oh! you know nothing whatever about it," he said. "You don't count. But they do know quite enough."

In the underground the two talked no more; but Mr. Morton, affecting to read his paper, glanced up once or

twice at the old shrewd face opposite that stared so steadily out of the window into the roaring darkness. And

once more he reflected how astonishing it was that anyone in these daysanyone, at least, possessing

common senseand common sense was written all over that old bearded facecould believe such fantastic

rubbish as that which had been lately discussed. It was not only the particular points that regarded Laurie

Baxterall these absurd, though disquieting hints about insanity and suicide and the rest of itbut the

principles that old Cathcart declared to be beneaththose principles which he had, apparently, not confided

to Miss Deronnais. Here was the twentieth century; here was an electric railway, padded seats, and the Pall

The train began to slow up at Gloucester Road; and old Cathcart gathered up his umbrella and gloves.

The train slid on again into the darkness; and the lawyer sat for a moment with pursed lips. Yes, of course the

boy was overwrought: anyone could see that: he had stammered a little a sure sign. But why make all this

MR. and Mrs. Nugent were enjoying their holiday exceedingly. On Good Friday they had driven laboriously

in a waggonette to Royston, where they had visited the hermit's cave in company with other grandees of their

village, and held a stately picnic on the downs. They had returned, the gentlemen of the party slightly flushed

with brandy and water from the various hostelries on the home journey, and the ladies severe, with watercress

on their laps. Accordingly, on the Saturday, Mrs. Nugent had thought it better to stay indoors and despatch

her husband to the scene of the first cricket match of the season, a couple of miles away.

At about five o'clock she made herself a cup of tea, and did not wake up from the sleep which followed until

the evening was closing in. She awoke with a start, remembering that she had intended to give a good look

between the spare bedroom that had been her daughter's, and possibly make a change or two of the furniture.

She had not entered this room very often since the death. It had come to resemble to her mind a sort of

melancholy sanctuary, symbolical of glories that might have been; for she and her husband were full of the

glorious day that had begun to dawn when Laurie, very constrained though very ardent, had called upon them

in state to disclose his intentions. Well, it had been a false dawn; but at least it could be, and was, still talked

It seemed full then of a mysterious splendour when she entered it this evening, candle in hand, and stood

regarding it from the threshold. To the outward eye it was nothing very startling. A shrouded bed protruded

from the wall opposite with the words "The Lord preserve thee from all evil" illuminated in pink and gold by

the girl's own hand. An oleograph of Queen Victoria in coronation robes hung on one side and the painted

photograph of a Nonconformist divine, Bible in hand, whiskered and cravatted, upon the other. There was a

small clothcovered table at the foot of the bed, adorned with an almost continuous line of brassheaded

nails as a kind of beading round the edge, in the centre of which rested the plaster image of a young person

clasping a cross. A hymnbook and a Bible stood before this, and a small jar of wilted flowers. Against the

opposite wall, flanked by dejectedlooking weddinggroups, and another text or two, stood the great

Mrs. Nugent regarded the whole with a tender kind of severity, shaking her head slowly from side to side,

with the tin candlestick slightly tilted. She was a fullbodied lady, in clothes rather too tight for her, and she

panted a little after the ascent of the stairs. It seemed to her once more a strangely and inexplicably perverse

act of Providence, to whom she had always paid deference, by which so incalculable a rise in the social scale

Then she advanced a step, her eyes straying from the shrouded bed to the wardrobe and back again. Then she

It must now be premised that Mrs. Nugent was utterly without a trace of what is known as superstition; for

the whole evidential value of what follows, such as it is, depends upon that fact. She would not, by

preference, sleep in a room immediately after a death had taken place in it, but solely for the reason of certain

illdefined physical theories which she would have summed up under the expression that "it was but right

that the air should be changed." Her views on human nature and its component parts were undoubtedly

practical and commonsense. To put it brutally, Amy's body was in the churchyard and Amy's soul, crowned

and robed, in heaven; so there was no more to account for. She knew nothing of modern theories, nothing of

the revival of ancient beliefs; she would have regarded with kindly compassion, and met with practical

comments, that unwilling shrinking from scenes of death occasionally manifested by certain kind of

She turned, then, and looked at the wardrobe, still full of Amy's belongings, with her back to the bed in which

Amy had died, without even the faintest premonitory symptom of the unreasoning terror that presently seized

She kneeled down, after a careful scrutiny of the polished surface of the mahogany, pulled out a drawer filled

to brimming over with linen of various kinds and uses, and began to dive among these with careful

housewifely hands to discover their tale. Simultaneously, as she remembered afterwards, there came from the

hill leading down from the direction of the station, the sound of a trotting horse.

She paused to listen, her mind full of that faint gossipy surmise that surges so quickly up in the thoughts of

village dwellers, her hands for an instant motionless among the linen. It might be the doctor, or Mr. Paton, or

Mr. Grove. Those names flashed upon her; but an instant later were drowned again in a kind of fear of which

It seemed to her, she said, that there was something coming towards her that set her atremble; and when, a

moment later, the trotting hoofs rang out sharp and near, she positively relapsed into a kind of sitting position

For it appeared, so far as Mrs. Nugent could afterwards make it out, as if a sort of double process went on. It

was not merely that Fear, fullarmed, rushed upon with the approaching wheels, outside and therefore

harmless; but that the room itself in which she crouched, itself filled with some atmosphere, swift as water in

a rising lock, that held her there motionless, blind and dumb with horror, unable to move, even to lift her

Again sounded the hoofs and wheels, near now and imminent. Again they hushed as the corner was

approached. Then once more, as they broke out, clear and distinct, not twenty yards away at the turning into

the village, Mrs. Nugent, no longer able even to keep that rigid position of fear, sank gently backwards and

Mr. Nugent was astonished and even a little peevish when, on arriving home after dark, he found the parlour

He inquired for her; the mistress had slipped upstairs scarcely ten minutes ago. He shouted at the bottom of

the stairs, but there was no response. And after he had taken his boots off, and his desire for supper had

It was several minutes, even after the conveyal of an apparently inanimate body downstairs, before his wife

first made clear signs of intelligence; and even these were little more than grotesque expressions of

fearrolling eyes and exclamations. It was another quarter of an hour before any kind of connected story

could be got out of her. One conclusion only was evident, that Mrs. Nugent did not propose to fetch the

forgotten candle still burning on the clothcovered, brass nailed table, but that it must be fetched instantly;

the door locked on the outside, and the key laid before her on that tablecloth. These were the terms that must

Plainly there was but one person to carry out these instructions, for the little servantmaid was already all

eyes and mouth at the few pregnant sentences that had fallen from her mistress's lips. So Mr. Nugent himself,

All was entirely as usual. In spite of the unpleasant expectancy roused, in spite of himself and his godliness,

by the words of his wife and her awful headnodding, the room gave back to him no echo or lingering scent

of horror. The little bed stood there, white and innocent in the candlelight, the drawer still gaped, showing its

pathetic contents; the furniture, pictures, texts, and all the rest remained in their places, harmless and

He looked carefully round before entering; then, stepping forward, he took the candle, closed the drawer, not

without difficulty, glanced round once more, and went out, locking the door behind him.

"A pack of nonsense!" he said, as he tossed the key on to the table before his wife.

The theological discussion waxed late that night, and by ten o'clock Mrs. Nugent, under the influence of an

excellent supper and a touch of stimulant, had begun to condemn her own terrors, or rather to cease to protest

when her husband condemned them for her. A number of solutions had been proposed for the startling little

incident, to none of which did she give an unqualified denial. It was the stooping that had done it; there had

been a rush of blood to the head that had emptied the heart and caused the sinking feeling. It was the

watercress eaten in such abundance on the previous afternoon. It was the fact that she had passed an

unoccupied morning, owing to the closing of the shop. It was one of those things, or all of them, or some

other like one of them. Even the little maid was reassured, when she came to take away the supper things, by

the cheerful conversation of the couple, though she registered a private vow that for no consideration under

About halfpast ten Mrs. Nugent said that she would step up to bed; and in that direction she went,

accompanied by her husband, whose programme it was presently to step round to the "Wheatsheaf" for an

At the door on the right hand he hesitated, but his wife passed on sternly; and as she passed into their own

"That was Mr. Laurie you heard, Mary," said he. "Jim told me he saw him go past just after dark. . . . Well,

"WHEN is he coming?" asked Mrs. Baxter with a touch of peevishness, as she sat propped up in her tall chair

The old lady turned away her head from the rice pudding in a kind of gesture of repulsion. She was in the

Nothing particular had happened for the last ten days. Mrs. Baxter's feverish cold had developed, and she was

but now emerging from the nightdress and flanneljacket stage to that of the petticoat and dressinggown. It

was all very ordinary and untragic, and Maggie had had but little time to consider the events on which her

subconscious attention still dwelt. Mr. Cathcart had had no particular news to give her. Laurie, it seemed,

was working silently with his coach, talking little. Yet the old man did not for one instant withdraw one word

that he had said. Only, in answer to a series of positive inquiries from the girl two days before, he had told her

to wait and see him for herself, warning her at the same time to show no signs of perturbation to the boy.

And now the day was comeEaster Eve, as it happenedand she would see him before night. He had sent

no answer to her first letter; then, finally, a telegram had come that morning announcing his train.

She was wondering with all her might that afternoon as to what she would see. In a way she was terrified; in

another way she was contemptuous. The evidence was so extraordinarily confused. If he were in danger of

insanity, how was it that Mr. Cathcart advised her to get him down to a house with only two women and a

few maids? Who was there besides this old gentleman who ever dreamed that such a danger was possible?

How, if it was so obvious that she would see the change for herself, was it that othersMr. Morton, for

examplehad not seen it too? More than ever the theory gained force in her mind that the whole thing was

grossly exaggerated by this old man, and that all that was the matter with Laurie was a certain nervous strain.

Yet, for all that, as the afternoon closed in, she felt her nerves tightening. She walked a little in the garden

while the old lady took her nap; she came in to read to her again from the vellumbound little book as the

afternoon light began to fade. Then, after tea, she went under orders to see for herself whether Laurie's room

It struck her with an odd sense of strangeness as she went in; she scarcely knew why; she told herself it was

because of what she had heard of him lately. But all was as it should be. There were spring flowers on the

table and mantelshelf, and a pleasant fire on the hearth. It was even reassuring after she had been there a

Then she went to look at the smokingroom where she had sat with him and heard the curious noise of the

cracking wood on the night of the thaw, when the boy had behaved so foolishly. Here, too, was a fire, a tall

porter's chair drawn on one side with its back to the door, and a deep leather couch set opposite. There was a

box of Laurie's cigarettes set ready on the tablecandles, matches, flowers, the illustrated papers yes,

But she stood looking on it all for a few moments with an odd emotion. It was familiar, homely,

domesticyet it was strange. There was an air of expectation about it all. . . . Then on a sudden the emotions

"Sit down, my dearest, for a few minutes. You'll hear the wheels from here. . . . No, don't talk or read."

Outside the twilight was falling, layer on layer, over the spring garden, in a great stillness. The chilly wind of

the afternoon had dropped, and there was scarcely a sound to be heard from the living things about the house

that once more were renewing their strength. Yet over all, to the Catholic's mind at least, there lay a shadow

of death, from associations with that strange anniversary that was passing, hour by hour. . . .

As to what Maggie thought during those minutes of waiting, she could have given afterwards no coherent

description. Matters were too complicated to think clearly; she knew so little; there were so many hypotheses.

Yet one emotion dominated the restexpectancy with a tinge of fear. Here she sat, in this peaceful room,

with all the homely paraphernalia of convalescence about herthe fire, the bed laid invitingly open with a

couple of books, and a readinglamp on the little table at the side, the faint smell of sandalwood; and before

the fire dozed a peaceful old lady full too of gentle expectation of her son, yet knowing nothing whatever of

the vague perils that were about him, that had, indeed, whatever they were, already closed in on him. . . . And

She rose at last and went on tiptoe to the window. The curtains had not yet been drawn, and she could see in

the fading light the elaborate ironwork of the tall gate in the fence, and the common road outside it, gleaming

here and there in puddles that caught the green colour from the dying western sky. In front, on the lawn on

As she stood there, there came a sound of wheels, and a carriage came in sight. It drew up at the gate, and the

"He is come," said the girl softly, as she saw the tall ulstered figure appear from the carriage. There was no

answer, and as she went on tiptoe to the fire, she saw that the old lady was asleep. She went noiselessly out of

the room, and stood for an instant, every pulse racing with horrible excitement, listening to the footsteps and

voices in the hall. Then she drew a long trembling breath, steadied herself with a huge effort of the will, and

"Mr. Laurie's gone into the smokingroom, miss," said the servant, looking at her oddly.

He was standing by the table as she went in; so much she could see: but the candles were unlighted, and no

Then in an instant she knew that something was wrong. Yet at the moment she had not an idea as to what it

There was no movement or word in answer. She passed her hand along the mantelpiece for the matches she

had seen there just before; but her hand shook so much that some little metal ornament fell with a crash as she

fumbled there, and she drew a long almost vocal breath of sudden nervous alarm. And still there was no

movement in answer. Only the tall figure stood watching her it seemeda pale luminous patch showing her

Then she found the matches and struck one; and, keeping her face downcast, lighted, with fingers that shook

violently, the two candles on the little table by the fire. She must just be natural and ordinary, she kept on

telling herself. Then with another fierce effort of will she began to speak, lifting her eyes to his face as she

"Auntie's just fallen . . ." (her voice died suddenly for an instant, as she saw him looking at her)then she

Every word was an effort, as she looked steadily into the eyes that looked so steadily into hers.

"You must just kiss her and come away," she said, driving out the words with effort after effort. "She has a

They passed so through the inner hall and upstairs: and, without turning again, holding herself steady only by

the consciousness that some appalling catastrophe was imminent if she did not, she opened the door of the

Maggie watched, as the tall figure came obediently forward, in an indescribable terror. It was as when one

watches a man in a tiger's den. . . . But the figure bent obediently, and kissed.

"Not a word," she said. "Auntie's got a headache. Yes, Auntie, he's very well; you'll see him in the morning.

Without a word he passed out, and, as she closed the door after him, she heard him stop irresolute on the

"My dearest child," came the peevish old voice, "you might have allowed my own son"

"No, no, Auntie, you really mustn't. I know how bad your head is. . . . Yes, yes; he's very well. You'll see him

And all the while she was conscious of the figure that must be faced again presently, waiting on the landing.

"Shall I go and see that everything's all right in his room?" she said. "Perhaps they've forgotten"

Maggie went out swiftly without a word. There again stood the figure waiting. The landing lamp had been

She found the matches again, lighted the candles, and set them on his table, still without a look at that face

"We shall have to dine alone," she said, striving to make her voice natural, as she reached the door.

Then once more she raised her eyes to his, and looked him bravely in the face as he stood by the fire.

She could bear it no more. She went out without another word, passed steadily across the length of the

She was roused by a tap on the doorhow much later she did not know. But the agony was passed for the

presentthe repulsion and the horror of what she had seen. Perhaps it was that she did not yet understand the

whole truth. But at least her will was dominant; she was as a man who has fought with fear alone, and walks,

She opened the door; and Susan stood there with a candle in one hand and a scrap of white in the other.

Maggie took it without a word, and read the name and the pencilled message twice.

"Just light the lamp out here," she said. "Oh . . . and, by the way, send Charlotte to Mrs. Baxter at once."

The maid still paused, eyeing her, as if with an unspoken question. There was terror too in her eyes.

"Mr. Laurie is not very well," said Maggie steadily. "Please take no notice of anything. And . . . and, Susan, I

think I shall dine alone this evening. just a tray up here will do. If Mr. Laurie says anything, just explain that I

She stepped across the room to her writingtable, beckoning the maid to come inside and shut the door; then

she wrote rapidly for a minute or so, enclosed her note, directed it, and gave it to the girl.

"Just send up someone at once, will you, with this to Father Mahonon a bicycle."

When the maid was gone, she waited still for an instant looking across the dark landing, expectant of some

sound or movement. But all was still. A line of light showed only under the door where the boy who was

called Laurie Baxter stood or sat. At least he was not moving about. There in the darkness Maggie tested her

power of resisting panic. Panic was the one fatal thing: so much she understood. Even if that silent door had

She went back, took a wrap from the chair where she had tossed it down on coming in from the garden that

afternoon, threw it over her head and shoulders, passed down the stairs and out through the garden once more

All was quiet in the tiny hamlet as she went along the road. A blaze of light shone from the taproom

window where the fathers of families were talking together, and within Mr. Nugent's shuttered shop she could

see through the doorway the grocer himself in his shirtsleeves, shifting something on the counter. So great

was the tension to which she had strung herself that she did not even envy the ordinariness of these people:

they appeared tobe in some other world, not attainable by herself. These were busied with domestic affairs,

with beer or cheese or gossip. Her task was of another kind: so much she knew; and as to what that task was,

As she turned the corner, the figure she expected was waiting there; and she could see in the deep twilight

"Yes," she said, "I have seen for myself. You are right so far. Now tell me what to do."

It was no time for conventionality. She did not ask why the solicitor was there. It was enough that he had

"I have seen a change I cannot describe at all. It's just someone elsenot Laurie at all. I don't understand it in

the least. But I just want to know what to do. I have written to Father Mahon to come."

"I cannot tell you what to do. I must leave that to yourself. I can only tell you what not to do."

"Miss Deronnais, you are magnificent! . . . There, it is said. Now then. You must not get excited or frightened

whatever happens. I do not believe that you are in any dangernot of the ordinary kind, I mean. But if you

want me, I shall be at the inn. I have taken rooms there for a night or so. And you must not yield to him

"I think I shall understand soon. At present I understand nothing. I have said I cannot dine with him."

"I cannot . . . before the servants. One of them at least suspects something. But I will sit with him afterwards,

"Very good. You must be with him as much as you can. Remember, it is not the worst yet. It is to prevent that

"You must use your judgment. Your object is to fight on his side, remember, against this thing that is

She bowed. She did not wish to use more words than were necessary. The strain was frightful.

"It is this: whatever you may seelittle tricks of speech or movementyou must not for one instant yield to

the thought that the creature that is obsessing him is what he thinks it is. Remember the thing is wholly evil,

wholly evil; but it may, perhaps, do its utmost to hide that, and to keep up the illusion. It is intelligent, but not

brilliant; it has the intelligence only of some venomous brute in the slime. Or it may try to frighten you. You

She understood hints here and there of what the old man said enough, at any rate, to act.

"And you must keep up to the utmost pitch your sympathy with him himself. You must remember that he is

somewhere there, underneath, in chains; and that, probably, he is struggling too, and needs you. It is not

"His mother . . . yes. He just knew her too. He did not speak to her. I would not let him."

"You must go back directly. . . . Shall we turn? I don't think there's much more to say just now."

"Miss Deronnais, I wouldn't rely on Father Mahon. I've hardly ever met a priest who takes these things

seriously. In theory yes, of course; but not in concrete instances. However, Father Mahon may be an

exception. And the worst of it is that the priesthood has enormous power, if they only knew it."

The tinkle of a bicycle bell sounded down the road behind them. Maggie wheeled on the instant, and caught

The man jumped off, touched his hat, and handed her a note. She tore it open, and glanced through it in the

light of the bicycle lamp. Then she crumpled it up and threw it into the ditch with a quick, impatient

"Father Mahon's called away suddenly. It's from his housekeeper. He'll only be back in time for the first mass

"I know nothing. It may be coincidence. Speak no more of it. You have the facts to think of."

About them as they walked back in silence lay the quiet spring night. From the direction of the hamlet came

the banging of a door, then voices wishing good night, and the sound of footsteps. The steps passed the end

of the lane and died away again. Over the trees to the right were visible the high twisted chimney of the old

"Two points then to remember," said the voice in the darkness"Courage and Love. Can you remember?"

"I will call and ask to see you as soon as the household is up. If you can't see me, I shall understand that

"If it becomes necessary I will wire for a doctor from town. I will undertake all the preliminary arrangements,

Mrs. Baxter dined placidly in bed at about halfpast seven; but she was more sleepy than ever when she had

"It always goes straight to my head, Charlotte," she explained. "Well, set the bookno, not that onethe

one bound in white parchment. . . . Yes, just so, down here; and turn the reading lamp so that I can read if I

want to. . . . Oh! ask Miss Maggie to tap at my door very softly when she comes out from dinner. Has she

"Very well; then you can just tell Susan to let her know. How was Mr. Laurie looking, Charlotte?"

"Very well. Then that is all, Charlotte. You can just look in here after Miss Maggie and settle me for the

She was one of those persons whose moments between sleeping and waking, especially during a little attack

of feverishness, are occupied in contemplating a number of little vivid pictures of all kinds that present

themselves to the mental vision; and she saw as usual a quantity of these, made up of tiny details of the day

that was gone, and of other details markedly unconnected with it. She saw for example little scenes in which

Maggie and Charlotte and medicine bottles and Chinese faces and printed pages of a book all moved together

in a sort of convincing incoherence; and she was just beginning to lose herself in the depths of sleep, and to

forget her firm resolution of reading another page or so of the book by her side, when a little sound came, and

Her reading lamp cast a funnel of light across her bed, and the rest of the room was lit only by the fire

dancing in the chimney. Yet this was bright enough, she thought at the time, to show her perfectly distinctly,

though with shadows fleeting across it, her son's face peering in at the door. She thought she said something;

but she was not sure afterwards. At any rate, the face did not move; and it seemed to her that it bore an

expression of such extraordinary malignity that she would hardly have known it for her son's. In a sudden

panic she raised herself in bed, staring; and as the shadows came and went, as she stared, the face was gone

again. Mrs. Baxter drew a quick breath or two as she looked; but there was nothing. Yet again she could have

She reached out and put her hand on the bellstring that hung down over her bed. Then she hesitated. It was

too ridiculous, she told herself. Besides, Charlotte would have gone to her room.

But the fear did not go immediately; though she told herself again and again that it was just one of those little

She lay back on the pillow, thinking. . . . Why, they would have reached the fish by now. No; she would tell

Maggie when she came up. How Laurie would laugh tomorrow! Then, little by little, she dozed off once

"Not tonight, Auntie; you're too tired. Besides, I think he's gone to the smokingroom."

"Very well, dearest. . . . Oh! Maggie, such a queer thing happened just nowwhen you were at dinner."

"I thought I saw Laurie look in, just for an instant. But he looked awful, somehow. It was just one of my little

"Just ask him whether he did look in, after all. It may just have been the shadow on his face."

"Yes, Auntie. . . . I think I'd better lock your door when I go out. You won't fancy such things then, will

The old voice was becoming sleepy again: and Maggie stood watching a moment or two longer.

"Send Charlotte to me, dearest . . . Good night, my pet. . . . I'm too sleepy again. My love to Laurie."

The old lady felt the girl's warm lips on her forehead. They seemed to linger a little. Then Mrs. Baxter lost

The public bar of the Wheatsheaf Inn was the scene this evening of a lively discussion. Some thought the old

gentleman, arrived that day from London, to be a new kind of commercial traveller, with designs upon the

gardens of the gentry; others that he was a sort of scientific collector; others, again, that he was a private

detective; and since there was no evidence at all, good or bad, in support of any one of these suggestions, a

A silence fell when his step was heard to pass down the stairs and out into the street, and another half an hour

At ten o'clock the majority of the men moved out into the moonlight to disperse homewards, as the landlord

began to put away the glasses and glance at the clock. Overhead the lighted blind showed where the

mysterious stranger still kept vigil; and over the way, beyond the still leafless trees, towered up the twisted

chimneys of Mrs. Baxter's house. No word had been spoken connecting the two, yet one or two of the men

Nearly a couple of hours later the landlord himself came to the door to give the great Mr. Nugent himself,

with whom he had been sitting in the inner parlour, a last goodnight, and he too noticed that the bedroom

Mr. Nugent nodded. He was still a little flushed with whisky and with his previous recountings of what would

have happened if his poor daughter had lived to marry the young squire, of his (Mr. Nugent's) swift social

advancement and its outward evidences, and of the hobnobbing with the gentry that would have taken place.

He looked reflectively across at the silhouette of the big house, all grey and silver in the full moon. The

landlord followed the direction of his eyes; and for some reason unknown to them both, the two stood there

Immediately before them, across the road, rose the high oak paling that enclosed the lawn on this side, and

the immense limes that towered, untrimmed and unclipped, in delicate soaring filigree against the peacock

sky of night. Behind them showed the chimneys, above the dusky front of redbrick and the parapet. The

moon was not yet full upon the house, and the windows glimmered only here and there, in lines and sudden

Yet the two looked at it in silence. They had seen such a sight fifty times before, for the landlord and the

other at least twice a week spent such an evening together, and usually parted at the door. But they stood here

All was as still as a spring night can be. Unseen and unheard the life of the earth streamed upwards in twig

and blade and leaf, pushing on to the miracle of the prophet Jonas, to be revealed in wealth of colour and

scent and sound a fortnight later. The wind had fallen; the last doors were shut, and the two figures standing

here were as still as all else. To neither of them occurred even the thinnest shadow of a suspicion as to the

cause that held them heretwo plain menin silence, staring at an old housenot a thought of any hidden

life beyond that of matter, that life by which most men reckon existence. For them this was but one more

night such as they had known for half a century. There was a moon. It was fine. That was Mrs. Baxter's

Mr. Nugent moved off presently with a brisk air, bidding his friend good night, and the landlord, after another

look, went in. There came the sound of bolts and bars, the light in the window of the parlour beside the bar

suddenly went out, footsteps creaked upstairs; a door shut, and all was silence.

Half an hour later a shadow moved across the blind upstairs: an arm appeared to elongate itself; then, up went

the blind, the window followed it, and a bearded face looked out into the moonlight. Behind was the table

littered with papers, for Mr. Cathcart, laborious even in the midst of anxiety, had brought down with him for

the Sunday a quantity of business that could not easily wait; and had sat there patiently docketing, correcting,

Even now his face seemed serene enough; it jerked softly this way and that, up the street and down again;

then once more settled down to stare across the road at the grey and silver pile beyond the trees. Yet even he

saw nothing there beyond what the landlord had seen. It stood there, uncrossed by lights or footsteps or

Yet to the watcher the place was as sinister as a prison. Behind the solemn walls and the superficial flash of

the windows, beneath the silence and the serenity, lay a life more terrible than death, engaged now in some

drama of which he could not guess the issue. A conflict was proceeding there, more silent than the silence

itself. Two souls fought for one against a foe of unknown strength and unguessed possibilities. The servants

slept apart, and the old mistress apart, yet in one of those rooms (and he did not know which) a battle was

locked of which the issue was more stupendous than that of any struggle with disease. Yet he could do

nothing to help, except what he already did, with his fingers twisting and gripping a string of beads beneath

the windowsill. Such a battle as this must be fought by picked champions; and since the priesthood in this

From the village above the hill came the stroke of a single bell; a bird in the gardenwalk beyond the paling

chirped softly to his mate; then once more silence came down upon the moonlit street, the striped shadows,

THE little inner hall looked very quiet and familiar as Maggie Deronnais stood on the landing, passing

through her last struggle with herself before the shock of battle. The stairs went straight down, with the old

carpet, up and down which she had gone a thousand times, with every faint patch and line where it was a little

worn at the edges, visible in the lamplight from overhead; and she stared at these, standing there silent in her

white dress, barearmed and barenecked, with her hair in great coils on her head, as upright as a lance.

Beneath lay the little hall, with the tigerskin, the redpapered walls, and a few miscellaneous thingsan

old cloak of hers she used on rainy days in the garden, a straw hat of Laurie's, and a cap or two, hanging on

the pegs opposite. In front was the door to the outer hall, to the left, that of the smokingroom. The house

was perfectly quiet. Dinner had been cleared away already through the hatch into the kitchen passage, and the

servants' quarters were on the other side of the house. No sound of any kind came from the smokingroom;

not even the faint whiff of tobaccosmoke that had a way of stealing out when Laurie was smoking really

She had dined from a tray in her own room, as she had said; and had been there alone ever since, for the most

part at her prieDieu, in dead silence, conscious of nothing connected, listening to the occasional tread of a

maid in the hall beneath, passing to and from the diningroom. There she had tried to face the ordeal that was

comingthe ordeal, at the nature of which even now she only half guessed, and she had realised nothing,

formed no plan, considered no eventuality. Things were so wholly out of her experience that she had no

process whereby to deal with them. Just two words came over and over again before her

"He is there, underneath," she whispered to herself softly; "he is waiting for me to help him." She

remembered that she must make that act of faith. Yet was it Laurie who had looked in at his mother's door? . .

. Well, the door was locked now. But that secretive visit seemed to her terrible.

She had put that question to herself fifty times, and found no answer. The old man's solution was clear

enough now: he believed no less than that out of that infinitely mysterious void that lies beyond the veils of

sense there had come a Personality, strong, malignant, degraded, and seeking to degrade, seizing upon this

lad's soul, in the disguise of a dead girl, and desiring to possess it. How fantastic that sounded! Did she

believe it? She did not know. Then there was the solution of a nervous strain, rising to a climax of insanity.

This was the answer of the average doctor. Did she believe that? Was that enough to account for the look in

She understood perfectly that the fact of herself living under conditions of matter made the second solution

the more natural; yet that did not content her. For her religion informed her emphatically that discarnate

Personalities existed which desired the ruin of human souls, and, indeed, forbade the practices of spiritualism

for this very reason. Yet there was hardly a Catholic she knew who regarded the possibility in these days as

more than a theoretical one. So she hesitated, holding her judgment in suspense. One thing only she saw

clearly, and that was that she must act as if she believed the former solution: she must treat the boy as one

obsessed, whether indeed he were so or not. There was no other manner in which she could concentrate her

force upon the heart of the struggle. If there were no evil Personality in the affair, it was necessary to assume

Once, as a child of ten, she had had to undergo a small operation. One of the nuns had taken her to the

doctor's house. When she had understood that she must come into the next room and have it done, she had

"Leave me quite alone, please, Mother, just for one minute. Please don't speak. I'll come in a minute."

After a minute's waiting, while they looked at her, she had gone forward, sat down in the chair and behaved

quite perfectly. Yes; she understood that now. It was necessary first to collect forces, to concentrate energies,

So she stood here now, without even the thought of flight, not arguing, not reassuring herself, not analysing

And there was yet another psychological fact that astonished her, though she was only conscious of it in a

parenthetical kind of way, and that was the strength of her feeling for Laurie himself. It seemed to her

curious, when she considered it, how the horror of that which lay over the boy seemed, like death itself, to

throw out as on a clear background the best of himself. His figure appeared to her memory as wholly good

and sweet; the shadows on his character seemed absorbed in the darkness that lay over him; and towards this

figure she experienced a sense of protective love and energy that astonished her. She desired with all her

Then she drew a long steady breath, thrust out her strong white hand to see if the fingers trembled; went

down the stairs, and, without knocking, opened the smokingroom door and went straight in, closing it

For the first instant she remained there standing motionless; it was like a declaration of war. In one or two of

her fragmentary rehearsals upstairs she had supposed she would say something conventional to begin with.

But the reality struck conventionality clean out of the realm of the possible. Her silent pause there was as

significant as the crouch of a hound; and she perceived that it was recognised to be so by the other that was

there. There was in him that quick, silent alertness she had expected: half defiant, half timid, as of a fierce

Then she came a step forward and sideways to a chair, sat down in it with a swift, almost menacing motion,

There was the familiar background, the dark panelled wall, the engraving, and the shelf of books convenient

to the hand; the fire was on her right, and the couch opposite. Upon the couch sat the figure of the boy she

He was in the same suit in which he had travelled; he had not even changed his shoes; they were splashed a

little with London mud. These things she noticed in the minutes that followed, though she kept her eyes upon

The face itself was beyond her power of analysis. Line for line it was Laurie's features, mouth, eyes and hair;

yet its signification was not Laurie's. One that was akin looked at her from out of those windows of the

soulscrutinised her cautiously, questioningly, and suspiciously. It was the face of an enemy who waits.

A full minute must have passed before she spoke. The face had dropped its eyes after the first long look, as if

in a kind of relaxation, and remained motionless, staring at the fire in a sort of dejection. Yet beneath, she

perceived plainly, there was the same alert hostility; and when she spoke the eyes rose again with a quick

furtive attentiveness. The semiintelligent beast was soothed, but not yet reassured.

The lips moved a little in answer; then again the face glanced down sideways at the fire; the hands dangled

There was an appearance of weakness about the attitude that astonished and encouraged her; it appeared as if

matters were not yet consummated. Yet she had a sense of nausea at the sight. . . .

Again the lips moved as if speaking rapidly, and the eyes looked up at her quick and suspicious.

"Laurie," she said steadily, bending all her will at the words, "you're very unwell. Do you understand that?"

Again the noiseless gabbling of the lips, and again a little commonplace sentence, "I'm all right."

His voice was unnaturala little hoarse, and quite toneless. It was as a voice from behind a mask.

"No," said Maggie carefully, "you're not all right. Listen, Laurie. I tell you you're all wrong; and I've come to

help you as well as I can. Will you do your best? I'm speaking to you, Laurie . . . to you."

Every time he answered, the lips flickered first as in rapid conversationas of a man seen talking through a

Maggie leaned forward, her hands clasped tightly, and her eyes fixed steadily on that baffling face.

"Laurie; it's you I'm speaking toyou. . . . Can you hear me? Do you understand?"

Again the eyes rose quick and suspicious; and her hands knit yet more closely together as she fought down

the rising nausea. She drew a long breath first; then she delivered a little speech which she had half rehearsed

"Laurie," she said, "I want you to listen to me very carefully, and to trust me. I know what is the matter with

you; and I think you know too. You can't fightfight him by yourself. . . . Just hold on as tightly as you can

For a moment she thought that he perceived something of what she meant: he looked at her so earnestly with

those odd questioning eyes. Then he jerked ever so slightly, as if some string had been suddenly pulled, and

It was horrible to see that motionlessness of body. He sat there as he had probably sat since entering the

room. His eyes moved, but scarcely his head; and his hands hung down helplessly.

"Have you prayed, Laurie? . . . Do you understand what has happened to you? You aren't really illat least,

It was piteous. For the instant the sense of nausea vanished, swallowed up in emotion. Why . . . why, he was

With one motion, swift and impetuous, she had thrown herself forward on to her knees, and clasped at the

"Laurie! Laurie!" she cried. "You haven't prayed . . . you've been playing, and the machinery has caught you.

But it isn't too late! Oh, God! it's not too late. Pray with me! Say the Our Father. . . ."

Again slowly the eyes moved round. He had started ever so little at her rush, and the seizing of his hands; and

now she felt those hands moving weakly in her own, as of a sleeping child who tries to detach himself from

She grasped his hands more fiercely, staring straight up into those strange piteous eyes that revealed so little,

Then his hands tore back, with a movement as fierce as her own, and the eyes blazed with an unreal light. She

still clung to his wrists, looking up, struck with a paralysis of fear at the change, and the furious hostility that

flamed up in the face. The lips writhed back, half snarling, half smiling. . . .

He wrenched himself backwards, striking her under the chin with his knee. The couch slid backwards a foot

against the wall, and he was on his feet. She remained terrorstricken, shocked, looking up at the dully

She stood up suddenlywrenching her will back to self command. Her breath still came quick and panting;

and she waited until once more she breathed naturally. And all the while he stood looking down at her with

Still he stared at her, with lips closed, breathing rapidly through his nostrils. With a sudden movement she

He still watched her; then, with his eyes on her, with movements as of a man in the act of selfdefence,

wheeled out the sofa to its place, and sat down. She waited till the tension of his figure seemed to relax again,

till the quick glances at her from beneath drooping eyelids ceased, and once more he settled down with

dangling hands to look at the fire. Then she began again, quietly and decisively.

"Your mother isn't well," she said. "No . . . just listen quietly. What is going to happen tomorrow? I'm

"I want to help you, Laurie. You know that, don't you? I'm Maggie Deronnais. You remember?"

"Yes, I'm Maggie. You trust me, don't you, Laurie? You can believe what I say? Well, I want you to fight too.

Again the eyes rose, with that odd questioning look. Maggie thought she perceived something else there too.

She gathered her forces quietly in silence an instant or two, feeling her heart quicken like the pulse of a

He recoiled violently with a movement so fierce that the words died on her lips. For one moment she thought

he was going to spring. And again he was on his feet, snarling. There was silence for an interminable instant;

then a stream of words, scorching and ferocious, snarled at her like the furious growling of a doga string of

Just so much she understood. Yet she held her ground, unable to speak, conscious of the torrent of language

that swirled against her from that suffused face opposite, yet not understanding a tenth part of what she heard.

On the instant the words ceased; but so overpowering was the venom and malice of the silence that followed

that again she was silent, perceiving that the utmost she could do was to hold her ground. So the two stood. If

the words were horrible to hear, the silence was more horrible a thousand times; it was as when a man faces

She scarcely knew how it was that she found herself again in her chair, with the figure seated opposite.

It seemed that the direct assault was useless. And indeed she was no longer capable of making it. The nausea

had returned, and with it a sensation of weakness. Her knees still were lax and useless; and her hand, as she

turned it on the chairarm, shook violently. Yet she had a curious sense of irresponsibility: there was no

She sat back in silence for some minutes, looking now at the fire too, now at the figure opposite, noticing,

however, that the helplessness seemed gone. His hands dangled no longer; he sat upright, his hands clasped,

Once more she began deliberately to attempt to gather her forces; but the will, it appeared, had lost its

nervous grasp of the faculties. It had no longer that quick grip and command with which she had begun.

Then suddenly and, as it appeared, inevitably, without movement or sound, she began internally to pray,

closing her eyes, careless, and indeed unfearing. It seemed her one hope. And behind the steady movement of

her willsufficient at least to elicit acts of petitionher intellect observed a thousand images and thoughts.

She perceived the silence of the house and of the breathless spring night outside; she considered Mr. Cathcart

in the inn across the road, Mrs. Baxter upstairs: she contemplated the future as it would be on the

morrowEaster Day, was it not?the past, and scarcely at all the present. She relinquished all plans, all

intentions and hopes: she leaned simply upon the supernatural, like a tired child, and looked at pictures.

In remembering it all afterwards, she recalled to herself the fact that this process of prayer seemed strangely

tranquil; that there had been in her a consciousness of rest and recuperation as marked as that which a

traveller feels who turns into a lighted house from a stormy night. The presence of that other in the room was

not even an interruption; the nervous force that the other had generated just now seemed harmless and

For a time, at least, that was so. But there came a moment when it appeared as if her almost mechanical and

rhythmical action of internal effort began to grip something. It was as when an engine after running free

The moment she was aware of this, she opened her eyes; and saw that the other was looking straight at her

intently and questioningly. And in that moment she perceived for the first time that her conflict lay, not

externally, as she had thought, but in some interior region of which she was wholly ignorant. It was not by

word or action, but by something else which she only half understood that she was to struggle. . . .

She closed her eyes again with quite a new kind of determination. It was not selfcommand that she needed,

She began again that resolute wordless play of the will dismissing with a series of efforts the intellectual

images of thoughtthat play of the will which, it seemed, had affected the boy opposite in a new way. She

had no idea of what the crisis would be, or how it would come. She only saw that she had struck upon a new

He had shifted his position, and for a moment her heart leapt with hope. For he sat now leaning forward, his

elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands, and in the shaded lamplight it seemed that he was shaking.

She too moved, and the rustle of her dress seemed to reach him. He glanced up, and before he dropped his

head again she caught a clear sight of his face. He was laughing, silently and overpoweringly, without a

For a moment the nausea seized her so fiercely that she gasped, catching at her throat; and she stared at that

bowed head and shaking shoulders with a horror that she had not felt before. The laughter was worse than all:

and it was a little while before she perceived its unreality. It was like a laughing machine. And the silence of

She wrestled with herself, driving down the despair that was on her. Courage and love.

Again she leaned back without speaking, closing her eyes to shut out the terror, and began desperately and

Once more he had shifted his position, and was looking straight at her with a curious air of detached interest.

His face looked almost natural, though it was still flushed with that forced laughter; but the mirth itself was

gone. Then he spoke abruptly and sharply, in the tone of a man who speaks to a tiresome child; and a little

conversation followed, in which she found herself taking a part, as in an unnatural dream.

She nodded at him; closed her eyes once more with new confidence, and set to work.

After that a series of little scenes followed, of which, a few days later, she could only give a disconnected

She had heard the locking of the front door a long while ago; and she knew that the household was gone to

bed. It was then that she realised how long the struggle would be. But the next incident was marked in her

memory by her hearing the tall clock in the silent hall outside beat one. It was immediately after this that he

He got up without a word and came over to her, leaning forward with his hands on his knees to peer into her

face. Again, to her astonishment, she was not terrified. She just waited, looking narrowly at the strange

person who looked through Laurie's eyes and spoke through his mouth. It was all as unreal as a fantastic

dream. It seemed like some abominable game or drama that had to be gone through.

He smiled unnaturally, as if the muscles of his mouth were not perfectly obedient.

Then he turned, went back to his couch, and this time lay down on it flat, turning over on his side, away from

her, as if to sleep. He settled himself there like a dog. She looked at him a moment; then closed her eyes and

The first symptom of which she was aware was a powerlessness to formulate her prayers. Up to that point she

had leaned, as has been said, on an enormous Power external to herself, yet approached by an interior way.

Now it required an effort of the will to hold to that Power at all. In terms of space, let it be said that she had

rested, like a child in the dark, upon Something that sustained her: now she was aware that it no longer

sustained her; but that it needed a strong continuous effort to apprehend it at all. There was still the dark

about her; but it was of a different qualityit cannot be expressed otherwiseit was as the darkness of an

unknown gulf compared to the darkness of a familiar room. It was of such a nature that space and form

The next symptom was a sense of terror, comparable only to that which she had succeeded in crushing down

as she stood on the stairs four or five hours before. That, however, had been external to her; she had entered

it. Now it had entered her, and lay, heavy as pitch, upon the very springs of her interior life. It was terror of

something to come. That which it heralded was not yet come: but it was approaching.

The third symptom was the approach itselfswift and silent, like the running of a bear; so swift that it was

upon her through the dark before she could stir or act. It came upon her, in a flash at the last; and she

It is possible only to describe it as, afterwards, she described it herself. The powerlessness and the terror were

no more than the faroff effect of its approach; the Thing itself was the centre.

Of that realm of being from which it came she had no previous conception: she had known evil only in its

effectsin sins of herself and othersknown it as a man passing through a hospital ward sees flushed or

pale faces, or bandaged wounds. Now she caught some glimpse of its essence, in the atmosphere of this

bearlike thing that was upon her. As aches and pains are to Death, so were sins to this

Personalitysymptoms, premonitions, causes, but not Itself. And she was aware that the Thing had come

from a spiritual distance so unthinkable and immeasurable, that the very word distance meant little.

Of the Presence itself and its mode she could use nothing better than metaphors. But those to whom she

spoke were given to understand that it was not this or that faculty of her being that, so to speak, pushed

against it; but that her entire being was saturated so entirely, that it was but just possible to distinguish her

inmost self from it. The understanding no longer moved; the emotions no longer rebelled; memory simply

ceased. Yet through the worst there remained one minute, infinitesimally small spark of identity that

maintained "I am I; and I am not that." There was no analysis or consideration; scarcely even a sense of

disgust. In fact for a while there was a period when to that tiny spot of identity it appeared that it would be an

incalculable relief to cease from striving, and to let self itself be merged in that Personality so amazingly

strong and compelling, that had precipitated itself upon the rest. . . . Relief? Certainly. For though emotion as

most men know it was crushed outthat emotion stirred by human love or hatredthere remained an

instinct which strove, which, by one long continuous tension, maintained itself in being.

For the malignity of the thing was overwhelming. It was not mere pressure; it had a character of its own for

which the girl afterwards had no words. She could only say that, so far from being negation, or emptiness, or

That then was the situation for a time which she could only afterwards reckon by guesswork; there was no

development or movementno measurable incidents; there was but the state that remained poised; below all

those comparatively superficial faculties with which men in general carry on their affairsthat state in which

two Personalities faced one another, welded together in a grip that lay on the very brink of

THE cocks were crowing from the yards behind the village when Maggie opened her eyes, clear shrill music,

answered from the hill as by their echoes, and the yews outside were alive with the dawnchirping of the

She lay there quite quietly, watching under her tired eyelids, through the still unshuttered windows, the

splendid glow, seen behind the twisted stems in front and the slender fairy forest of birches on the further side

of the garden. Immediately outside the window lay the path, deep in yewneedles, the groundivy beyond,

She had no need to remember or consider. She knew every step and process of the night. That was Laurie

who lay opposite in a deep sleep, his head on his arm, breathing deeply and regularly; and this was the little

smokingroom where she had seen the cigarettes laid ready against his coming, last night.

There was still a log just alight on the hearth, she noticed. She got out of her chair, softly and stiffly, for she

felt intolerably languid and tired. Besides, she must not disturb the boy. So she went down on her knees, and,

with infinite craft, picked out a coal or two from the fender and dropped them neatly into the core of redheat

that still smouldered. But a fragment of wood detached itself and fell with a sharp sound; and she knew, even

without turning her head, that the boy had awakened. There was a faint inarticulate murmur, a rustle and a

Laurie was lying on his back, his arms clasped behind his head, looking at her with a quiet meditative air. He

appeared no more astonished or perplexed than herself. He was a little whitelooking and tired in the light of

She rose from her knees again, still silent, and stood looking down on him, and he looked back at her. There

was no need of speech. It was one of those moments in which one does not even say that there are no words

to use; one just regards the thing, like a stretch of open country. It is contemplation, not comment, that is

Her eyes wandered away presently, with the same tranquillity, to the brightening garden outside; and her

slowly awakening mind, expanding within, sent up a little scrap of quotation to be answered.

"While it was yet early . . . there came to the sepulchre." How did it run? "Mary . . ." Then she spoke.

The boy nodded gently; and she saw his eyes slowly closing once more; he was not yet half awake. So she

went past him on tiptoe to the window, turned the handle, and opened the white tall frameworklike door. A

gush of air, sweet as wine, laden with the smell of dew and spring flowers and wet lawns, stole in to meet her;

and a blackbird, in the shrubbery across the garden, broke into song, interrupted himself, chattered

melodiously, and scurried out to vanish in a long curve behind the yews. The very world itself of beast and

bird was still but half awake, and from the hamlet outside the fence, beyond the trees, rose as yet no skein of

For the time no future presented itself to her. The minutes that passed were enough. She regarded indeed the

fact of the old man asleep in the inn, of the old lady upstairs, but she rehearsed nothing of what should be said

to them by and by. She did not even think of the hour, or whether she should go to bed presently for a while.

She traced no sequence of thought; she scarcely gave a glance at what was past; it was the present only that

absorbed her; and even of the present not more than a fraction lay before her attentionthe wet lawn, the

brightening east, the cool airthose with the joy that had come with the morning were enough.

Again came the long sigh behind her; and a moment afterwards there was a step upon the floor, and Laurie

himself stood by her. She glanced at him sideways, wondering for an instant whether his mood was as hers;

and his grave, tired, boyish face was answer enough. He met her eyes, and then again let his own stray out to

"Maggie," he said, "I think we had best never speak of this again to one another." She nodded, but he went

"I understand very little. I wish to understand no more. I shall ask no questions, and nothing need be said to

And now realityor rather, the faculties of memory and consideration by which reality is

apprehendedwere once more coming back to the girl and beginning to stir in her mind. She began, gently

now, and without perturbation, to recall what had passed, the long crescendo of the previous months, the

gathering mutter of the spiritual storm that had burst last nighteven the roar and flare of the storm itself,

and the mad instinctive fight for the conscious life and identity of herself through which she had struggled.

And it seemed to her as if the storm, like others in the material plane, had washed things clean again, and

discharged an oppression of which she had been but half conscious. Neither was it herself alone who had

emerged into this "clear shining after rain"; but the boy that stood by her seemed to her to share in her joy.

They stood here together now in a spiritual garden, of which this lovely morning was no more than a clumsy

translation into another tongue. There stirred an air about them which was as wine to the soul, a coolness and

clearness that was beyond thought, in a radiance that shone through all that was bathed within it, as sunlight

that filtered through water. She perceived then that the experience had been an initiation for them both, that

here they stood, one by the other, each transparent to the other, or, at least, he transparent to her; and she

wondered, not whether he would see it as she did, for of that she was confident, but when. For this space of

silence she perceived him through and through, and understood that perception was everything. She saw the

flaws in him as plainly as in herself, the cracks in the crystal; yet these did not matter, for the crystal was

Then for the first time since she had opened her eyes just now her heart began to beat. That which had lain

hidden for so longthat which she had crushed down under stone and seal and bidden lie stillyet that

which had held her resolute, all unknown to herself, through the night that was goneonce more asserted

Again she glanced at him, terrified lest that which was in her heart should declare itself too plainly by eyes

and lips; and she saw how he still looked across the garden, yet seeing nothing but his own thought written

there against the glory of sky and leaf and grass. His face caught the splendour from the east, and she saw in

it the lines that would tell always of the anguish through which he was come; and again the terror in her heart

leapt to the other side, in spite of her confidence, and bade her fear lest through some mistake, some

Then he turned his troubled eyes and looked her in the face, and as he looked the trouble cleared.

"WhyMaggie!" he said. EPILOGUE "THE worst of it all is," said Maggie, four months later, to a very

patient female friend who adored her, and was her confidante just then"the worst of it is that I'm not in the

The two were sitting out in a delightfully contrived retreat cut out at the lower end of the double hedge.

Above them and on two sides rose masses of August greenery, hazel and beech, as close as the roof and walls

of a summerhouse: the long path ran in green gloom up to the old brick steps beneath the yews: and before

the two girls rested the pleasant apparatus of tea silver, china and damask, all the more delightful from its

Maggie looked marvellously well, considering the nervous strain that had come upon her about Eastertime.

She had collapsed altogether, it seemed, in Easter week itself, and had been for a long restone at her own

dear French convent until a week ago, being entirely forbidden by the nuns to speak of her experiences at all,

so soon as they had heard the rough outline. Mrs. Baxter had spent the time in rather melancholy travel on the

"It seems to me now exactly like a very bad dream," said Maggie pensively, beginning to measure in the tea

with a small silver scoop. "Oh! Mabel; may I tell you exactly what is in my mind: and then we won't talk of it

When the tea had been poured out and the plates set ready to hand, Maggie began.

"It seems perfectly dreadful of me to have any doubts at all, after all this; but . . . but you don't know how

queer it seems. There's a kind of thick hedge" she waved a hand illustratively to the hazels beside

her"a kind of thick hedge between me and EasterI suppose it's the illness: the nuns tell me so. Well, it's

like that. I can see myself, and Laurie, and Mr. Cathcart, and all the rest of them, like figures moving beyond;

and they all seem to me to be behaving rather madly, as if they saw something that I can't see. . . . Oh! it's

"Well, the first theory I have is that these little figures, myself included, really see something that I can't now:

that there really was something or somebody, which makes them dance about like that. (Yes: that's not

grammar; but you understand, don't you?) Well, I'll come back to that presently.

"And my next theory is this . . . is this"Maggie sipped her tea meditatively"my next theory is that the

whole thing was simple imagination, or, rather, imagination acting upon a few little facts and coincidences,

and perhaps a little fraud too. Do you know the way, if you're jealous or irritable, the way in which

everything seems to fit in? Every single word the person you're suspicious of utters all fits in and corroborates

your idea. It isn't mere imagination: you have real facts, of a kind; but what's the matter is that you choose to

take the facts in one way and not another. You select and arrange until the thing is perfectly convincing. And

yet, you know, in nine cases out of ten it's simply a lie! . . . Oh! I can't explain all the things, certainly. I can't

explain, for instance, the pencil affairwhen it stood up on end before Laurie's eyes; that is, if it did really

stand up at all. He says himself that the whole thing seems rather dim now, as if he had seen it in a very vivid

"Then there are the appearances Laurie saw; and the extraordinary effect they finally had upon him. Oh! yes;

at the time, on the night of Easter Eve, I mean, I was absolutely certain that the thing was real, that he was

actually obsessed, that the thingthe Personality, I meancame at me instead, and that somehow I won.

Mr. Cathcart tells me I'm rightWell; I'll come to that presently. But if it didn't happen, I certainly can't

explain what did; but there are a good many things one can't explain; and yet one doesn't instantly rush to the

conclusion that they're done by the devil. People say that we know very little indeed about the inner working

of our own selves. There's instinct, for instance. We know nothing about that except that it is so. `Inherited

experience' is only rather a clumsy phrasea piece of paper gummed up to cover a crack in the wall.

"My third theory I'm rather vague about, altogether. And yet I see quite well that it may be the true one.

"We've got in us certain powers that we don't understand at all. For instance, there's thoughtprojection.

There's not a shadow of doubt that that is so. I can sit here and send you a message of what I'm thinking

aboutoh! vaguely, of course. It's another form of what we mean by Sympathy and Intuition. Well, you

know, some people think that haunted houses can be explained by this. When the murder is going on, the

murderer and the murdered person are probably fearfully excitedanger, fear, and so on. That means that

their whole being is stirred up right to the bottom, and that their hidden powers are frightfully active. Well,

the idea is that these hidden powers are almost like acids, or gasHudson tells us all about that and that

they can actually stamp themselves upon the room to such a degree that when a sympathetic person comes in,

years afterwards, perhaps, he sees the whole thing just as it happened. It acts upon his mind first, of course,

and then outwards through the sensesjust the reverse order to that in which we generally see things.

"Wellthat's only an illustration. Now my idea is this: How do we know whether all the things that

happened, from the pencil and the rappings and the automatic writing, right up to the appearances Laurie saw,

were not just the result of these inner powers. . . . Look here. When one person projects his thought to another

it arrives generally like a very faint phantom of the thing he's thinking about. If I'm thinking of the ace of

hearts, you see a white rectangle with a red spot in the middle. See? Well, multiply all that a hundred times,

and one can just see how it might be possible that the thought of . . . of Mr. Vincent and Laurie together

might produce a kind of unreal phantom that could even be touched, perhaps. . . . Oh! I don't know."

"Why, how stupid! Yes: the first theory. . . . Now that just shows how unreal it is to me now. I'd forgotten it.

"Well, the first theory, my dear brethren, divides itself into two headsfirst the theory of the spiritualists,

secondly the theory of Mr. Cathcart. (He's a dear, Mabel, even though I don't believe one word he says.)

"Well, the spiritualist theory seems to me simple R.O.T. rot. Mr. Vincent, Mrs. Stapleton, and the rest,

really think that the souls of people actually come back and do these things; that it was, really and truly, poor

dear Amy Nugent who led Laurie such a dance. I'm quite, quite certain that that's not true whatever else is. . .

. Yes, I'll come to the coincidences presently. But how can it possibly be that Amy should come back and do

these things, and hurt Laurie so horribly? Why, she couldn't if she tried. My dear, to be quite frank, she was a

very common little thing: and, besides, she wouldn't have hurt a hair of his head.

There was a long pause. A small cat stepped out suddenly from the hazel tangle behind and eyed the two

girls. Then, quite noiselessly, as it caught Maggie's eye, it opened its mouth in a pathetic curve intended to

"You darling!" cried Maggie suddenly; seized a saucer, filled it with milk, and set it on the ground. The small

"Oh! Mr. Cathcart . . . Well, I must say that his theory fits in with what Father Mahon says. But, you know,

theology doesn't say that this or that particular thing is the devil, or has actually happened in any given

instanceonly that, if it really does happen, it is the devil, Well, this is Mr. Cathcart's idea. It's a long story:

"First, he believes in the devil in quite an extraordinary way. . . . Oh! yes, I know we do too; but it's so very

real indeed with him. He believes that the air is simply thick with them, all doing their very utmost to get

hold of human beings. Yes, I suppose we do believe that too; but I expect that since there are such a quantity

of thingslike bad dreamsthat we used to think were the devil, and now only turn out to be indigestion,

that we're rather too sceptical. Well, Mr. Cathcart believes both in indigestion, so to speak, and the devil. He

believes that those evil spirits are at us all the time, trying to get in at any crack they can findthat in one

person they produce lunacy I must say it seems to me rather odd the way in which lunatics so very often

become horribly blasphemous and things like thatand in another just shattered nerves, and so on. They take

"Now one of the easiest ways of all is through spiritualism. Spiritualism is wrongwe know that well

enough; it is wrong because it's trying to live a life and find out things that are beyond us at present. It's

`wrong' on the very lowest estimate, because it's outraging our human nature. Yes, Mabel, that's his phrase.

Good intentions, therefore, don't protect us in the least. To go to s�ances with good intentions is like . . . like .

. . holding a smokingconcert in a powdermagazine on behalf of an orphan asylum. It's not the least

protectionI'm not being profane, my dearit's not the least protection to open the concert with prayer.

"The danger? . . . Oh! the danger's this, Mr. Cathcart says. At s�ances, if they're genuine, and with automatic

handwriting and all the rest, you deliberately approach those powers in a friendly way, and by the sort of

passivity which you've got to get yourself into, you open yourself as widely as possible to their entrance.

Very often they can't get in; and then you're only bothered. But sometimes they can, and then you're done. It's

"Now, of course, no one in his sensesespecially decent peoplewould dream of doing all this if he knew

what it all meant. So these creatures, whatever they may be, always pretend to be somebody else. They're

very sharp: they can pick up all kinds of odds and ends, little tricks, and little facts; and so, with these, they

impersonate someone whom the inquirer's very fond of; and they say all sorts of pious, happy little things at

first in order to lead them on. So they go on for a long time saying that religion's quite true. (By the way, it's

rather too odd the way in which the Catholic Church seems the one thing they don't like! You can be almost

anything else, if you're a spiritualist; but you can't be a Catholic.) Generally, though, they tell you to say your

prayers and sing hymns. (Father Mahon the other day, when I was arguing with him about having some

hymns in church, said that heretics always went in for hymns!) And so you go on. Then they begin to hint

that religion's not worth much; and then they attack morals. Mr. Cathcart wouldn't tell me about that; but he

Maggie paused again, looking rather serious. Her voice had risen a little, and a new colour had come to her

"Oh! yes: I've just about done," said Maggie briskly. "There's hardly any more. Well, there's the idea. They

"Well; that's what Mr. Cathcart says happened to Laurie. One of those Beasts came and impersonated poor

Amy. He picked up certain things about herher appearance, her trick of stammering, and of playing with

her fingers, and about her grave and so on: and then, finally, made his appearance in her shape."

"Oh! my dear, I can't bother about that now. There's a lot about astral substance, and so on. Besides, this is

only what Mr. Cathcart says. As I told you, I'm not at all sure that I believe one word of it. But that's his

Maggie stopped again suddenly, and leaned back, staring out at the luminous green roof of hazels above her.

The small cat could be discerned halfway up the leafy tunnel swaying its body in preparation for a pounce,

while overhead sounded an agitated twittering. Mabel seized a pebble, and threw it with such success that the

"That's exactly what I don't know myself in the very least. As I said, all this seems to me more like a

dreamand a very bad one. I think it's the . . . the nastiest thing," she added vindictively, "that I've ever

"Oh, my dear, why can't we be all just sensible and normal? I love doing just ordinary little thingsthe

garden, and the chickens, and the cat and dog and complaining to the butcher. I cannot imagine what anybody

wants with anything else. Yes; I suppose I do, in a sort of way, believe Mr. Cathcart. It seems to me, granted

the spiritual world at allwhich, naturally, I do grantfar the most intelligent explanation. It seems to me,

intellectually, far the most broadminded explanation; because it really does take in all the factsif they are

factsand accounts for them reasonably. Whereas the subjectiveself businessoh, it's frightfully clever

and ingeniousbut it does assume such a very great deal. It seems to me rather like the people who say that

electricity accounts for everything electricity! And as for the imagination theorywell, that's what

appeals to me now, emotionallybecause I happen to be in the chickens and butcher mood; but it doesn't in

the least convince me. Yes; I suppose Mr. Cathcart's theory is the one I ought to believe, and, in a way, the

one I do believe; but that doesn't in the least prevent me from feeling it extraordinarily unreal and impossible.

Again she leaned back comfortably, smiling to herself, and there was a long silence.

It was a divinely beautiful August evening. From where they sat little could be seen except the long vista of

the path, arched with hazels, whence the cat had now disappeared, ending in three old brick steps, wide and

flat, lichened and mossed, set about with flowerpots and leading up to the yew walk. But the whole air was

full of summer sound and life and scent, heavy and redolent, streaming in from the old boxlined kitchen

garden on their right beyond the hedge and from the orchard on the left. It was the kind of atmosphere

suggesting Nature in her most sensible mood, fullblooded, normal, perfectly fulfilling her own vocation;

utterly unmystical, except by very subtle interpretation; unsuggestive, since she was already saying all that

could be said, and following out every principle by which she lived to the furthest confine of its contents. It

presented the same kind of roundedoff completion and satisfactoriness as that suggested by an entirely

sensuous and comfortable person. There were no corners in it, no vistas hinting at anything except at some

perfectly normal lawn or set garden, no mystery, no implication of any other theory or glimpse of theory

Something of its air seemed now to breathe in Maggie's expression of contentment, as she smiled softly and

happily, clasping her arms behind her head. She looked perfectly charming, thought Mabel; and she laid a

hand delicately on her friend's knee, as if to share in the satisfactionto verify it by participation, so to

"No, thank you; I'm extremely well and very content. I've looked through the door once, without in the least

"Oh! religion's all right," said Maggie. "The Church gives me just as much of all that as is good for me; and,

for the rest, just tells me to be quiet and not botherabove all, not to peep or pry. Listeners hear no good of

themselves: and I suppose that's true of the other senses too. At any rate, I'm going to do my best to mind

"Certainly it is; that's why I like it. . . . Oh! Mabel, I do want to be so absolutely ordinary all the rest of my

life. It's so extremely rare and original, you know. Didn't somebody say that there was nothing so uncommon

as common sense? Well, that's what I'm going to be. A genius! Don't you understand? the kind that is an

"Why, an infinite capacity for doing without them. Like Wagner, you know. Well, I wish to be the Bach

"I'm glad to hear it," said Maggie judicially. "And I hope now that she'll spend the rest of her days in

"Well, that's all right. The poor old dear got all sorts of things on her mind, when it leaked out. But I talked to

her, and we went up together and put flowers on the grave, and I said I'd have a mass said for Amy, though

I'm sure she doesn't require one. The poor darling! But . . . but . . . (don't think me brutal, please) how

"Yes; but you know you mustn't say a word to her about all this. In fact she won't have it. She's perfectly

convinced that Laurie overworked himselfLaurie, overworked!and that that was just all that was the

matter with him. Auntie's what's called a sensible woman, you know, and I must say it's rather restful. It's

what I want to be; but it's a faroff aspiration, I'm afraid, though I'm nearer it than I was."

"Just so. Nothing at all odd. All very natural. Oh, by the way, Laurie swears he never put his nose inside her