IV
Mr. Vincent was beginning to think about going to bed. He had come in an hour before, had written half a dozen letters, and was smoking peacefully before the fire.
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 knee-hold 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 and frequent use. A second door gave entrance to his bedroom.
He beat out his pipe slowly, yawned, and stood up.
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.
"Mr. Baxter! Come in, come in; I'm delighted to see you."
Laurie came in without a word, went straight up to the fire-place, and faced about.
"I'm not going to apologize," he said, "for coming at this time. You told me to come and see you at any time, and I've taken you at your word."
The young man had an odd embarrassed manner, thought the other; an air of having come in spite of uneasiness; he was almost shamefaced.
The medium impelled him gently into a chair.
"First a cigarette," he said; "next a little whisky, and then I shall be delighted to listen.... No; please do as I say."
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 second shelf in the bookcase.
Mr. Vincent turned on the hearthrug.
"Those? Oh! those are a few rather elementary instruments for my work."
He lifted down a crystal ball on a small black polished wooden stand and handed it over.
"You have heard of crystal-gazing? Well, that is the article."
"Is that crystal?"
"Oh no: common glass. Price three shillings and sixpence."
Laurie turned it over, letting the shining globe run on to his hand.
"And this is—" he began.
"And this," said the medium, setting a curious windmill-shaped affair, its sails lined with looking-glass, on the little table by the fire, "this is a French toy. Very elementary."
"What's that?"
"Look."
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.
"What the—"
"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," smiled the medium.
He stopped the mechanism and pushed it on one side.
"And what's the other?" asked Laurie, looking again at the shelf.
"Ah!"
The medium, with quite a different air, took down and set before him an object resembling a tiny heart-shaped table on three wheeled legs, perhaps four or five inches across. Through the center ran a pencil perpendicularly of which the point just touched the tablecloth on which the thing rested. Laurie looked at it, and glanced up.
"Yes, that's Planchette," said the medium.
"For ... for automatic writing?"
The other nodded.
"Yes," he said. "The experimenter puts his fingers lightly upon that, and there's a sheet of paper beneath. That is all."
Laurie looked at him, half curiously. Then with a sudden movement he stood up.
"Yes," he said. "Thank you. But—"
"Please sit down, Mr. Baxter.... I know you haven't come about that kind of thing. Will you kindly tell me what you have come about?"
He, too, sat down, and, without looking at the other, began slowly to fill his pipe again, with his strong capable fingers. Laurie stared at the process, unseeing.
"Just tell me simply," said the medium again, still without looking at him.
Laurie threw himself back.
"Well, I will," he said. "I know it's absurdly childish; but I'm a little frightened. It's about a dream."
"That's not necessarily childish."
"It's a dream I had tonight—in my chair after dinner."
"Well?"
Then Laurie began.
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. Baxter—and mine.... You tell me that it was prayer that enabled you to get through at the end? That is interesting."
"But—but—was it more than fancy—more, I mean, than an ordinary dream?"
"Oh, yes; it was objective. It was a real experience."
"You mean—"
"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 and—and other details of that world. But you believe, I take it, that this world is continually with us—that 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 our spirits?"
"I suppose so," said Laurie.
"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 réchauffée, 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 it were a waking experience—an actual incident. And that is exactly what it is."
"I don't understand."
"Have you ever heard of the subliminal consciousness, Mr. Baxter?"
"No."
The medium smiled.
"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 thoughts—that 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 it—that which leads up to our senses, through which come down our waking experiences to be stored up; and—and the other door...."
"Yes?"
The medium hesitated.
"Well," he said, "in some natures—yours, for instance, Mr. Baxter—this 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 ordinary dreams."
"Yes."
"And I am the more sure that this is so, since your experience is exactly that of so many others under the same circumstances."
Laurie moved uncomfortably in his chair.
"I don't quite understand," he said sharply. "You mean it was not a dream?"
"Certainly not. At least, not a dream in the ordinary sense. It was an actual experience."
"But—but I was asleep."
"Certainly. That is one of the usual conditions—an almost indispensable condition, in fact. The objective self—I mean the ordinary workaday faculties—was lulled; and your subjective self—call it what you like—but it is your real self, the essential self that survives death—this self, simply went through the inner door, and—and saw what was to be seen."
Laurie looked at him intently. But there was a touch of apprehension in his face, too.
"You mean," he said slowly, "that—that all I saw—the limitations of space, and so forth—that these were facts and not fancies?"
"Certainly. Doesn't your theology hint at something of the kind?"
Laurie was silent. He had no idea of what his theology told him on the point.
"But why should I—I of all people—have such an experience?" he asked suddenly.
The medium smiled.
"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 with. As for—"
Laurie interrupted him.
"Yes, yes," he said. "But there's another point. What about that fear I had when I tried to—to 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 answering.
"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 doing."
The medium filled his pipe again. Twice he began to speak, and checked himself; and in the long silence Laurie felt his fears gather upon him tenfold.
"Please tell me at once, Mr. Vincent," he said. "Unless I know everything that is to be known, I will not go another step along this road. I really mean that."
The medium paused in his pipe-filling.
"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 well-known 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 the Threshold'?"
Laurie shook his head.
"No," he said. "At least I don't think so."
"Well," said the medium quietly, "that is what we call the Fear you spoke of.... No; don't interrupt. I'll tell you all we know. It's not very much."
He paused again, stretched his hand for the matches, and took one out. Laurie watched him as if fascinated by the action.
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...?
The medium lit his pipe and leaned back.
"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 there—God only knows why—and his main business seems to be to restrain, if possible, from re-entering 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 death-beds where he has been seen—"
"Seen?"
"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 comes from a sight of this—this Personage."
Laurie licked his dry lips. He told himself that he did not believe one word of it.
"And ... and he is evil?" he asked.
The other shrugged his shoulders.
"Isn't that a relative term?" he said. "From one point of view, certainly; but not necessarily from all."
"And ... and what's the good of it?"
The medium smiled a little.
"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,' whatever that may be, comes before even the 'salvation of souls.'"
Laurie wrenched his attention once more to a focus.
"Then I was in danger?" he said.
"Certainly. We are always in danger—"
"You mean, if I hadn't prayed—"
"Ah! that is another question.... But, in short, if you hadn't succeeded in getting past—well, you'd have failed."
Again there fell a silence.
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.... Surely it all fitted in ... yet....
"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 on another. You are quite strong enough."
"You mean—"
"I mean exactly what I say. What is called Prayer is really an imaginative concession to weakness. Take the short cut, rather. Assert your own—your own individuality."
Laurie changed his attitude. He uncrossed his feet and sat up a little.
"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 séances, for instance. Now that you know a little more of the dangers, are you going to turn back?"
His overhung kindly eyes looked out keenly for an instant at the boy's restless face.
"I don't know," said Laurie; "I must think...."
He got up.
"Look here, Mr. Vincent," he said, "it seems to me you're extraordinarily—er—extraordinarily plausible. But I'm even now not quite sure whether I'm not going mad. It's like a perfectly mad dream—all these things one on the top of the other."
He paused, looking sharply at the elder man, and away again.
"Yes?"
Laurie began to finger a pencil that lay on the chimney-shelf.
"You see what I mean, don't you?" he said. "I'm not disputing—er—your point of view, nor your sincerity. But I do wish you would give me another proof or two."
"You haven't had enough?"
"Oh! I suppose I have—if I were reasonable. But, you know, it all seems to me as if you suddenly demonstrated to me that twice two made five."
"But then, surely no proof—"
"Yes; I know. I quite see that. Yet I want one—something quite absolutely ordinary. If you can do all these things—spirits and all the rest—can't you do something ever so much simpler, that's beyond mistake?"
"Oh, I daresay. But wouldn't you ask yet another after that?"
"I don't know."
"Or wouldn't you think you'd been hypnotized?"
Laurie shook his head.
"I'm not a fool," he said.
"Then give me that pencil," said the medium, suddenly extending his hand.
Laurie stared a moment. Then he handed over the pencil.
On the little table by the arm-chair, 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 woven-grass surface of the table entirely bare. He then laid the pencil gently in the center—all without a word. Laurie watched him carefully.
"Now kindly do not speak one word or make one movement," said the man peremptorily. "Wait! You're perfectly sure you're not hypnotized, or any other nonsense?"
"Certainly not."
"Just go round the room, look out of the window, poke the fire—anything you like."
"I'm satisfied," said the boy.
"Very good. Then kindly watch that pencil."
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, common and ordinary.
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 well—that 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 ordinary-looking 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 thread. He heard, too, the tiny tap of its fall.
He glanced at the medium, who jerked his head impatiently, as if for silence. Then once more the silence came down.
A minute later there was no longer the possibility of a doubt.
There before the boy's eyes, as he stared, white-faced, 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 fell with a sudden movement, rolled across the table and dropped on the carpet.
The medium leaned back, drawing a long breath.
"There," he said; and smiled at the bewildered young man.
"But—but—" began the other.
"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 sure—"
"But, good Lord, I saw—"
"Of course you did; but how do you know you weren't hypnotized?"
Laurie sat down suddenly, unconscious that he had done so. The medium put out his hand for his pipe once more.
"Now, I'm going to be quite honest," he said. "I have quite a quantity of comments to make on that. First, it doesn't prove anything whatever, even if it really happened—"
"Even if 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 hypnotized—both acted upon by self-suggestion? We can't prove we weren't."
Laurie was dumb.
"Secondly, it doesn't prove anything, in any case, as regards the other matters we were speaking of. It only shows—if it really happened, as I say—that the mind has extraordinary control over matter. It hasn't anything to do with immortality, or—or spiritualism."
"Then why did you do it?" gasped the boy.
"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.
He stood up again suddenly.
"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 talking now. I must think. Good night."
"Good night, Mr. Baxter," said the medium serenely.
Chapter VIII
I
"Her ladyship told me to show you in here, sir," said the footman at half-past eight on Sunday evening.
Laurie put down his hat, slipped off his coat, and went into the dining room.
The table was still littered with dessert-plates 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 behind him, and looking at the pleasant gloom of the high picture-hung walls.
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 slightly—and was a little pleased that it was natural to yawn.
There was a rustle outside; the door opened, and Lady Laura slipped in.
"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 her pince-nez glimmered at him across the hearthrug like the eyes of a cat.
"It is this," she said hurriedly. "I felt I must just speak to you. I wasn't sure whether you quite realized the ... the dangers of all this. I didn't want you to ... to run any risks in my house. I should feel responsible, you know."
She laughed nervously.
"Risks? Would you mind explaining?" said Laurie.
"There ... there are always risks, you know."
"What sort?"
"Oh ... you know ... nerves, and so on. I ... I have seen people very much upset at séances, more than once."
Laurie smiled.
"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 that, if anything, I'm rather bored."
The pince-nez gleamed.
"But—but don't you believe it? I thought Mr. Vincent said—"
"Oh yes, I believe it; but, you know, it seems to me so natural now. Even if nothing happens tonight, I don't think I shall believe it any the less."
She was silent an instant.
"You know there are other risks," she said suddenly.
"What? Are things thrown about?"
"Please don't laugh at it, Mr. Baxter. I am quite serious."
"Well—what kind do you mean?"
Again she paused.
"It's very awful," she said; "but, you know, people's nerves do break down entirely sometimes, even though they're not in the least afraid. I saw a case once—"
She stopped.
"Yes?"
"It—it was a very awful case. A girl—a sensitive—broke down altogether under the strain. She's in an asylum."
"I don't think that's likely for me," said Laurie, with a touch of humor in his voice. "And, after all, you run these risks, don't you—and Mrs. Stapleton?"
"Yes; but you see we're not sensitives. And even I—"
"Yes?"
"Well, even I feel sometimes rather overcome.... Mr. Baxter, do you quite realize what it all means?"
"I think so. To tell the truth—"
He stopped.
"Yes; but the thing itself is really overwhelming.... There's—there's an extraordinary power sometimes. You know I was with Maud Stapleton when she saw her father—"
She stopped again.
"Yes?"
"I saw him too, you know.... Oh! there was no possibility of fraud. It was with Mr. Vincent. It—it was rather terrible."
"Yes?"
"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? I—I think I've got a fit of nerves tonight."
Laurie could see that she was trembling.
"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 startled. I quite understand what you mean—but—"
"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 do what he can about that. And—and I don't quite like it."
"Why, what on earth can happen?" asked Laurie, bewildered.
"Mr. Baxter, I suppose you realize that it's you that they—whoever they are—are interested in? There's no kind of doubt that you'll be the center tonight. And I did just want you to understand fully that there are risks. I shouldn't like to think—"
Laurie stood up.
"I understand perfectly," he said. "Certainly, I always knew there were risks. I hold myself responsible, and no one else. Is that quite clear?"
The wire of the front-door 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 drawing-room 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 center 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 ante-room 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 the piano that stood closed in the corner.
There were two persons standing rather disconsolately on the vacant hearthrug—Mrs. Stapleton and the clergyman whom Laurie had met on his last visit here. Mr. Jamieson wore an expression usually associated with funerals, and Mrs. Stapleton's face was full of suppressed excitement.
"Dearest, what a time you've been! Was that Mr. Vincent?"
"I think so," said Lady Laura.
The two men nodded to one another, and an instant later the medium came in.
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 of approval at Laurie.
"It struck me as extraordinarily cold," he said. "I see you have an excellent fire." And he stooped, rubbing his hands together to warm them.
"We must screen that presently," he said.
Then he stood up again.
"There's no use in wasting time. May I say a word first, Lady Laura?"
She nodded, looking at him almost apprehensively.
"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 materialization. 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 honor 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, matter-of-fact way, and looked keenly from face to face of the two men as he ended.
"I give you my word," said Laurie.
"Yes; just so," said Mr. Jamieson.
"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 to keep your attention fixed. You will do this?"
"I will do it," said Laurie.
"Then that is really all."
He moved a step away from the fire. Then he paused.
"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 hour—anything up to two hours before anything happens. If there is no result, Mrs. Stapleton will break up the circle at eleven o'clock, and awaken me if necessary."
He broke off.
"Kindly just examine the cabinet and the whole room first, gentlemen. We mediums must protect ourselves."
He smiled genially and nodded to the two.
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.
"You are satisfied, gentlemen?" said the medium, smiling.
"Perfectly," said Laurie, and the clergyman bowed.
"Well, then," said the other, "it is close upon nine."
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 body perfectly visible.
Then silence came down upon the room.
II
The cat of the next house decided to go a-walking after an excellent supper of herring-heads. 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 sinuousness as he looked.
Presently he climbed cautiously out beneath the sash, gathered himself for a spring, and the next instant was seated on the boundary wall between his own house and that of Lady Laura's.
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 slightly, like an independent member, as he contemplated his thoughts.
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 town-bred cat, descended from generations of town-bred 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 of it: then once more he resumed his watch.
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 well-being of those tightly-strung 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 blunt-spired 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 waving tail, awaiting the caresses of the victor.
As he saw the head above him, to human eyes a shapeless silhouette, to his eyes a grey-penciled 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 broken-hearted wail, but to him who sat above it surpassed in insolence even his own carefully modulated offensiveness.
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 once more came the answer from below.
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 paralyzing 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 softly into her place beside him. When he turned again his adversary had vanished.
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 neighborhood, 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 foodless waste of floor and carpet and furniture within.
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 vituperation—something 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 closed by a locked door.
His heart too seemed melted within him; his tail too hung limply behind the stucco parapet, and he made no answering movement to the tiny crooning note that sounded once in his ears.
And still the horror grew....
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.
Chapter IX
I
Laurie turned slowly over in bed, drew a long breath, expelled it, and, releasing his arms from the bed-clothes, sat up. He switched on the light by his bed, glanced at his watch, switched off the light, and sank down again into the sheets. He need not get up just yet.
Then he remembered.
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 fire-place must perhaps be moved. Values, relations, and balance all require readjustment.
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 realized 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 complete review of everything.
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 recognize faces, and even, after the first few minutes, to distinguish small objects, or to read large print.
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 three-quarter profiles of the two women, and the gleam of the pince-nez below Lady Laura's frizzed hair.
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 violently attentive to what should follow.
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 all—or 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 color, 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 head—then, after an instant, it retired once more, re-entered the cabinet, disappeared in the direction from which it had come, and once more died out.
Well, there it had been; there was no doubt about it.... And Laurie was unacquainted with any mechanism that could produce it.
The clergyman too had seemed affected. He had watched, with turned-back 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 been silent, and all but motionless throughout.
Well, the rest had happened comparatively quickly.
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 forming—first 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 steady—as when he had seen it in the moonlight above the sluice—and 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 was concentrated in the one effort of observation....
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 hand so heavy upon it that the whole table shuddered with his shudder.
There was a movement on the left, and he heard a fierce feminine whisper—
"Sit down, sir; sit down this instant...."
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 center 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 and awoke.
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 difference—that he had seen with his own eyes the face of Amy Nugent four months after her death.
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 work—that 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 true—as true as tables and chairs—that 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 seen—so long as memory does not disappear—this 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 life becomes merely part of a long process....
Now as to the conduct of that life—what 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, but—did it matter very much? To be enthusiastic about it was the frenzy of an artist, who loves the portrait more than the original—and 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 all-sufficing....?
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 existed—her very self—and 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.
II
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, errand-boys, and rather shabby old women.
The interior of the rooms, too, is not unlike that of an ordinary rather second-rate 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 rising at either end.
Mr. Morton himself was a square-built man of some forty years, clean-shaven, and rather pale and stout, with strongly marked features, a good loud voice, and the pleasant, brusque manners that befit a University and public school man who has taken seriously to business.
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 acquaintance found its limitations.
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 was in his best manner.
"What's the matter, eh?" he suddenly shot at him, without prelude of any kind.
Laurie's attention came back with a jump, and he flushed a little.
"Oh!—er—nothing particular," he murmured. And he set himself down to his books again in silence, conscious of the watchful roving eye on the other side of the table.
About half-past twelve Mr. Morton shut his own book with a slap, leaned back, and began to fill his pipe.
"Nothing seems very important," he said.
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.
"Yes. I'm rather upset this morning," he said. "The fact is, last night..."
Mr. Morton waited.
"Well?" he said. "Oh! don't tell if me you don't want to."
Laurie looked at him.
"I wonder what you'd say," he said at last.
The other got up with an abrupt movement, pushed his books together, selected a hat, and put it on.
"I'm going to lunch," he said. "Got to be in the Courts at two; and...."
"Oh! wait a minute," said Laurie. "I think I want to tell you."
"Well, make haste." He stood, in attitude to go.
"What do you think of spiritualism?"
"Blasted rot," said Mr. Morton. "Anything more I can do for you?"
"Do you know anything about it?"
"No. Don't want to. Is that all?"
"Well, look here;" said Laurie.... "Oh! sit down for two minutes."
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 side-table, watching the boy at first with a genial contempt, and finally with the same curious interest that one gives to a man with a new disease.
"Now, what d'you make of that?" ended Laurie, flushed and superb.
"D'you want to know?" came after a short silence.
Laurie nodded.
"What I said at the beginning, then."
"What?"
"Blasted rot," said Mr. Morton again.
Laurie frowned sharply, and affected to put his books together.
"Of course, if you take it like that," he said. "But I don't know what respect you can possibly have for any evidence, if...."
"My dear chap, that isn't evidence. No evidence in the world could make me believe that the earth was upside down. These things don't happen."
"Then how do you explain...?"
"I don't explain," said Mr. Morton. "The thing's simply not worth looking into. If you really saw that, you're either mad or else there was a trick.... Now come along to lunch."
"But I'm not the only one," cried Laurie hotly.
"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 happen...."
"Yes?" said Laurie.
"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?"
The other paused a moment.
"No," he said. "As it happens, he wasn't. I knew another chap—he's a solicitor.... Oh! by the way, he's one of your people—a Catholic, I mean."
"Well, what about him?" "Oh! he's all right," admitted Mr. Morton, with a grudging air. "But he gave it up and took to religion instead."
"Yes? What's his name?"
"Cathcart."
He glanced up at the clock.
"Good Lord," he said, "ten to one."
Then he was gone.
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 of these things if he saw them himself.
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 to the charge.
"Morton," he said, "I wish you'd come with me one day."
The other looked up.
"Eh?"
"To see for yourself what I told you."
Mr. Morton snorted abruptly.
"Lord!" he said, "I thought we'd done with that. No, thank you: Egyptian Hall's all I need."
Laurie sighed elaborately.
"Oh! of course, if you won't face facts, one can't expect...."
"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, why it would be another thing; but...."
"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 drawing-room! I tell you I examined every inch...."
"Look here," said Morton, looking curiously at the boy—for 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 time, I believe."
Laurie sneered audibly.
"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 hair-raising, if one believed them; but then, you see—"
"What's his address?"
Morton jerked his head towards the directories in the bookshelf.
"Find him there," he said. "I'll give you an introduction if you want it. Though, mind you, I think he talks as much rot as anyone—"
"What does he say?"
"Lord!—I don't know. Some theory or other. But, at any rate, he's given it up."
Laurie pursed his lips.
"I daresay I'll ask you some time," he said. "Meanwhile—"
"Meanwhile, for the Lord's sake, get on with that business you've got there."
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 value.
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 hero-worship. 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 "all that," as he would have said.
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 of enthusiastic conviction, soon convinced him that this was so.
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. Morton asked him where he was going to spend the week-end.
"Stopping in town," said the boy briefly.
"Oh! I'm going to my brother's cottage. Care to come? Afraid there's no Catholic church near."
Laurie smiled.
"That wouldn't deter me," he said. "I've made up my mind—"
"Yes?"
"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Laurie. "No—thanks awfully, but I've got to stop in town."
"Lady Laura's again?"
"Yes."
"Same old game?"
Laurie sat down.
"Look here," he said, "I know you don't mean anything; but I wish you'd understand."
"Well?"
The boy's face flushed with sudden nervous enthusiasm.
"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 as—as a man could be. She died; and now—"
"Look here, what were you up to last Sunday?"
Laurie quieted a little.
"You wouldn't understand," he said.
"Have you done any more of that business?"
"What business?"
"Well—thinking you saw her—All right, seeing her, if you like."
The boy shook his head.
"No. Vincent's away in Ireland. We've been going on other lines."
"Tell me; I swear I won't laugh."
"All right; I don't care if you do.... Well, automatic handwriting."
"What's that?"
Laurie hesitated.
"Well, I go into trance, you see, and—"