Surely Simeon's house that night was a place of tormenting and tumult—the meeting-place of spirits whose dispositions were to evil fully inclined, and of mortals whose natures were upon the edge of combat. Viola, in full revolt, would not even permit her mother to come to her. Clarke, in an agony of love and hate, paced his room or sat in dejected heap before his grate. Mrs. Lambert, realizing that something sorrowful was advancing upon her, lay awake a long time hoping her daughter would relent and steal in to kiss her good-night, but she did not, and at last the waters of sleep rolled in to submerge and carry away her cares.
Viola, made restless by her disgust of Pratt as well as by her loss of respect and confidence in Clarke, did not lose herself till nearly dawn. Her mind was at first busy with the past, filled with a procession of the many things he had done to enrich her life. She was troubled by the remembrance of the grave, sad courtesy of his intercourse in the days just following his wife's death. At that time his kindly supervision of her music and his suggestions for her reading had givenhim dignity and romantic charm. "He was nice then," she said to herself. "If only he had stopped there." When he fell at her feet in the attempt to rouse her pity he had been degraded in her eyes. His whole manner towards her became that of suppliant—beseeching the "guides" to sanction their ultimate union. She burned with shame as she thought of her tacit acquiescence in this arrangement. "You have no right to interfere with my—with such things," she now said to the invisible ones. "I do not love Anthony Clarke. I don't even respect him any longer."
He had, indeed, become almost as offensive to her as Pratt, and the picturesque, soulful presence which he affected was at the moment repugnant. In contrast to the young scientist he was mentally and morally sick, and the world which he inhabited (and which she shared with him) hopelessly askew. Of this she had a clear perception as her mind recalled and dwelt upon the taste, the comfort, the orderly cheer of the Serviss home.
"We never made the spirit-world so awful. Mamma did not take such an excited view of it all. What has produced this change in us? Tony has. He has carried us out into a nasty world and he has set us among frauds and fanatics, and I will not suffer it any longer."
She did him an injustice, but she was at the same time right. Mrs. Lambert, left to herself, would have kept a serene mind no matter what the manifestations might be. With her the world of spirit interpenetratedthe world of every-day life, and the one was quite as natural as the other and of helpful, cheering effect. She had remained quite as normal in her ways of thought as when in Colorow, and aside from her dependence upon the spirit-world for guidance would not have seemed at any point to be akin to either fraud or fanatic.
At last the girl's restless mind, cleared of its anger, its doubts and its doles, came back to rest upon the handsome, humorous, refined face of young Dr. Serviss. She felt again the touch of his deft, strong hands, and heard again the tender cadence of his voice as he said: "I hope you are not in pain? We will release you very soon." She dwelt long upon the final scene at the table, when, with a jesting word on his lips, but with love in his eyes, he took her hand to remove the marks of her bonds; and the flush that came to her was not one of anger—it rose from the return of her joy of those few moments of sweet companionship.
How sane and strong and safe he was. "He does not believe in our faith, but he does not hate me. How Dr. Weissmann loves him! They are like father and son."
Thinking upon these people and their home, with their griefs, their easy, off-hand, penetrating comments, their laughter filling her ears, the girl grew drowsy with some foreknowledge of happier days to come, and fell asleep with a faint smile upon her lips.
She woke late to find her mother bending over her, and lifting her arms she drew the gray head down toher soft, young bosom and penitently said: "Mamma, forgive me. I am sorry I spoke as I did. I am not angry this morning, but I am determined. We must go away from here this very day."
The mother did not at once reply, but when she spoke her voice trembled a little. "I guess you're right, dearie. This house seems like a prison to me this morning. But what troubles me most is this: Why do Maynard and father permit us to stay here? I am afraid of Mr. Pratt—everybody says he will make us trouble, and yet our dear ones urge us to remain."
"Mamma," gravely replied Viola, "I want to tell you something that came to me this morning. I wonder ifwhat grandfather says is not made up of what Pratt and Anthony want?"
"What do you mean, child?" asked the mother, sitting back into a chair and staring at her daughter with vague alarm.
"I mean that—that—grandfather, strong as he seems to be, is influenced in some way by Tony. He goes against my wishes and against your wishes, buthe never goes against Tony's."
The mother pondered. "But that is because Tony is content to followhiswill."
The girl lost her firm tone. "I know that interpretation can be given to it, but to-day Ifeelthat it is the other way, and, besides, it may be that grandfather doesn't realize all our troubles."
The mother rose. "It's all very worrisome, andI wish some change would come. I dread to meet Mr. Pratt, but I suppose I must."
"Don't go down. I don't intend to see him again if I can avoid it. Ring for your coffee and take your breakfast here with me this morning."
"No. That would only make him angry. I'll go down."
"I don't care what he says, mamma, I shall do as I like hereafter."
With this defiant reply ringing in her ears, Mrs. Lambert went slowly down the stairs to find the master of the house, sullen, sour, and vindictive, breakfasting alone in his great dining-room. As she timidly entered he looked up from his toast with a grunt of greeting, and Mrs. Lambert, seeing that his resentment still smouldered, stopped on the threshold pale with premonition of assault. She would have fled had she dared to do so, but the maid drew a chair for her, and so she seated herself opposite him in silence.
"Where's that girl?" he asked, harshly.
"She's not feeling very well this morning, so I told her she needn't come down to breakfast."
He grunted in scorn. "What happened over there last night? Everybody seems upset by it. I want to know all about it. You had a sitting, did you?"
"Yes."
"Whose idea was that—Clarke's?"
"No, father wanted to speak with Dr. Serviss and Dr. Weissmann."
"Weissmann was there, was he? What didhesay?"
"He seemed impressed."
"What happened?"
"Father came, as usual—"
"I mean what happened outside the séance? Something set that girl against me and upset Clarke. I want to know what it was."
"I don't think anything was said of you at all."
"Yes, there was. You can't fool me. Somebody warned that girl against me. The whole thing seems funny to me." (By funny he meant strange.) "You go away from my house for a dinner against my will—leave me in the lurch—and come home at one o'clock in the morning with faces that would sour milk, and now here you are all avoiding me this morning. It just convinces me that if we're going to carry on this work together we've got to have a definite understanding. You've got to stop going to such houses and giving séances without my permission. I won't have that under any conditions."
Clarke, who had appeared at the doorway, a worn, and troubled spectre of dismay, now put in a confirmatory word. "You are quite right, Simeon. That house reeks with the talk of wine-bibbers and those who make life a witticism. Such an atmosphere profoundly affects Viola."
Pratt glowered at him with keen, contemptuous glance. "You look as if you'd been drawn through a knot-hole. What happened toyou?" As Clarke did not reply to this he took another line of inquiry. "About this sitting, what was the upshot?"
"It was a very remarkable test-sitting, and seemed to make a profound impression. The conditions were severe—"
"Why was I left out? That's what I want to know."
"That's what puzzles me. McLeod, who promised us never to have a circle without you, insisted on the sitting there—"
"How do you know he did? Did he write or speak to you?"
"No—heimpressedthe psychic."
"I don't trust that girl in such a house. Did you talk with Weissmann about heading the committee?"
"Yes, but"—he hesitated—"they both insisted that if they took the matter up both of us must be excluded."
Pratt bristled. "And you consented to that?"
"I did not. I insisted that the sittings take place here and that we be present. They would not listen to that, so I think I'll go ahead on my programme and decide upon the personnel of the committee afterwards."
Pratt regarded him fixedly. "I'm not sure I like your programme, my friend. I've been thinking it over lately, and I've just about come to the conclusion that you'd better not issue that challenge."
"Why not?"
Pratt snapped like a peevish bull-dog. "Because I don't want it done—that's all the reason you need. I've never made any concessions to reach these damn scientists, and I don't intend to begin now. You areplanning to involve us in a whole lot of noise and sensation, and I don't like it. Furthermore, I don't intend to submit to it."
Clarke was too irritable to take this quietly, and his eyes blazed. "You're very sensitive all at once. When did you reach this new point of view?"
"Never you mind about that; I've reached it, and I intend to maintain it. Why, you simple-minded jackass, these scientists will eat you up. They'll make a monkey of me and disgrace the girl. They'll pretend to expose her—the press will be on their side—and I will be made the butt of all their slurring gibes. I won't have it!"
"You're too nervous about the press," replied Clarke, loftily. "You're all wrong about the papers. They'll take a malicious joy in girding at the scientists as 'the men who know it all.' They'll have their fling at us, of course, but it won't hurt."
"Oh, it won't! Well, it may not hurt you—it's a fine stroke of advertising for you—but I don't need that kind of publicity. That's settled! Now, about this man Serviss"—he turned to Mrs. Lambert—"is he married?"
"No."
"I thought not. How long has he known Viola?"
"It's nearly two years since he came to Colorow; but he has only seen her a few times—"
Pratt cut her short. "I begin to understand. You'd better not let him mix in here—he's too young and too good-looking to conduct experiments of thiskind with your girl. If you had any sense, Clarke, you'd see that for yourself."
Clarke's expression changed. His cheeks grew livid with his passion, and his eyes burned with the same wild light that had filled them as he looked across the room at Morton bending over Viola's hand. Pratt's brutal frankness had cleared his own thought and re-aroused his sense of proprietorship in the girl. Until that dinner came with its revelation, he had thought of Serviss merely as the scientist to be used to further his own plans. Now he knew him for what he was—a young and dangerous rival. With a sinking of the heart he suspected him to be a successful rival.
He rose from the table and left the room, and Mrs. Lambert followed him fearful of what he might do in his rage.
"Tony, Tony!" she called.
He turned and faced her, his face set in horrible lines, his fists clinched. "I've been a fool, a fool!" he declared, through set teeth. "Why didn't you warn me? I should have made her safely my own before I came East. She loves him, but he shall not have her—by God he shall not! Where is she? Tell her I must see her!"
She pleaded for delay, and at last calmed him so that he left her and went to his room. She then hastened to Viola and locked the door behind her.
"Viola, dear, get ready! We must leave this house at once," she said, breathlessly.
"What has happened?" asked Viola.
Mrs. Lambert took time to think. "It was very disagreeable. They are wrangling again about that challenge and about you."
"About me! Yes, that's what wears on me—they wrangle about me as if I had no right to say what part I am to take. But it's all over, mother; unless grandfather holds me by the throat every mortal minute to-day I'm going into the street—"
A knock at the door startled them both, but it proved to be the maid, who said, "Here is a note from Mr. Clarke, miss; he said, 'be sure and bring an answer,' miss."
The note was a passionate appeal for a meeting, but Viola wrote across it in firm letters, "No. It is useless," and returned it to the girl. "Take that to him," she said, careless of the fact that her refusal was open to the eyes of the messenger.
When they were again in private she said: "We'll go if we have to telephone the police to help us. And I'm going to wire Papa-Joe to come and take us home."
"You are cruel to Tony, child."
"No, I'm not! He must understand, once for all, that I belong to myself. I never really cared for him. Deep in my heart I was afraid of him, and now he has grown so egotistical that he is willing to sacrifice me to his own aims, and I hate him. I will not see him again if I can avoid it."
The mother protested less and less strongly, for she was forced to admit that something fine and true had gone out of her idol, and that he now stood in a newand harsh light. All the hard lines of his face appeared to her, and his pallor, his deep-set eyes were those of a sick and restless soul. She no longer rejoiced at the thought of giving her daughter into his hands.
Clarke was truly in a pitiable state of incertitude and despair. His oration, his interdicted challenge, his book, his religion were all swallowed in by the one great passion which now flooded and filled his brain—his love for Viola. "She belongs to me," he repeated, as he walked his room with shaking limbs, a dry, hard knot in his throat, his eyes hot with tears that would not fall. "She must surrender herself to me—finally and now—to-day, I will wait no longer. She must leave this house at once—but she must go as my wife! She is right. Pratt is a beast—a savage. He will rage—he will vilify us both, but we will defy him. Our 'guides' will confound him. We are, after all, not dependent upon him. We can go on—" The maid, returning, handed him Viola's answer and went hastily out. He read it and reread it till its finality burned into his brain, then dropped into a deep chair and there lay for a long time in despairing stupor.
Was it all over, then? Was her final decision in that curt scrawl? She had returned his own note as if with intent to emphasize her refusal to see him, and yet only a few days ago she had assented to all his plans, leaning upon his advice. What had produced this antagonism? What evil influence was at work?
He rose on a sudden, fierce return of self-mastery,and went to Mrs. Lambert's door and knocked, and when she opened to him demanded of her a full explanation. "What is the matter? Is she sick or is she hatefully avoiding me?"
"She's all upset, Anthony. Don't worry, she will see you by-and-by."
"Shemustsee me! After what she said last night I can't think—I am in agony. What is the matter with us all? Yesterday we were triumphant; to-day I feel as if everything were sinking under my feet. She shall not leave me! I will not have it so! Tell her I insist on seeing her! I beg her to speak to me if only for a moment."
"I will tell her you are here." She left him at the threshold, a haggard and humble suitor, while she knocked at her daughter's door. "Viola, child, Anthony is here. Let me in just a moment."
As he waited the half-frenzied man noted the absence of certain family portraits and cried aloud, poignantly: "She is packing! She is going away!" And when Mrs. Lambert returned he seized her by the arm, his eyes wild and menacing. "Tell me the truth! She is preparing to leave."
Mrs. Lambert looked away. "I tried to reason with her, Anthony. I wanted her to 'sit for council,' but she's so crazy to get away she will not do it. She will hardly speak tome."
"She must not go—she shall not leave me! I will not permit her to go to him!" His voice rose and his lifted hand shook.
"Hush, Tony! She will hear you. Please go away and let me deal with her."
He lifted his face and spoke with closed eyes. "Donald McLeod, if you are present, intercede for me. Bring her to me. Command her to remain. You gave her to me. You led us here. Will you permit her to ruin all our plans? Stretch out your hand in power. Do you hear me?" There was no answer to his appeal, neither tap nor rustle of reply. In the silence his heart contracted with fear. "Have you deserted me, too?" Then his brain waxed hot with mad hate. His hand clinched in a savage vow. "I swear I will kill her before I will let her go to that man! Together we will enter the spirit-world."
He sprang towards the door, but Mrs. Lambert, with eyes expanded in horror, caught him by the arm. "Tony, Tony! What are you doing? Are you crazy?"
Her hand upon his arm, her face drawn and white with fear, recalled him to himself. He laughed harshly. "No—oh no; I'm not mad, but it's enough to make me so. I didn't mean it—of course I didn't mean it."
"You are dreadfully wrought up, Tony. Go out and walk and clear your brain, and by-and-by we'll sit for council."
In the end she again persuaded him to return to his chamber, but he did not leave the house—neither could he rest. Every word the girl had said of his selfishness, his egotism, burned like poison in his brain. Had his hold on her been so slight, after all? "She despises me. She hates me!" And in his heart he despised andhated himself. He cursed his poverty, his lack of resource. "Why am I, the evangel of this faith, dependent on others for revelation. Why must I beg and cringe for money, for power?" He was in the full surge of this flood of indignant query when Pratt shuffled into his room.
"Some reporters below want to see you. I guess you better—"
Clarke turned, the glare of madness in his eyes. "Curse you and your reporters! Go away from me! I don't want to be bothered by you nor by them."
Pratt stared in dull surprise, which turned slowly to anger. "What's the matter with younow?" he roared. "Damn you, anyway. You've upset my whole house with your crazy notions. Everything was moving along nicely till you got this bug of a big speech into your head, and then everything in my life turns topsy-turvy. To hell with you and your book! You can't use me to advertise yourself. I want you to understand that right now. I see your scheme, and it don't work with me."
He was urging himself into a frenzy—his jaws working, his eyes glittering, like those of a boar about to charge, all his concealed dislike, his jealousy of the preacher's growing fame and of his control of Viola turning rapidly into hate. "I don't know why you're eating my bread," he shouted, hoarsely. "I've put up with you as long as I am going to. You're nothing but a renegade preacher, a dead-beat, and a hypocrite. Get out before I kick you out!"
This brought the miserable evangel to a stand. "I'll go," he said, defiantly, "but I'll take your psychic with me—we'll go together."
"Go and be damned to the whole tribe of ye!" retorted Pratt, purple with fury. "Go, and I'll publish you for a set o' leeches—that's what I'll do," and with this threat he turned on his heel and went out, leaving Clarke stupefied, blinded by the force of his imprecations.
The situation had taken another turn for the worse. To leave the house of his own will was bad enough; to be kicked out by his host, and to be followed by his curse was desolating. "And yet this I could endure if only she would speak to me—would go with me."
He fell at last into a deep gulf of self-pity. Yesterday, now so far away, so irrevocable, was full of faith, of promise, of happiness, of grand purpose; now every path was hid by sliding sand. The world was a chaos. His book, his splendid mission, his communion with Adele, his very life, depended upon this wondrous psychic. Without her the world was a chaos, life a failure, and his faith a bitter, mocking lie. With a sobbing groan he covered his face, his heart utterly gone, his brain benumbed, his future black as night.
And yet outside the window, in reach of his hand, the spring sunlight vividly fell. The waves of the river glittered like glass and ships moved to and fro like butterflies. The sky was full of snowyclouds—harbingers of the warm winds of spring. Sparrows twittered along the eaves, and the mighty city, with joy in its prosaic heart, was pacing majestically into the new and pleasant month.
At breakfast next morning Morton took up the paper with apprehension, and though he found Clarke's name spread widely on the page, he was relieved to find only one allusion to the unknown psychic on whose mystic power the orator was depending.
"She has another day of grace," he said to himself, thinking of Lambert.
All the way down to his laboratory he pretended to read the news, but could not succeed in interesting himself in the wars and famines of the world, so much more vital and absorbing were his own passions and retreats, so filmy was the abstract, so concrete and vital the particular. A million children might be starving in India, a thousand virgins about to be sold to slavery in Turkestan; but such intelligence counted little to a man struggling with doubt of the woman he loves, and questioning further the right of any philosopher to marry and bring children into a life of bafflement and pain and ultimate annihilation.
This must ever be so. The particular must outweigh the general, and philosophers, even the monists, must continue to be inconsistent. The individualmust of necessity consider himself first and humanity afterwards; for if all men considered the welfare of the race to the neglect of self, the race would die at the root and the individual perish of his too-widely diffused pity. To be the altruist, one must first be the egoist (say the philosophers), to give, one must first have.
The questions which filled this implacable young investigator's mind were these: Is my love worthy? And again: Dare I, insisting on man's unity with all other organisms and subject to the same laws of extinction, entertain the idea of marriage? If the theories I hold are true—if the soul of a child is no more than the animating principle of the ant or the ape (and this I cannot deny)—then of what avail is human life? By what right do men bring other organisms into being knowing that they will only flutter a little while in the sun like butterflies and die as unavailingly as moths?
Up to this time he had accepted with a certain calm pitilessness the most inexorable tenets of the evolutionists, and had defended them with remorseless zeal; but on this fair spring morning, with love for Viola stirring in his heart, he found himself far less disposed to crush and confound. He acknowledged a growing sympathy with those who mourn the tragic fact of death.
All that he had read concerning clairvoyance, telepathy, hypnotism, and their allied subjects began to assume new significance and a weightier importance.He was annoyed to find himself profoundly concerned as to whether the power of "suggestion" was anything like as coercive as many eminent men believed it to be, and in this awakened interest he 'phoned Tolman (upon reaching his desk), asking him to lunch with him at the club. "If there is anything in his philosophy I want to know it," he said, as he turned to his desk.
He found no word from Lambert, and this troubled him. "If he does not come to-day I must act alone," he concluded, and attempted to take up his work, but found his brain preoccupied, his hand heavy.
Weissmann came in late, looking old and worn. He, too, had passed a restless night. He nodded curtly to his assistant and set to work without reference to the sitting or the psychic; and yet Morton was very sure his chief's mind was as profoundly engaged as his own, and a little later in the forenoon he stopped at his desk and said: "Lunch, with me, doctor; I have asked Tolman, and I want to talk things over with you both."
Weissmann consented in blunt abstraction, and the work proceeded quite in the regular routine so far as he was concerned.
Tolman was the farthest remove from the traditional mesmerist in appearance, being a brisk, blond man of exceeding neatness and taste in dress. He wore the most fashionable clothing, his hair and beard were in perfect order, and his hands were very beautiful. He was, indeed, vain of his slender fingers and gesticulated overmuch. His voice also was alittle over-assertive, but his eyes were clear, steady, and strong.
As they took seats in the cheerful sunlit dining-room of the Mid-day Club, the three theorists formed a notable group and one that attracted general comment, but their conversation would have astonished the easygoing publishers and professional men who were chatting at neighboring tables, so full of interrogation and assertion was each specialist.
As Tolman rose to speak to a friend at a table across the room, Weissmann confidentially remarked: "I did not sleep last night, not a wink. I could not satisfy myself about those performances. Therefore I smoked and studied. Last night's test proved nothing to me except that the girl had nothing to do with the phenomena."
The young man's heart glowed at these words and he feelingly replied. "To prove that would mean a great deal to me, doctor."
Weissmann's tired face lighted up. "So! Then you are interested in her? You love her? I was right, eh?" he asked, with true German directness.
Serviss protested. "Oh no! I haven't said that; but it troubled me to think of her as a possible trickster. Please don't hint such a thing in Tolman's hearing."
As the hypnotist returned to his seat, Serviss opened up the special discussion by asking him his opinion of the claims of spiritualists.
This question threw Tolman into a roar. "That from you, and in the presence of Weissmann, is a'facer'! What has come over Morton Serviss that he should invite me to a lunch to talk over a case of hysterico-epilepsy, and start in by asking my opinion of spiritualism? Come, now, out with the real question."
Serviss perceived the folly of any subterfuge, and briefly presented Viola's history, without naming her, of course, and ended by describing in detail the sitting of the night before, while Tolman ate imperturbably at his chop and toast with only now and then a word or a keen glance.
When the story was finished, he looked up, like a lawyer assuming charge of a witness. "Now there's a whole volume to say upon what you've told me, and our time is limited to a chapter. Make your questions specific. What point do you particularly want my opinion on?"
"First of all, has the preacher in this case been controlling the girl?"
"Undoubtedly, but not to the extent you imagine."
"Has the mother?"
"Yes. She has been a great and constant source of suggestion."
"You would advise taking the patient out of her present surroundings, would you not?"
"Yes, that would be helpful, but is not absolutely necessary. The essential step is to fill her mind with counter-suggestions." Here he launched into an exposition of the principles and potentialities of hypnotism, and was in full tide of it when Weissmann interrupted to ask:
"But suppose these phenomena actually and independently exist? Suppose that they are not illusions but objective realities, how then will your suggestion help?"
This put Tolman on his mettle. He entered into a discourse filled with phrases like "secondary consciousness," "collective hallucinations," "nerve-force," wherein, while admitting that great and good men believed in the phenomena of "spiritism," he concluded that they were overhasty in assigning causes. For his part, the realm of hallucination was boundless. "The mind has the power to create a world of its own—it often does so, and—"
Here Weissmann again broke in. "You will enroll yourself with Aksakof and Von Hartmann and Lombroso?"
"Not precisely. They admit the reality of the appearances. I do not believe that the mind has power to dematerialize objects, as in the case of your wine-glass last night, which was a trick."
"But the mind can produce a blister without external cause," said Serviss. "You hypnotic sharps have proved that it can also deaden nerves and heal skin diseases, if not bone fractures."
"Yes, we produce marvellous cures within the organism, but we draw the line at the periphery of the body. Telekinesis is to me the word of a lively fictionist."
"One is as easy to believe as the other, and Crookes, Lodge, Lombroso, Tamburini, Aksakof, VonHartmann, all believe in the reality of these happenings," retorted Serviss. "They differ only in their explanations. One party believes them due to disembodied spirits, the other relates them to the inexplicable action of a certain psychic force generated within the sitters and acting on objects at a distance. I am not yet persuaded of the phenomena, but I am progressing. I am willing to admit that these gentlemen are entitled to a respectful hearing."
Tolman resumed his own explanation, and after several premises and general statements put a case. "For example, take automatic writing. You begin by placing a pad and pencil before the mind. That suggests writing—sets up a certain train of associated ideas. These ideas have the innate tendency to realize themselves, the will of the subject being weakened. This is why the left hand is often used. These ideas disassociate themselves from the rest of the mental organism and may, in highly developed cases, become what is called a 'secondary personality.' They may give a weak imitation of discourse. They may assume a vague resemblance to some other individual, but they can never give a full statement or a new statement. This is why all the so-called spirit communications are so fragmentary and so futile. The cure of any such state is to set up a strong current of counter-suggestion."
Weissmann asked: "Is it not extravagant to say that there can exist in the unconscious mind of a young girl, a skill so great as will enable her todraw intricate patterns, manipulate objects at a distance, and impersonate dead persons unknown to her?"
"But there you have passed into the region of hallucination or deceit."
"I'm not so sure of that. I do not see how fraud or hallucination can come into the most of what we saw last night. I will admit that coming alone by itself the test would have little weight; but it does not come alone. The literature of the subject is great and growing."
Tolman smiled. "Yes, the newspapers are filled with accounts of mediums exposed."
They entered then upon a discussion of the trance, and passed to a consideration of multiple personality, which brought out many singular facts. "We learned also," Tolman said in discussion of a certain case which he had studied, "that certain drugs have the power of arousing specific nerve-centres, and that in cases of alternating personality by flooding the brain with blood we were able to bring back the normal self."
"Doesn't that weaken your argument of the power of mind over matter?" asked Serviss, profoundly interested in this assertion.
"Not at all. It is my belief in the drug that influences the patient."
Serviss laughed and Weissmann's mouth twitched. "You cannot head them off—these modern mind-specialists! They plunge into the subconscious like prairie-dogs into the sod, only to come up at a new point."
Tolman's interest in the unknown psychic was now keen, and he asked for a chance to try his powers.
To this Serviss was strongly averse. "I have never had a chance at a case of this kind and I would very much like to experiment. Perhaps I may need you; but if suggestion is what you claim it to be, if the power is really in the mind of the subject, I can arouse it as well as any one. But as a believer in matter I would like to ally myself with the drug you mention."
"Very well, here is the prescription." He jotted down on a card a few hieroglyphic phrases. "And now I must hurry away. I'm sorry, but I have an engagement."
Serviss took his hand cordially. "I'm glad to have had this talk with you. It has suggested a new train of thought to me."
"If you need me on the case you mention, be sure to let me know. It sounds mighty interesting, and I'd like a hand in it."
After Tolman left, Weissmann remarked: "There is a school of thinkers which believes that exceptional individuals may have the power to effect molecular changes in matter at a distance."
"Yes, I know that. I spent most of the night reading the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, in which that theory has a large place."
"Well, may it not be that Miss Lambert has this power? May it not be that she is able in some such way as that suggested by Lombroso, to impart cerebral movements to the ether and so modify matter as toproduce movement of objects, telekinetic writing, and all the rest of it?"
"That is too violent an assumption. We might as well surrender to the spiritists at once. What evidence have we that Clarke did not rise and tiptoe about the room manipulating the horn himself?"
"We have our own observation, joined to the report of Crookes and Richet."
"But Crookes is discredited on this score. He belongs to what Haeckel calls 'the imaginative scientists.' So do Von Hartmann, Lombroso, Wallace, and Lodge."
"Why should that be? Why should we accept their testimony on gases and the spectrum, and exclude it when it comes to a question of phenomena new to us? 'This man is a great chemist and physicist,' you say,'but a crazy ass when he sets to work to examine the claims of spiritism,' which is absurd and unjust. So far as I can see, he examined the phenomena of spiritism quite as a scientist should."
Morton believed that his chief was taking the opposing side out of perversity and replied: "I admit that as you read, they seem reasonable, and I also admit that the experiments with Eusapia, especially the recent ones, ought to be conclusive to my mind, but they are not. That is the singular thing—they do not convince."
"That is because we do not clear our minds of prejudice. These men are far-sighted and profound in their own lines. They have exposed themselves tosneers by going into these new fields. They are to be honored as pioneers. Why not believe the phenomena they discuss are at least worth our attention?"
"That is Clarke's plea."
"Precisely! And he is right. I am less critical of him to-day than I was last night. He gave his psychic over into our hands. What more could we ask?"
"He might have absented himself."
"He may do that next time."
"No; he was furious when I suggested the idea."
"My interest is awakened. It may be, as Clarke says, that this young lady is about to give the world of science a new outlook. It may be that she is to out-do Home and Eusapia."
Morton's face was cold and his voice firm as he said: "Not if I can prevent it. My zeal as an investigator does not go so far as that. I intend to free her from all connection with this uneasy world, and to that end I have wired her step-father to come on, and with his assistance I hope to end Clarke's control of her and set to work upon the cure she expects of me."
Weissmann smiled indulgently. "The scientist is defeated by the lover. I see; you would exclude all others from the sitting. Very well! that shall be as you wish; but it seems a shame now when we have such a wonderful chance to duplicate the Crookes' experiments. But, as you say, it would be too much to ask of a young and lovely girl. We will sacrifice only men and the ugly crones, eh?" Morton smiled faintlyand his chief went on: "Well, now, in case you find yourself sitting—" he held up a warning hand—"I say if you find yourself unable to stop these trances—"
"I have no doubt of that—provided I can take her out of her present associations."
"Very good! I was about to say that all, or nearly all, of the phenomena of last night took place within a limited radius of the psychic. The books all came from behind her. The horn hovered near her—all of which would support the arguments of the 'psychic force' advocates. Lombroso and Tamburini both suggest that it is not absurd to say that possibly the subconscious mind may be able not merely to transmit energy, but to produce phantasmal forms, and I wondered last night whether there might not be some supernormal elongation of the psychic's arms which might enable her to seize and manipulate the horn at a distance beyond her normal reach."
"It is easier for me to believe that Mrs. Lambert did it. I am convinced that Clarke in some way played us false."
"I'm not sure of that. I am willing to grant that it is possible for the mind to alter the circulation of the blood, even to accelerate or decrease the up-building processes among the cells. If the mind can produce a pathologic process like a blister, it can also remove warts or cancer, as the hypnotists of the Charcot school claim. If the mind can move a book or a pencil without the intervention of any known form of matter, then Clarke (as well as his psychic) may be innocent,and all that happened last night be due to thought-transference and telekinesis."
The young man shrugged his shoulders. "To admit a single one of your premises would turn all our science upside down."
Weissmann smiled musingly. "So said the Ptolmaic philosophers when Copernicus came. Yet nothing was destroyed but error—they established the truth."
"I didn't mean what I said, exactly. I meant that the whole theory is opposed to every known law of physics."
"I'm not so certain of that, I can imagine a subtler form of force than magnetism. I can imagine the mind reacting upon matter, creating in its own right by the displacement and rearrangement of the molecules of a substance—say of wood. What is a wine-glass but an appearance? No, no! It will not do to be dogmatic. We must not assume too much. We must keep open minds. Are we not advancing? Is any one nearing the farther wall? No, my boy, each year should make us less arrogant. Ten thousand years from now men will still be discovering new laws of nature just as they were ten thousand years ago. It is childish to suppose that we or any other generation will know all that is to be known. Infinite research is before us just as infinite painful groping is behind us. I do not assume to say what the future will bring to mankind. Perhaps soon—very soon, science will shift its entire battle-line from matter to mind. To say the mind is conditioned in a certainway to-day does not mean that these conditions may not utterly change to-morrow. Great discoveries wait in the future."
"But you would not say that a new way of squaring the circle would appear—or that perpetual motion—"
"Oh no, no! Error is not a product of enlightenment. I only say that the problem which is insoluble to you and to me may be quite simple to the biologist of the twenty-second century. Once I thought I might come to know much of the universe, now I am quite certain I shall never know but a few processes—never the mystery itself."
As the old man talked with the light of prophecy in his gaunt face, the young man's imagination took wing into the future, that mighty and alluring void, black as night, yet teeming with transcendent, potential unborn men and women, and his brain grew numb with the effort and his heart humble with the moments' prophetic glance. Ay, it was true! He in his turn would seem a child of the foolish past—a fond old man to the wise future. His complacence was lost. His faith in his authorities violently shaken. He recalled a line from Whitman: "Beyond every victory there are other battles to be fought, other victories to be won." And his eyes grew dim and his thought filled with reverence for those seers of the future, and with awe of the inscrutable and ever-beckoning and ever-retiring mystery of life.
His chief resumed: "No, we pretend to larger knowledge of living organisms; but how will our text-booksbe regarded by the teachers of the future? Will they not read us and smile over us as curious mixtures of truth and error—valuable as showing the state of science in our day? Do you dream of solving the mystery of life? Of bridging the chasm between the crystal and the non-nucleated cell? I do not. As I sat alone last night unable to sleep, my eyes ran over the backs of the books on my shelves—they were all there, all the great ones, Laplace, Spinoza, Descartes, Goethe, Spencer, Hegel, Kant, Darwin, all the wonder-workers. How masterful each had been in his time. How complacent of praise; how critical of the past! But here now they all stood gathering dust, and I thought: so will the unborn philosophers of the next century fold me up and put me away beside the other mouldy ones—curious but no longer useful. My book will be but an empty shell on the reef of human history. Of such cruelty are the makers of scientific advance."
Morton was profoundly moved by the note of pathos, of disillusionment in the old man's voice. "Would you have me believe that these men we doubt to-day are forerunners of the future?"
"I feel so. The materialists have had their day. Some subtler expression of matter is about to be given to the world, not as Kant gave it, but through experiment, and to men like Myers and Sir William Crookes may come great honor some day."
"You would not have us weaken in our method?"
Weissmann's manner changed. He resumed his most peremptory tone. "By no means. We must notrelax our vigilant scrutiny of fact one atom's weight, but we must keep our minds open to new messages—no matter how repulsive the source."
Morton sat for a moment in deep study, then said: "If I fail to stop the public announcement of Miss Lambert's powers, if Clarke's challenge is issued in spite of my protest, I shall ask the privilege of heading the committee in order to be present and shield her. If it comes to this, will you join me and support me?"
"With pleasure."
"But suppose the president and our board object?"
"What right have they to object? So long as I do not neglect my duties they will not dare to object."
"They will be scandalized. Two of us going into an investigation of this sort will seem to involve the whole school, and they may insist on our keeping out of it, so long as we are connected with the institution. If they ask for our resignation, the public will side with us, but all other institutions, and probably the bulk of our colleagues, will go against us. I hesitate, therefore, to ask you to take up this work. It is not a matter of bread and butter to me. I can resign, and I am thinking this is my best plan. At the same time I hope, for Miss Lambert's sake, that the public test will not be made."
Weissmann's shaggy old head lifted like that of a musing lion. "What is this opposition to me? I too can resign. What my colleagues say will not matter if I feel that I am advancing the cause of science.Their flames will scorch, but I have a thick skin. Besides, I am old, with only a few more years to work, and if I felt I could better serve the world by going into this investigation than by remaining in the one in which I now am, I would gladly do it. I will not utterly starve."
"Not while I am able to share a crust," quickly exclaimed Serviss. "If they ask for your resignation, give it and come with me. Together we will found an institute for the study of the supra-normal. What do you say?"
Weissmann's eyes glowed with the quenchless zeal of the experimentalist. "My dear boy, I would resign now for that purpose; but I hope it will not be necessary, for your sake."
They shook hands like two adventurers setting out on their joint exploration of a distant and difficult country; but this moment of exaltation was followed in Serviss's mind by a sense of having in some way dedicated Viola to the advancement of science rather than to the security of the fireside and to the joys of wife and mother.