Towards Simeon's portal, held sacred to "The Keepers of the Keys of the Silent House," Kate Rice and Dr. Britt set their faces at the appointed hour.
"The plot thickens round the girl," began Britt, with a kind of mocking levity. "Mrs. Lambert has done it now!"
They had reached the comparative quiet of the cross-street. "What has she done?"
"She has delivered her ewe-lamb over to this ancient wolf of Wall Street, who will eat her up for a Little Red Riding-hood. I've been looking into Pratt's record. He has a cheerful way, I'm told, of treating his 'psychics' like oranges—squeezing them and throwing them into the street. He has become so sensitive to the sneers of the outsiders that he fears to be 'done.' After getting all that a medium can give him, he 'exposes' her elaborately, and sets her adrift, and so guards himself from the possible accusation of having been deceived. If there is any question of the medium's powers, he can then come out with a card saying: 'I knew So-and-so was a fraud. I exposed hertwo years—or two months—ago.' I see the girl's finish right here."
"The dreadful old man! Does the girl know this?"
"I don't think she does, but she ought to. I hate to see a nice girl, who would make some one a charming wife, perverted to these unholy uses. The crowning infamy heaped upon her head will be a full page in theSunday Blast—'Another Harpie Exposed'—and it will come, Mrs. Rice, I am sure of it. Pratt fairly fawns before her now. She is his princess, his seeress, his chief jewel; but woe to her if she displeases him or fails to meet his requirements."
"You appall me, Dr. Britt. Some one should at least warn her."
"I've already done so; but with the mother, Clarke, and Pratt to war against, the case seems hopeless. Besides, she believes in herself—up to a certain point. She'll never degenerate into one of those frumps who go from city to city playing to the foolish women and tack-headed men, but she will certainly be corrupted. If she marries Clarke her future will be woful. She has entered in so far I don't see how she can retreat. She is bound to keep on for his sake and her mother's sake."
"Is she in love with Clarke?"
"That I haven't been able to determine, but she is under his control, or she wouldn't be here."
With these gloomy words in her ears Kate entered the big, cold drawing-room to wait for the coming of the master of the house.
"Pratt is the one to whom you are to pay your first respects—he is master," warned Britt. "Ask to see his collections—that always pleases him. If you will permit, I will lead the way."
"I am trusting you."
"You may do so."
Pratt came in quite briskly, a heavy-faced, white-bearded man, wearing a sack-suit and an old-fashioned turn-down collar. He greeted Britt with a casual hand-shake, looking at Kate suspiciously. "And who is this?" he asked, bluffly.
"A friend of mine, a Mrs. Rice, who desires to see your wonderful collection of slates and paintings."
Pratt softened a little. "I'll be very glad to show them," he said, "but not now. I'll have to ask you to excuse me just now. I am in consultation with my directors."
"Certainly," said Britt, and, after Pratt went out, he added: "That means that Clarke is going to launch his thunderbolt. He's going to defy the scientific world in the most burning oration since Cicero."
At this moment two ladies, in superb wraps, descended the stairway on their way to their carriages, and one of them said, "I think it's a shame—as long as we've known Simeon Pratt—to be turned away like a tramp!"
"Oh, I don't blame her," said the other.
"Some disappointed callers," said Britt.
A moment later several other curious ones were ushered into the drawing-room. Britt kept up alow-toned comment. "All these rubber-necks are here to see the girl. You will be surprised to know how many there are with a sneaking belief in these revelations."
It was a singular situation in which to find Simeon Pratt—major-domo to a crowd of idle curiosity-seekers—and when he returned, with an assumption of haste and bustle, Britt saw him in a new light—that of a poor, lonely, broken old man, weary of life, yet living on in daily hope of communion with the dead, stuffing his heart with dreams and delusions, walking mechanically round, interested only in death.
He had forgotten Kate's name, but he remembered her wish to see his treasures.
"Come to my library," he said; "but first let me call your attention to this remarkable painting."
The painting—or rather wash-drawing in black-and-white—hung over the grand-piano in the light of the west windows. It was globular in form, and represented, Simeon explained, the "War of Light and Darkness." One-half of the globe was darkly shaded, curiously fretted by the lighter half. Above sat a snow-white eagle. Beneath, with prodigious wings outspread, and eyes gleaming like points of fire, hovered a mysterious bat.
"Look closer," commanded Simeon.
Narrower scrutiny brought out, even in the darker half of the globe, a multitude of intertwined forms, outlined with pen and ink. Those of the lighter hemisphere were beautiful as angels, with faint stars in their hair. All were singing. The others, thedenizens of the dark, were twisted and contorted in agony, and each was drawn with such certainty of prearrangement that the line which formed the arm of one outlined the head of another. There were hundreds of them, and the whole work was as intricate in design as the engraving on a bank-note, and so packed with symbolism—according to Simeon's exegesis—that one might study it for days. "Observe," said he, "the innumerable faces formed by the line which divides the two worlds. Take these glasses."
Kate, by means of the powerful instrument which he thrust upon her, was able to detect hundreds of other faces invisible to the unaided eye. "It is wonderful. Who did it?"
"A Swedish servant-girl," answered Simeon, loudly, addressing every one in the room. "She couldn't write her name; but when the spirit of Raphael controlled her she could do this with her eyes shut. There's nothing like that picture in the world. It cannot be duplicated by any artist in the flesh."
"That's no dream," murmured Britt.
Pratt hurried them on, past many other equally wonderful paintings, to his library, and as his guests filed in he faced them. "The things I am about to show you have no equal anywhere. They have taken years to collect, and have cost me more than a hundred thousand dollars. I can show you but a few."
The library was a splendid room, rich with the light of the western sun, whose arrangement instantly struck Kate Rice as unusual, for the book-shelves wereprecisely like those of a butler's pantry. They began at about four feet from the floor and reached entirely to the ceiling, and were filled with splendid, neglected books, while beneath a broad shelf, at their base, were rows of little brass knobs, each of which indicated a shallow drawer. Each drawer had a lock and a small plate which bore a letter and a number, not unlike the cabinet of a numismatist.
"There are but two keys in existence," explained Simeon, with shining face. "The one I now hold and the one in my safety vaults. No one is permitted in this room without my secretary or myself." He moved down the room between the cabinet and the big table. "Here is a message from Columbus." He unlocked and drew out one of the drawers and laid it upon the table. It was exquisitely made, and contained two ordinary hinged school-slates, with the inner sides visible, but protected by a heavy plate of glass. "This message came to me through Angelica Cox—under test conditions," Pratt further explained, as Kate bent above it.
"What do you mean by test conditions?" asked Britt.
"I mean, sir, that I bought and took these slates to the medium, and held them in my hands while that message was written." There was irritation in his voice. He replaced the drawer. "But here is a painting from Murillo, the great artist. He painted the face of one of the ancients." He laid before his silent auditors another drawer which contained a sheet ofcard-board on which was a fairly good pastel of an Arab in a burnouse. It had the weak and false drawing which would result in the attempt of an amateur to copy an engraving in color. "This came in broad daylight while I held the clean card-board on my head," explained Simeon.
Britt looked at Kate. "The painter might have stood on his head," he blasphemously whispered.
And so down through that splendid room the host moved, exhibiting letters from Napoleon, flowers from Marie Antoinette, verses from Mary Queen of Scots, together with paternal advice from many others equally eminent in history.
"You keep good company," ventured Kate. "Have you anything from Shakespeare?"
"Certainly; and from Edwin Forrest and Lincoln and Grant."
"Anything from Admiral Kidd?" asked Britt.
"Or from Mary Jane Holmes?" added Kate.
Simeon looked at the jokers in silence, not quite sure whether they intended to trap him or not. "No, I save only the words of the most eminent persons in history, outside my own family—I have wonderful testimony from them."
"Ah, show us those, please," cried Kate.
He hesitated, pondering Britt's face, and at last said, "I will show you some materializations," and led the way to some cases filled with pressed flowers. "These are from India and Tibet," he explained.
Kate was getting bored, but Britt seemed fascinatedby both Pratt and the exhibit. "To think of one human being possessing a collection like that—painfully amassing it. It's too beautiful!"
"But the girl—ask him to let us see the girl," she urged.
"Don't hurry; he can't be turned aside from his groove."
The treasures of the drawers hinted at, Simeon proceeded to exhibit other wonders. He possessed a coin brought from the sacred city of Lhasa and dropped through the ceiling into a closed and sealed box. "There is no other known to the Western Hemisphere," he said. "The British Museum offered me a thousand pounds for it."
To his mind all these slates, pictures, and flowers were evidences of the interest the great shades had taken in the work of converting Simeon Pratt to the faith, and the messages were intended to steady him in his convictions and to furnish him material with which to bring the world to his view. The man's faith was like to madness—without one ray of humor.
At any other time this astounding museum would have been a most absorbing study to Kate, but she was tingling with desire to get at the young seeress and her mother. "What must they be," she asked herself, "to mix with this kind of idiocy?"
At last, when the favoring pause came, Britt explained to Pratt that Mrs. Rice was the sister of one who had known Viola in the West, and that she very much wished to see the psychic for a moment.
"I think Miss Lambert is engaged," replied Simeon, sulkily; "but I'll see," and he led the way to a small sitting-room on the same floor. "Stay here and I'll send your card up."
"Tell her a sister of Professor Serviss."
Simeon turned quickly. "Serviss—ain't he one of the men that Clarke talks of having on the committee? Are you his sister?"
Kate bowed. "Yes; my brother met Miss Lambert in the West."
Pratt's face cleared. "Well, well! I will send her right down. Your brother is the kind of man we want to reach," he added, as he went out.
"Now, Dr. Britt," began Kate, firmly, "I want you to keep that boresome old man occupied while I talk with these women. I don't want him putting in his oar."
"I'll do my best," he answered, manfully, "up to the measure of gagging him. I can't agree to order him out of the house."
Kate was on her chair's edge with interest as she heard the rustle of skirts and the murmur of a pleasant voice, and when Viola, flushed, smiling, beautifully gowned, entered the room with outstretched hand, she rose with a spring, carried out of her well-planned reserve by the warmth and charm of the girl's greeting. She closed her gloved palm cordially on the fine hand so confidingly given. "I am glad to know you. My brother has spoken so enthusiastically of you."
Viola's flush deepened. "Has he? I assure you wespeak often of him. I suppose he is too busy with his wonderful microbes to come and see poor, commonplace creatures like us."
"Heisbusy, but he only learned of your presence a few days ago."
Viola turned. "Mother, this is Mrs. Rice, Professor Serviss's sister."
Kate liked Mrs. Lambert also, for she was looking remarkably handsome in a black gown of simple pattern. "If these are adventuresses they are very clever in dress," was her inward comment. "I don't wonder Morton was captivated." And she presently said: "Can't you take me to your own room? I want to talk secrets with you."
"Yes, let us do that." Viola turned to her mother. "Let's take Mrs. Rice to our sitting-room."
Mrs. Lambert assented timidly, with a quick glance towards Simeon, who was garrulously declaiming to Britt concerning the wonders of another painting by the Swedish cook.
Pratt, seeing the women rise, approached. "Where are you going?" he asked, with a note of impatience in his voice.
"To my room," answered Viola, firmly, and led the way up-stairs in silence; but when they were beyond earshot in the hall above she bitterly exclaimed: "He spies on everything I do. He will hardly let me out of his sight. I am beginning to hate him, he has so little sense of decency."
"Viola!" warned the mother.
"I don't care," retorted the girl, defiantly. "Why do we endure him—we are not dependent on him. He treats us precisely as if he owned us, and I'm tired of it. I wish papa would come on and take us home."
"He may be a bore, but he houses you like royalty," Kate remarked, as she glanced about the suite which Viola and her mother occupied. It formed the entire eastern end of the third floor of the house, and the decorations were Empire throughout, with stately canopied beds and a most luxurious bath-room.
"Oh yes, it's beautiful; but I would rather be this minute in our little log-cabin in the West," answered the girl, with wistful sadness. "Oh, these warm days make me homesick. When I was there I hated it, now I long to get back. I seem five years older—this winter has been terribly long to me."
"Well, now, lock the door," exclaimed Kate, excitedly, "and tell me all about yourself. Start at the very beginning. Dr. Britt has told me something, but I want to know everything. When did you first know you had this power? That's the first question."
Mrs. Lambert began in the tone of one retelling an old story. "Up till the day my little son Walter died, Viola was just like any other girl of her age—healthy and pretty—a very pretty child."
"I can believe it." Kate's eyes dwelt admiringly on the girl.
"My husband and I were good Presbyterians, and I had never given much thought to spirits or spiritualism, but after our little boy died Robert began tostudy up, and every time we went to the city he'd go to see a psychic, and that troubled me. As a good church-member I thought he ought not to do it, and so one day I said, 'Robert, I think you ought to tell Mr. McLane'—that was our minister—'what you are doing. It isn't right to visit mediums and go to church, too—one or the other ought to be given up.' He said—I remember his exact words: 'I can't live without these messages of comfort from my boy. They say he is going to manifest himself soon—here in our own home.' I remember that was his exact expression, for I wondered what it was to manifest. That very night things began."
Kate's eyes snapped. "What things?"
"Well, Waltie had a little chair that he liked—a little reed rocking-chair—and my husband always kept this chair close by where he sat reading. That night I saw the chair begin to rock all by itself—and yet, some way, it didn't scare me. 'Robert, did you move Waltie's chair?' I asked. 'No,' he said. 'Why?' 'Because it rocked.' Robert threw down his book and looked at the chair. 'Viola must have moved it,' he said. 'Viola was in her own little chair on the other side of the table,' I said. 'It must have been the cat, then.'
"And then, just while we both looked at it, it began to move again exactly as if Waltie were in it. It creaked, too, as it used to when he rocked."
"I should have been frightened stiff," exclaimed Kate, whose eyes were beginning to widen.
"Nothing that has happened since has given me such a turn. Robert jumped up and felt all about the chair, sure that Viola had tied a string to it—and still she was no child for tricks. Then Robert bent right down over the chair, and it stopped for a moment, and then slid backward under the table, just as our own boy used to do. He loved to play tent. Robert looked up at me as white as the dead. 'It is Waltie, mother; he has come back to us,' he said, and I believed it, too."
In spite of herself, Kate shivered with a keen, complete comprehension of the thrilling joy and terror of that moment, but Viola sat listlessly waiting the end of her mother's explanation. Plainly, it was all a wearisome story to her.
Mrs. Lambert went on: "After that he came every night, and soon the tappings began, and finally we got into communication with my father, who told us to be patient and wait and Waltie would speak to us. Then the power took hold of Viola and frightened her almost into fits."
The girl visibly shuddered and her eyes fell.
"How did it begin?" asked Kate, breathless with interest.
"The first we noticed was that her left arm began to twitch so that she couldn't control it. Then she took to writing with her left hand, exactly like my father's hand-writing. She could write twenty different kinds of writing before she was twelve. These messages were all signed, and all said that she was to be a greatmedium. Then began the strangest doings. My thimbles would be stolen and hidden, vases would tumble off the mantels, chairs would rock. It was just pandemonium there some nights. They used to break things and pound on the doors; then all of a sudden these doings stopped and Viola went into deathly trances. I shall never forget that first night. We thought she was dead. We couldn't see her breathe, and her hands and feet were like ice."
The girl rose, her face gray and rigid. "Don't mother, don't!" she whispered. "They are here!" She shook her head and cried out as if to the air: "No, no, not now! No, no!"
The mother spoke. "She is being entranced. Some one has a message for you, Mrs. Rice?"
For the first time, Kate had a suspicion of both mother and daughter. This action of the girl seemed a thought too opportune and much too theatric. Now that her splendid eyes were clouded she lost confidence in her, and as she waited she grew cold with a kind of disgust and fear of what was to follow.
The mother gently sided with her daughter against the control, and, taking both her hands, said, quietly: "Not now, father, not now." But in vain. The girl sank back into her chair rigid. "They have something they insist on saying, Mrs. Rice," said Mrs. Lambert, after a silence. "Is it some one for Mrs. Rice?" Three loud snapping sounds came from the carpet under Viola's feet.
"Good gracious! What is that?" exclaimed Kate, a cold tremor passing up her spine.
"It is my father," answered Mrs. Lambert, quite placidly. "Can't you write, father? Be easy on Viola to-day.—He is very anxious to converse with you for some reason, Mrs. Rice."
Again a creeping thrill made Kate's hair rise, and she bit her finger-tip. "Am I dreaming?" she asked herself, as she listened to the mother talking to the air, only to be answered by rappings from the table and thumpings from the chairs. "How absurd, how childish it all is!" she thought.
Even as this thought passed through her mind, the room seemed to darken, the air to thicken. The girl's proud young body sank, doubled till she seemed a crone, old and withered and jocose; a sneering laugh came from her drawn lips; her hands, trembling together, hookedly reached towards Kate; the eyes were sunk lidless and gleaming with malice; a voice that was like the croak of a raven sounded forth: "You got my money, Kit—but you didn't get it all." And from the young, distorted lips a disgusting laugh issued, a laugh that froze Kate's blood and stiffened her tongue so that she could not cry out. She gasped and sank back into her chair, while the voice went on: "You know me. I always hated you—you wasted my money—you poisoned my pets—I hated your husband—he cheated me once—you'll get no joy of my money till you pay that debt."
Kate, inert, aghast, sat blindly staring while thisvindictive, remorseless voice went on; only when it stopped was she aware of the mother's serene attitude of waiting, of polite regret at being present at a disagreeable scene; then the girl's lips resumed their sweetness, the beautiful hands fell slack upon her knees, the head lifted and, turning, rested peacefully against the cushion of her chair. The table was violently shaken. A small ornament upon it leaped into the air and fell in Kate's lap. She sprang to her feet with a cry of alarm, shaking the thing away as if it were a toad, and was about to flee when Mrs. Lambert's voice struck her into immobility, so unconcerned was it, so utterly matter of fact.
"Did you know the spirit visitor?" she asked.
With the question Kate's panic ceased. Her awe, her fright, passed into wonder and amazement.
"It was exactly like my great-aunt," she gaspingly admitted. "But, oh, it was terrible! Whydoyou let her go into such states?"
"We cannot control these manifestations. Hush! They are not yet finished. They are about to write for you."
Still lying in languid ease, the girl lifted one hand to the table—to Kate it seemed that the hand was raised by some outside invisible power—and there it rested, as though weary and meditating. As it paused thus the girl's eyes opened, and she sat regarding it as though it belonged to some other intruding self. Mrs. Lambert brought a pencil and a pad of paper, and laid them upon the stand.
Suddenly the hand woke to vigorous action. Seizing the pencil as a dog might lay hold upon a bone, it began to write slowly, firmly, while Viola watched it, quietly, detachedly, as if it were something entirely separate from her brain. At the end it tore the leaf from the pad and flung it to the floor.
Mrs. Lambert picked it up. "It is from father," she said; "but it is for you."
Kate took the leaf, on which was written, in a firm, round, old-fashioned hand, these words: "Your aunt is here, and asks that you and your brother pay her debt. She is angry because it has not been done."
"I have no knowledge of any such debt," said Kate. "I don't understand this."
The hand was writing again, busily, imperturbably, and the color was coming back into Viola's face. As Kate waited, her awe began to pass, and doubts came thronging back upon her. There was something farcical in all this.
Again the hand flung its message, and again the mother picked it from the floor.
"This also is from father," she announced, with more of excitement than she had hitherto betrayed.
The message began abruptly: "The doubter may be convinced if he will but put himself in the way of it. The life of my granddaughter is more valuable to-day than that of any king or queen. Her mission is to open the door between the two worlds. She is here ready for the test. Let the men of science come toher and be convinced of the life beyond the grave." It was signed with an elaborate rubric "McLeod."
"Who is this message for, father?" asked Mrs. Lambert. "Mrs. Rice?"
A violent thump answered "No."
"Maybe it's for my brother," suggested Kate.
Three tremendous thumps upon the underside of the table gave affirmative answer.
Kate was quite restored to her ruddy self. "Very well, I will see that he gets it."
Viola now spoke wearily, but quite in her natural voice again. "There is no test in that kind of a message. I didn't write it—I had nothing to do with it; but you or Professor Serviss would be justified in thinking I did. Grandpa wanted me to go into a trance. This kind of writing is a compromise."
"But what of my aunt who spoke through you?" asked Kate.
Viola stared at her blankly, and her mother laid a warning hand on Kate's arm. "She knows nothing of these impersonations," she said.
"What did I do?" asked Viola. "I hope nothing ridiculous."
"Mrs. Rice's aunt spoke through you, that's all," answered Mrs. Lambert, reassuringly.
"Tell me more," said Kate, eagerly. "It is all so unreal to me—I want to see more. Dr. Britt has told us wonderful things of you. Do you really believe the dead speak to you?"
"They are with us all the time," placidly, yetdecisively, answered Mrs. Lambert. "We are never alone. I can feel them always near."
Kate shrank. "I don't believe I like that—altogether. Don't you feel oppressed by the thought?"
"Yes, I do," answered Viola; "they take all the joy out of my life."
"Dearest!" warned the mother.
"It is true, and I want Mrs. Rice to know it. Since I was ten years old I have not been free of the thing for a day—only in the high mountains. There I could always draw a long breath. I am glad you've come, Mrs. Rice. I want you to ask Professor Serviss to come and investigate me. My only hope is in the men of science. Tell him I want him to help me understand myself." She was speaking now with force and heat. "I want him to padlock me and nail me down. I want to know whether I am in the hands of friends or enemies. Sometimes I think devils are playing with me. All my life I've been tortured by these powers; even at school they came banging about my bed, scaring my room-mates. They disgraced me before my teacher, the one I loved best. They interfered with my music, they cut me off from my friends, and now they've landed me here in this strange house with this dreadful old man, and I want some one, some good man who knows, some one who is not afraid, to come and test me. Mamma never doubts, Mr. Clarke is entirely satisfied, and this Mr. Pratt is worse than all. I don't believe in his pictures, I don't believe in what I do—I don't know what I believe," she ended,despairingly; then added, fiercely: "This Idoknow, I want to be free from it—free, free—absolutely free. I pray to God to release me, but He does not, and my slavery grows worse every day."
The girl's intensity of utterance thrilled Kate to the heart. Here was the cry of a tortured soul, the appeal of one in bondage. Dr. Britt was right, she was a victim.
"You poor thing. I begin to understand.Iwill help you, and so will my brother. He is already interested in you. He is just the one to advise with you. If any one can help you he can. He is so keen-eyed, so strong."
"I know he is. Have him come soon, won't you?"
The mother interposed. "But, dearie, you know Mr. Clarke says—"
"I know what he says," the girl answered, her face sullen and weary again. "He and all of you have no regard for me. You pretend to have, but you are all willing to sacrifice me to prove a theory. I don't care whether spiritualism is true or not, I want to have one single day when I can be sure of being myself, free to come and go like other girls. I feel as if I had a band of iron around my neck. I shall go mad with it some day."
Kate, usually ready, blunt, and fearless, sat in silence, perfectly convinced by the fury of the girl's protest, stunned by a belief in the complete truth of her indignant accusations. These devotees, these fanatics, were immolating a beautiful young life on thealtar of their own selfish faith. The virgin was already bound to the rock, and the priest, torch in hand, was about to apply the flame.
"What canIdo? I want to help you—"
An imperious knock at the door interrupted her, and for an instant Kate thought this another spirit message, but Mrs. Lambert called out, "Is that you, Anthony?"
A deep voice answered, "Yes, it is I. I have something to tell you." Clarke opened the door and stepped within, a handsome, dark, theatrical figure.
Mrs. Lambert rose to meet him. "What is it, Anthony?"
"We've decided on the date. I am to speak on the second," he answered exultantly.
Viola started up. "You shall not use my name. I forbid it!" Her hands were clinched, her eyes blazed with the fury of her determination, and she struck her heel upon the floor. "I tell you I forbid it!"
Clarke pushed Mrs. Lambert aside and strode to the centre of the room; his face was hard, his tone contemptuous. "You forbid it! What is your puny will against the invisible ones? You forbid it?" His voice changed as he asked, "Who has influenced you tothischildish revolt?" He turned to Kate. "Have you, madam?"
Kate Rice was not one to be outfaced. "If I have, I shall be most happy," she answered. "Who are you that demand so much of this poor girl?"
"I am the one chosen by her 'control' to convey their message to the world."
Kate recoiled a little. "Oh, you are? Well, I don't care if you are. You have no right to use her name in this way without her consent."
"Her consent! What she desires or what I desire is of small account. We are both in the grasp of the invisible forces, making for the happiness of the race. She can't refuse to go on. It is her duty. There are millions of other women to sing, to dance, to amuse men—there is only one Viola Lambert in the world. Nothing in the annals of the occult exceeds her wonderful mediumship. Shemustgive herself to the world of science. Shemusthelp us to prevail over the terrors of the grave. Her mission is magnificent. Her fame will fill the earth."
Kate stoutly confronted him. "Perhaps the fame you give her will destroy her. It sounds to me like notoriety rather than fame. This poor child has a right to herself, and I will help her assert it."
Clarke's eloquent hand fell to his side. Something in Kate's calm, matter-of-fact speech reached his shrewder self. He perceived here no mean antagonist. "You need not take the trouble, madam. I am guarding her.Theyare guarding her."
It was plain that both Mrs. Lambert and her daughter were profoundly in obedience if not in terror of this wild young evangel, and Kate, to test her divination, said, "Suppose she refuses?"
"She dare not refuse. Her 'control' would cut herdown where she stands. She has no choice where they are concerned. The hands are upon her this moment," he ended, triumphantly.
A shudder of despair went over the girl. "It's true; I feel them here." She touched her throat. "They are all against me—the living and the dead," and she fell into her chair with a moan of despair, her beauty, her shining garments adding to the pity of her fate. Kate's heart went out to her without reservation as she knelt beside her.
"I am for you, my dear, and so is my brother; we will help you, I give you my word. Be brave. You must see Morton and Dr. Weissmann. They will know what to do."
Viola turned upon her mother with a wail of supplication. "Take me home, mother, take me home!"
Mrs. Lambert herself was weeping now. "I dare not, dearie, not tilltheyconsent. Be patient—they have promised to release you after this test."
Over the girl's face a stony rigidity spread, her eyelids drooped, her head rolled from side to side, a pitiful, moaning cry came from her pinched lips, and then, at last, drawing a long, peaceful sigh, she slept.
Kate, in terror, stood watching, waiting till the lines of struggle, of pain, smoothed out, and the girl, doubly beautiful in her resignation, lay like one adorned for the angel of death. Then Clarke said, solemnly: "She has ceased to struggle. She is in good hands, in the care of those who love her and understand her; whenshe wakes she will be newly consecrated to her great work. Come."
Kate, awed and helpless, permitted him to lead her from the room, but when fairly outside she turned upon him fiercely: "Don't touch me. I despise you. You are all crazy, a set of fanatics, and you'd sacrifice that poor girl without a pang. But you sha'n't do it, I tell you—you sha'n't do it!"
And with that defiant phrase she swept past him down to the street, forgetting Dr. Britt in her frenzy of indignation and defeat.
Meanwhile Morton, with an armful of the publications of "The Society for Psychical Research" before him, was busied with the arguments of the spiritists and their bearings on Viola Lambert's case.
The thing claimed—that the dead spoke through her—he could not for a moment entertain. Such a claim was opposed to all sound thinking, to every law known to science—was, in short, preposterous.
He had acquired all the prejudices against such a faith from Emerson's famous phrase, "rat-hole philosophy," down to the latest sneer in the editorial columns ofThe Pillar, to the latest "exposé" inThe Blast. Upon the most charitable construction, those who believed in rappings, planchettes, materialized forms, ghosts, messages on slates, and all the rest of the amazing catalogue, were either half-baked thinkers, intellectual perverts, or soft-pated sentimentalists, whose judgment was momentarily clouded by the passing of a grief.
"And yet," said one author, "go a little deeper and you will find in the very absurdities of these phenomena a possible argument for their truth. Amanufactured system would be careful to avoid putting forward as evidence a thing so childish and so ludicrous as a spirit tipping a table, writing in a bottle, or speaking through a tin horn. Who but a childlike and trusting soul would expect to convince a man of science of the immortality of the soul by causing a message from his grandfather to appear in red letters on his arm? The hit-or-miss character of all these phenomena, the very silliness and stupidity which you find in the appeal, may be taken as evidence of the sincerity of the psychic."
To this Morton took exception. "I don't see that. There has never been a religion too gross, too fallacious, to fail of followers. Remember the sacred bull of Egypt and the snake-dance of the Hopi. The whole theory, as Spencer says, is a survival of a more primitive life and religion."
Finding himself alone with Weissmann during the afternoon, he said, carelessly:
"If you were called upon to prove the falsity or demonstrate the truth of the spiritualistic faith—how would you set to work?"
Weissmann was a delicious picture as he stood facing his young colleague. He was dressed to go home, and was topped by a low-crowned, broad-brimmed, black hat, set rather far back on his head, and floating like a shallop on the curling wave of his grizzled hair. His eyebrows, gray, with two black tufts near the nose, resembled the antennæ of a moth. His loose coat, his baggy trousers, and a huge umbrella finished thepicture. He was a veritable German professor—a figure worthy ofDie Fliegende Blätter.
"I can't say exactly," he replied, thoughtfully. "In general I would bring to bear as many senses as possible. I would see, I would hear, I would touch. I would make electricity my watch-dog. I would make matter my trap."
"But how?"
"That, circumstances would determine. My plan would develop to fit the cases. I would begin with the simplest of the phenomena."
"Do you know Meyers's book?"
"Bah! No."
"And yet they say it is a careful and scientific study."
"They say! Who say?"
Serviss smiled. "The spiritualists." Then lightly added: "What would you and the rest of the scientific world do to me if I should go into this investigation and come out converted?"
The old man's eyes twinkled and his mustache writhed in silent enjoyment. "Burn you alive, as we did Bent and Zöllner."
"Of course you would. What you really want me to do is to go in and smash the whole thing, eh?"
"That's about it."
"Clarke, that crazy preacher, said we men of science were just as dogmatic in our way as the bishops, and I begin to think he's right. We condemn without investigation—we play the heretic, just as they did.Could you—could any man—go into this thing and not lose standing among his fellows?"
"No." The old figure straightened, and his mustache bristled sternly. "No; he who goes into this arena invites a kind of martyrdom—that is also why I say you, ayoungman—you might live to see your vindication, but I would die in my disgrace as Zöllner did."
So they parted, Serviss admiring his chief's blunt honesty and vast learning, Weissmann busy with the thought that his eyes were failing, and his work nearly done, "and so little accomplished," he sadly added.
Kate met her brother at the door in a kind of fury. "Something must be done for that girl. I have had a perfectly nerve-racking time. We must get her out of that house before they drive her crazy."
The sincerity of her rage froze the smile on his face. "Is it as bad as that?"
"It is as bad as you can imagine. That man Clarke has some kind of baneful influence over her. He seems able to control her by just waving his hand at her. And the mother is such a dear old silly—she trusts to him completely. But go and dress and we will talk it all over. I'm all of a-tremble yet with what I've seen. I feel as if I had been to an insane asylum and witnessed a strangling."
He went away to his room, deeply perturbed, resentful of all this ill-regulated human nature which could so upset his sane sister and come between his own mind and his work. He believed in orderly andhumorous human life. Why should this teasing, tormenting girl from the mountains come with her trances and tricks to make life furious and antic where it had been amusing and accountable? To what would a closer acquaintance lead? What would become of his studies if he gave himself to her case? "To disillusionment, I sincerely hope," he said.
As he joined his sister at dinner, he began, "Well, now, sis, I'll listen."
Kate had lost a little of her excitement under the influence of her toilet-table, but she was still tense and flushed, as she hesitated, her heart overflowing with sisterly admiration, so handsome, so strong, and so very established did Morton appear at the moment. His tone still further calmed and reassured her, and she began:
"In the first place, I like the girl very much; she is very pretty and much moreau faitthan you had led me to suppose. Her manner is extremely good. The mother is dear and sweet, but deluded. Clarke and that old man Pratt ought to be in an asylum—or the calaboose."
Morton laughed harshly. "Your succinct statement puts me in complete possession of the case. They're all fakirs together."
"No, I didn't mean that. They're all fanatics. You should see the spirit-paintings and the slate-writings in that house! It was like a journey to a far country. Really, Morton, it staggers belief to think that within twenty blocks of where we sit sucha man and such a home can exist. Theydoexist, and it only makes me realize how small a part of the city we know, after all. And some things I heard there to-day make me wonder if scienceisn'tshutting its eyes—as these people say—to a world right under its nose. Morton, those peoplebelievewhat they talk. That girl is honest; she may be self-deceived, but her sufferings are real. I can't believe that she is wicked."
"Weissmann practically advised me to go into a study of these morbid conditions."
"He did? Well, that from Rudolph Weissmann, after what I'veseento-day, unsettles my reason. Maybe those people really have a message. But, Morton, you really must do something for that girl. Her condition is pitiful. One of the plans of that lunatic Clarke is to issue a challenge to the world of science and to throw that girl into the arena for you scientists to tear."
Morton started—stared. "No! Not a public challenge."
"Isn't it pitiful? Yes, he's going to speak on the second of next month at the Spirit Temple, and he's going to publicly describe Viola's powers, and, as her manager, challenge the world to prove her false."
As Morton's mind flashed over the consequences of this challenge, his face paled. "Good God, what an ordeal! But the girl, does she consent?"
"She does and she doesn't. As a sweet, nice child she shrinks from it; but as a 'psychic,' as they call her, she has no choice. These inner forces seem able totake her by the throat any minute. They seized her while I was there. Morton, she impersonated Aunt Dosia, and delivered the most vindictive message—she scared me blue. You never saw anything more dramatic—more awful."
"What was the message?"
"Something about a debt she wanted us to pay. She was furious about it. I don't know of any debt; do you?"
"No. How did the message come?"
As Kate described it, the impersonation grew grotesque, lost much of its power to horrify, and Morton, though he writhed at thought of the girl's depravity, blamed the mother and Clarke for it. Kate made end by saying: "Itwashorrible to see, and it startled me. Then the other messages, those written ones, came through her hand—"
"Automatic writing, they call it. That has no value—none whatever. The whole programme was arranged for your benefit."
"No, it wasn't. The girl was carried out of herself. She is somehow enslaved by Clarke, and she wants help. She wants to be investigated; but she wants it done privately. She wants you to do it. She begs you to do it."
"Begs me?" His eyebrows lifted.
"Yes, she passionately desires your advice. The poor thing made an appeal that would have touched your heart. She wants to be cured of this horrid thing—whatever it is. She wants to escape fromPratt and Clarke and all the rest of those queer people. You must take it up, Morton.Youmust make up a committee and take charge of her."
"Clarke is mad. No reputable man of science will go on such a committee. The girl will fall into the hands of notoriety-seekers—men of position do not meddle with such questions."
Kate flared forth. "Why don't they? It is their duty just as much as it is Viola's duty to offer herself. That is where I lose patience with you men of science. Whydon'tyou meet these people half-way? Women wouldn't be such bigots—such cowards. If you don't help this poor girl I'll consider you a bigot and coward with the rest."
"Your whole position is most feminine," said Morton, arguing as much against himself as against Kate. "You've only seen this girl once—you have witnessed only one of her performances, and yet you are ready to champion her before the world. I wish you'd tell me how you arrived at a conviction of her honesty. Think of it! She assumes to be the mouth-piece of the dead. The very assumption is a discredit."
"I don't care; she has good, honest, sweet eyes."
"I bow to the force of the eyes, but over against her claim I put the denials of science. The phenomena these fanatics base their hopes upon science has already proven to be tricks, illusions, deceits."
"I don't care, her story, her own attitude towards the thing, convinced me that she ishonest."
"It's the rogue who looks like a gentleman who runs the longest race."
"Well," ended Kate, rather helplessly, "see her—see her before you condemn her."
"But Ihaveseen her—I've spent more days in her company than you have hours."
Kate looked at him with new interest. "You didn't tell me that before. You said you'd met her casually."
"She is enormously interesting, but"—his voice changed to earnest protest—"but, Kate, the thing the girl claims to be is out of key with all organized human knowledge. It is a survival of the past. It belongs to a world of dreams and portents. It is of a piece with the old crone's tales, fortune-telling, palmistry, and all the rest of the hodge-podge or hocus-pocus which makes up the world of the unlearned. I've given a great deal of thought to her fate. My heart bleeds for her, but what can I do? She really needs the care of a great physician, like Tolman. She should be snatched from her unwholesome surroundings and sent away to Europe or back to her hills. When I saw her last she was as sweet and blithe as a bobolink—we were on the trail together, so far above the miasma of humankind that her girlhood seemed uncontaminated by any death-affrighted soul. Why don't she go back? She is vigorous and experienced in travel. Her step-father is not poor; he is rich. Why don't she pull away and go back to her valley?"
"Do you know what a 'control' is?"
"I believe that is the name they give the particular spirits which assume to advise and guide a medium. Why?"
"Well, that poor thing is in mortal terror of her 'control,' who is her grandfather. She was quite defiant till Clarke reminded her that her guide would cut her down in her tracks if she refused. Then she wilted—went right off into death-like sleep. It was pitiful to see her. Clarke was terrible when he said it—he is a regular Svengali, I believe, and the mother is completely dominated by him. One of the spooks is her own father, the other her first husband. It seems that they are willing to sacrifice the girl totheirscience, for it seems they are leagued to dig a hole through to us from their side, and Viola is their avenue of communication. Then, too, the girl believes in it all. She rebels at times, but she has been having these trances ever since she was ten years old." As the memory of the mother's tale freshened, Kate changed her tone. "You needn't tell me, Morton Serviss, that these people are frauds. They may be mistaken, but they're horribly in earnest. They believe in those spirits as you do in germs, and Viola is absolutely helpless in their hands, if you can say they have hands. They can throw her into a trance at any moment. They've made her life a misery. She is absolutely enslaved to them."
"That, too, could be a delusion—medical science is full of cases of auto-hypnotism."
"Viola Lambert is not a medical case. It'sastonishing what a blooming beauty she is in the midst of it all. In fact, her health gives Clarke and the mother an argument—they say 'it hasn't hurt her, you see.' But what future has the poor girl? Think of going through life in that way!"
Morton's eyes were sad as he said: "Her future is a dark one, from our point of view, but she may be earning a crown to be given in the land of shadows. She is beautiful, but it is the beauty of a blighted flower."
Kate regarded him with affectionate eyes. "I don't wonder that she has bewitched you, Morton. She can never be anything to you, of course. But we must help her, just the same, and I confess I am crazy to see one of her 'performances,' as you call them." Her face lightened. "How would it do to invite them to dinner and have a séance afterwards? You could judge then of her truth."
"Sacrifice her to makeourholiday, eh? Kate, I thought better of you than that. Isn't that precisely the poor girl's complaint that everybody wants to use her as a sort of telephone connection with the other world? No. If you invite her here, receive her as a lady, not as a pervert. But, now, let us see. You say Clarke is going to issue his challenge soon?"
"On the second."
"And that she has consented?"
"Consented? Poor thing, she has no choice."
"If he issues that challenge, she is lost." His brows knitted. "To defy the world of science in that waywill make her fair game for every charlatan in the city. The press will unite to destroy her. I will see Clarke and Pratt myself. For the sake of their own cause they must not enter on such a foolish plan. Unless this life has already eaten deep into the essential purity of the girl's nature, she will be corrupted. This public-test business will drive her into all kinds of artifices and shifts. Her exposure will be swift and sure. Yes, I will see Clarke. If necessary I will undertake to secure a purely private investigation of her claims—"
Kate rose and came round to his chair. "Will you? Oh, that will be good of you, Mort. I can't begin to tell you how that girl's face has worked on me to-day. I feel that it would be criminal in you not to do something when she expects it of you. She looks to us to save her. She passionately desires your help. Go over there to-morrow. Don't delay; they may issue that challenge any minute. Clarke was angry and alarmed at my attitude, and may send out the notice to-night. Do go, Morton. You can't afford to stand on ceremony when a soul is in danger."
He rose. "Very well, I will go; but I never embarked on an enterprise that seemed more dangerous, more futile. My heart says go, but my reason is against it."
"Follow your heart in this instance."
"If I did that wholly, I would go straight to this dragon's den and snatch the fair maiden home to my castle."
"That would be romantic, but a little too daring, even for my enthusiasm."
"You may be reassured. No one really follows the heart in these days—at least, those who do land in jail Of the almshouse."
As he lit his cigar he observed that his hand trembled. For the first time in his life his nerves were over-charged and leaping with excitement just above control.