To tell the truth, Victor dreaded being left alone with his mother in this way. He was fully aware now of the invisible barrier between them. No matter what explanation was finally offered, she could never be the same to him again, for whether it was her subconscious self which had cunningly lured them all to the verge of disaster, or some uncontrollable impulse coming from without, in the light any explanation, she was no longer the sweet, gentle, normal mother he had hitherto thought her to be.
It was not a question of being in possession of strange abilities, it was a question of being obsessed by some diabolical power—of being the prey of malignant demons avid to destroy.
The more deeply he thought upon all that had come to him, the more bewildered he became; and to avoid this tumult, which brought no result, he went out and wandered about the farm. His experience was like visiting a foreign country, for the men were either Swiss or German; and the walls of the farm-yard quite as un-American in their massiveness and their formal arrangement—a vivid contrast to the flimsy structures of the neighboring village. The servants (that is what they were, servants) treated him with the trained deference of those who for generations have touched their caps to the more fortunate beings of the earth, and these signs of subordination were distinctly soothing to the youth's disturbed condition of mind. Instantly, and without effort, he assumed the air of the young aristocrat they thought him.
He strolled down the road to the village, which was a collection of small frame cottages in neat lawns, surrounding a few general stores and a greasy, fly-specked post-office. Here was the unimaginative, the prosaic, perfectly embodied. Old men, bent and gray, were gossiping from benches and boxes under the awnings. Clerks in their shirt-sleeves were lolling over counters. A few farmers' teams stood at the iron hitching-posts with drowsy, low-hanging heads. Neither doubt nor dismay nor terror had footing here. The majesty of dawn, the mystery of midnight, did not touch these peaceful and phlegmatic souls. The spirit of man was to them less than an abstraction and the tumult of the city a far-off roar as of distant cataracts.
Furthermore, these matter-of-fact folk had abundant curiosity and no reverence, and they all stared at Victor with round, absorbent gaze, as if with candid intent to take full invoice of his clothing, and to know him again in any disguise. He heard them say, one after the other, as he passed along, "Visitor of Bartol's, I guess." And he could understand that this explanation really explained, for Bartol's "Castle" was the resting-place of many strange birds of passage.
Bartol was, indeed, the constant marvel of Hazel Grove. Why had he bought the place? Why, after it was bought, should he spend so much money on it? And finally, why should he employ "foreigners"? These were a few of the queries which were put and answered and debated in the shade of the furniture store and around the air-tight store of the grocery. His farm was their never-failing wonder tale. The building of a new wall was an excitement, each whitewashing of a picket fence an event. They knew precisely the hour of departure of each blooded ram or bull, and the birth of each colt was discussed as if another son and heir had come to the owner.
Naturally, therefore, all visitors to "Hazeldean" came in for study and comment—especially because it was well known that Bartol stood high in the political councils of the party (was indeed mentioned for senator), and that his guests were likely to be "some punkins" in the world. "This young feller is liable to be the son of one of his millionaire clients," was the comment of the patient sitters. "Husky chap, ain't he?"
Feeling something of this comment, and sensing also the sleepy materialism of the inhabitants, Victor regained much of his own disbelief in the miraculous, and yet just to that degree did the pain in his heart increase, for it made of his mother something so monstrous that the conception threatened all his love and reverence for her. Pity sprang up in place of the filial affection he had once known. He began to make new excuses for her. "It must be that she has become so suggestible that every sitter's mind governs her. In a sense, that removes her responsibility." And so he walked back, with all his pleasure in the farm and village eaten up by his care.
His mother was waiting for him on the porch, and as he came up, asked with shining face:
"Isn't this heavenly, Victor?"
"It is very beautiful," he replied, but with less enthusiasm than she expected.
"To think that yesterday I was threatened with the prison, and now—this! We have much to thank Mr. Bartol for."
"That's just it, mother. What claim have we on this big, busy man? What right have we to sit here?"
The brightness of her face dimmed a little, but she replied bravely: "I have always paid my way, Victor, and I am sure last night's message meant much to Mr. Bartol. I always help people. If I bring back a belief in immortality do I not make fullest recompense to my host? My gift is precious, and yet I cannot sell it—I can only give it—and so when I am offered bed and board in return for my work I am not ashamed to take it. The kings of the earth are glad to honor those who, like myself, have the power to penetrate the veil."
Never before had she ventured upon so frank a defense of her vocation, and Victor listened with a new conception of her powers. As she continued she took on dignity and quiet force.
"The medium gives more for her wages than any earthly soul; and when you consider that we make the grave a gateway to the light, that our hands part the veil between the seen and the unseen, then you will see that our gifts are not abnormal, but supernormal. God has given us these powers to comfort mankind, to afford a new revelation to the world."
"Why didn't you make me a medium?" he asked, thrusting straight at her heart. "Why did you send me away from it all?"
Her eyes fell, her voice wavered. "Because I was weak—an earthly mother. My selfish love and pride overpowered me. I could not see you made ashamed—and besides my controls advised it for the time."
He took a seat where he could look up into her face. "Mother, tell me this—haven't you noticed that your controls generally advise the things you believe in?"
She was stung by his question. "Yes, my son, generally; but sometimes they drive me into ways I donotbelieve in. Often they are in opposition to my own will."
He was silenced for the moment, and his mind took a new turn. "When did Altair first come?"
"Soon after I met Leo. She came with Leo. She attends Leo."
"Have you seen her?"
"No. I am always in deepest trance when she shows herself. I hear her voice, though."
"Mother," he said, earnestly, "if Mr. Bartol gets us out of this scrape will you go away with me into some new country and give up this business?"
"You don't seem to understand, Victor. I can no more escape from these Voices than I can run away from my own shadow. I don't want to run away. I love the thought of them. I have innumerable sweet friends on the other side. To close the door in their faces would be cruel. It would leave me so lonely that I should never smile again."
"Then they mean more to you than I do!" he exclaimed.
"No, no! I don't mean that!" she passionately protested. "You mean more to me than all theearthlythings, but these heavenly hosts are very dear—besides, I shall go to them soon and I want to feel sure that I can come back to you when I have put aside the body. I fear now that our separation was a mistake. In trying to shield you from the transient disgrace of being a medium's son, I have put your soul in danger. I was weak—I own it. I was an earthly mother. I wanted my boy to be respected and rich and happy here in the earth-life. I did not realize the danger I ran of being forever separated from you by the veil of death. Oh, Victor, you must promise me that should I pass out suddenly you will try to keep the spirit-way open between us—will you promise this?"
Strange scene! Strange mother! All about them the orioles were whistling, the robins chirping, and farther away the beasts of the barn-yard were bawling their wants in cheerful chorus, but here on this vine-shaded porch a pale, small woman sought a compact with her son which should outlast the grave and defy time and space.
He gave his word. How could he refuse it? But his pledge was half-hearted, his eyes full of wavering. It irked him to think that in a month of bloom and passion, a world of sunny romance, a world of girls and all the sweet delights they conveyed to young men, he should be forced to discuss matter which relates to the charnel-house and the chill shadow of the tomb.
He rose abruptly. "Don't let's talk of this any more. Let's go for a walk. Let's visit the garden."
She was swifter of change than he. She could turn from the air of the "ghost-room" to the glory of the peacock as swiftly as a mirror reflects its beam of light, and she caught a delightful respite from the flowers. She was accustomed to the lavish greenhouses of her wealthy patrons, but here was something that delighted her more than all their hotbeds. Here were all the old-fashioned out-of-door plants and flowers, the perennials of her grandfather, to whom hot-houses were unknown. This Colonial garden was another of Bartol's peculiarities. He had no love for orchids, or any exotic or forced blooms. His fancy led to the glorification of phloxes, to the ripening of lilacs, and to the preservation of old-time varieties of roses—plants with human association breathing of romance and sorrow—hence his plots were filled with hardy New England roots flourishing in the richer soils of the Western prairies.
These colors, scents, and forms moved Victor markedly, for the reason that in La Crescent, as a child, he had been accustomed to visit a gaunt old woman, the path to whose door led through cinnamon roses, balsam, tiger-lilies, sweet-william, bachelor-buttons, pinks, holly-hocks, and the like—a wonderland to him then—a strange and haunting pleasure now as he walked these graveled ways and mingled the memories of the old with the vivid impressions of the new.
Back to the house they came at last to luncheon, and there, sitting in the beautiful dining-room, so cool, so spacious, so singularly tasteful in every detail, they gazed upon each other in a delight which was tinged with pain. Such perfection of appointment, such service, all for them (two beggars), was more than embarrassing; it provoked a sense of guilt. The pretty, low-voiced, soft-soled maid came and went, bringing exquisite food in the daintiest dishes (enough food for six), anticipating every want, like the fairy of the story-books. "Mother," said the youth, "this is a story!"
Mrs. Ollnee was accustomed to the splendor of Mrs. Joyce's house, but she was almost as much moved as Victor. She perceived the difference between the old-world simplicity of this flawless establishment and the lavish, tasteless hospitality of men like Pettus.
Who had planned and organized this wide-walled, low-toned room, this marvelously effective cuisine? How was it possible for such service to go on during the master's absence with apparently the same unerring precision of detail?
These questions remained unanswered, and they rose at last with a sense of having been, for the moment at least, in the seats of those who command the earth wisely.
Hardly were they returned to their hammocks on the porch when a swiftly driven car turned in at the gate.
"It is Louise!" exclaimed Mrs. Ollnee.
"And Leo!" added Victor.
With streaming veils the travelers swept up to the carriage steps covered with dust, yet smiling.
"How are you?" called Mrs. Joyce; and then with true motor spirit, addressed the driver: "What's the time, Denis?"
"Two hours and ten minutes from North Avenue."
"Not so bad, considering the roads."
Leo had sprung out and was throwing off her cloak and veil. "I hope we're not too late for luncheon. Mr. Bartol has thebestcook, and I'm famished."
Her coming swept Victor back into his other and normal self, and he took charge of her with a mingling of reverence and audacity which charmed her. He went out into the dining-room with her and sat beside her while she ate. "I hope you're going to stay," he said, earnestly.
"Stay! Of course we'll stay. It's hot as July in the city—always is with the wind from the southwest. Isn't it heavenly out here?"
"Heavenly is the word; but who did it? Who organized it?"
"Mrs. Bartol. She had the best taste of any one—and her way with the servants was beyond imitation. They all worship her memory."
"I can't make myself believe I deserve all this," he said. "Your coming puts the frosting on my bun."
It was as if some new and utterly different spirit, or band of them, had come with this glowing girl. She radiated the vitality and the melody of youth. Without being boisterous or silly, she filled the house with laughter. "There's something about Hazeldean that always makes me happy. I don't know why," she said.
"You make all who inhabit this house happy," said Mrs. Ollnee. "I can hear spirit laughter echoing to yours."
"Can you? Is it Margaret?"
"Yes, Margaret and Philip."
Victor did not smile; on the contrary, his face darkened, and Mrs. Joyce changed the tone of the conversation by asking: "Did you see the paper this morning? They say you have skipped to join Pettus." This seemed so funny that they all laughed, till Victor remembered that both these women had lost much money through Pettus.
Mrs. Joyce sobered, too. "The Star is against you, Lucy, and you must keep dark for a time. They are denouncing you as a traitor and all the rest of it. Did Paul, or any one, advise you last night?"
"No, nothing was said. I suppose they are considering the matter also. Those deceiving spirits must be hunted out and driven away."
"I'm going to lie down for a while," Mrs. Joyce announced. "My old waist-line is jolted a bit out o' plumb. Leo, will you stretch out, too?"
"No indeed. What I need is a walk or a game of tennis. I'm cramped from sitting so long."
So it fell out that Victor (penniless youth, hedged about with invisible walls, pikes, and pitfalls) was soon galloping about a tennis court in the glories of a new pair of flannel trousers and a lovely blue-striped outing shirt, trying hard not to win every game from a very good partner, who was pouting with dismay while admiring his skill.
"It isn't right for any one to 'serve' as weird a ball as you do," she protested. "It's like playing with loaded dice. I begin to understand why you were not renowned as a scholar."
"Oh, I wasn't so bad! I stood above medium."
"How could you? It must have taken all your time to learn to play tennis in the diabolical way you do—it's conjury, that's what it is!"
They were in the shade, and the fresh sweet wind, heavy with the scent of growing corn and wheat, swept steadily over the court, relieving it from heat, and Victor clean forgot his worriments. This girlish figure filled his eyes with pictures of unforgetable grace and charm. The swing of her skirts as she leaped for the ball, the free sweep of her arm (she had been well instructed), and the lithe bending of her waist brought the lover's sweet unease. When they came to the net now and again, he studied her fine figure with frank admiration. "You are a corker!" was his boyish word of praise. "I don't go up against many men who play the game as well as you do. Your 'form' is a whole lot better than mine. I am a bit lucky, I admit. You see, I studied baseball pitching, and I know the action of a whirling sphere. I curve the ball—make it 'break,' as the English say. I can make it do all kinds of 'stunts.'"
"I see you can, and I'll thank you not to try any new ones," she protested. "Can you ride a horse?"
His face fell a bit. "There I am a 'mutt,'" he confessed. "I never was on a horse except the wooden one in the Gym."
"I'm glad I can beat you at something," she said, with exultant cruelty. "I know you can row."
"Shall we try another set?" he asked.
"Not to-day, thank you. My self-respect will not stand another such drubbing. I'm going in for a cold plunge. After that you may read to me on the porch."
"I'll be there with the largest tome in the library," he replied.
Mrs. Joyce stopped him as he was going up-stairs to his room. "Victor, don't worry about me. While it looks as though I have lost a good deal of money through Pettus, I am by no means bankrupt. I am just about where I was when I met your mother. She has not enriched me—I mean The Voices have not—neither have they impoverished me. It's just the same with Leo. She's almost exactly where she was when she came East. It would seem as if they had been playing with us just to show us how unsubstantial earthly possessions are."
There was a certain comfort in this explanation, and yet the fact that her losses had not eaten in upon her original capital did not remove the essential charge of dishonesty which the man Aiken had brought against the ghostly advisers. Florence and Thomas Aiken could not afford to be so lenient. They were disinherited, cheated of their rightful legacy, by the lying spirits.
He was anxious, also, to know just how deeply Leo was involved in the People's Bank; and when she came down to the porch he led her to a distant chair beside a hammock on the eastern side of the house, and there, with a book in his hand, opened his interrogations.
He began quite formally, and with a well-laid-out line of questions, but she was not the kind of witness to permit that. She broke out of his boundaries on the third query, and laughingly refused to discuss her losses. "I am holding no one but myself responsible," she said. "I was greedy—I couldn't let well enough alone, that's all."
"No, that is not all," he insisted. "My mother is charged with advising people to put money into the hands of a swindler—"
"I don't believe that. I think she was honest in believing that Pettus would enrich us all. She was deceived like the rest of us."
"But what becomes of the infallible Voices?"
She laughed. "They are fallible, that's all. They made a gross blunder in Pettus."
"Mr. Bartol suggests that my mother may have been hypnotized by Pettus and made to work his will, and I think he's right. He thinks the whole thing comes down to illusion—to hypnotic control and telepathy."
She looked thoughtful. "I had a stage of believing that; but it doesn't explain all, it only explains a small part. Does it explain Altair to you?"
His glance fell. "Nothing explains Altair—nor that moaning wind—nor the writing on the slates."
"And the letter—have you forgotten that?"
"Half an hour ago, as we were playing tennis, Ihadforgotten it. I was cut loose from the whole blessed mess—now it all comes back upon me like a cloud."
"Oh, don't look at it that way. That's foolish. I think it's glorious fun, this investigating."
He acknowledged her rebuke, but added, "It would be more fun if the person under the grill were not one's own mother."
"That's true," she admitted; "and yet, I think you can study her without giving offense. I began in a very offensive way—I can see that now—but she met my test, and still meets every test you bring. The faith she represents isn't going to have its heart plucked out in a hurry, I can tell you that."
"The immediate thing is to defend her against this man Aiken. Mr. Bartol said he would order up a lot of books, and I'm to cram for the trial. If you have any book to suggest, I wish you'd write its title down for me."
"What's the use of going to books? The judges will want the facts, and you'll have to convince them that she is what she claims to be."
"How can we do that? We can't exhibit her in a trance?"
"You might. Perhaps her guides will give her the power." She glowed with anticipatory triumph. "Imagine her confounding the jury! Wouldn't that be dramatic! It would be like the old-time test of fire."
He was radiant, too, for a moment, over the thought. Then his face grew stern. "Nothing like that is going to happen. She would fail, and that would leave us in worse case than before. Our only hope is to convince the jury that she is not responsible for what her Voices say. We've got to show she's auto-hypnotic."
"I hope the trial will come soon."
"So do I, for here I am eating somebody else's food, with no prospect of earning a cent or finding out my place in the world. I don't know just what my mother's idea was in educating me in classical English instead of some technical course, but I'm perfectly certain that I'm the most helpless mollusk that was ever kicked out of a school."
Real bitterness was in his voice, and she hastened to add a word of comfort. "All you need is a chance to show your powers."
"What powers?"
"Latent powers," she smiled. "We are all supposed to have latent powers. I am seeking a career, too."
He forgot himself in a return of his admiration of her. "Oh, you don't have to seek. A girl like you has her career all cut out for her."
She caught his meaning. "That's what I resent. Why should a woman's career mean only marriage?"
"I don't know—I guess because it's the most important thing for her to do."
"To be some man's household drudge or pet?"
"No, to be some man's inspiration."
"Fudge! A woman is never anybody's inspiration—after she's married."
"How cynical you are! What caused it?"
"Observing my married friends."
"Oh, I am relieved! I was afraid it was through some personal experience—"
This seemed funny to them both, and they laughed together. "There's nothing of 'the maiden with reluctant feet' about me," she went on. "I simply refuse to go near the brink. I find men stupid, smelly, and coarse."
"I hate girls in the abstract—they giggle and whisper behind their hands and make mouths; but there is one girl who is different." He tried to be very significant at the moment.
She ignored his clumsy beginning of a compliment. "All the girls who giggle should marry the men who 'crack jokes'—that's my advice."
"'Pears like our serious conversation is straggling out into vituperation."
"Whose fault is it?"
"Please don't force me to say it was not my fault. I'm like Lincoln—I joke to hide my sorrows."
"Don't be irreverent."
Through all this youthful give and take the boy and girl were studying each other minutely, and the phrases that read so baldly came from their lips with so much music, so much of hidden meaning (at least with displayed suggestion), that each was tingling with the revelation of it. The words of youth are slight in content; it is the accompanying tone that carries to the heart.
She recovered first. "Now let's stop this school-boy chatter—"
"You mean school-girl chatter."
"Both. Your mother is in a very serious predicament. We must help her."
He became quite serious. "I wish you would advise me. You know so much more about the whole subject than I do. I'm eager to get to work on the books. I suppose it is too much to expect that they will come up to-day?"
"They might. I'll go and inquire."
"No indeed, let me go. Am I not an inmate here?" He disappeared into the house, leaving her to muse on his face. He began to interest her, this passionate, self-willed, moody youth. She perceived in him the soul of the conqueror. His swift change of temper, his union of sport-loving boy and ambitious man made him as interesting as a play. "He'll make his way," she decided, using the vague terms of prophecy into which a girl falls when regarding the future of a young man. It's all so delightfully mysterious, this path of the youth who makes his way upward to success.
A shout announced his return, and looking up she perceived him bearing down upon her with an armful of books.
"Here they are!" he exulted. "Red ones, blue ones, brown ones—which shall we begin on?"
"Blue—that's my color."
"Agreed! Blue it is." He dumped them all down on the wide, swinging couch and fell to turning them over. "Dark blue or light blue?"
"Dark blue."
He picked up a fat volume. "Mysterious Psychic Forces.Know this tome?"
"Oh yes, indeed! It's wonderfully interesting."
"I choose it! This color scheme simplifies things. Now, here's another—The Dual Personality. How's that?"
"Um! Well—pretty good."
"Dual Personalityto the rear. Here's a brown book—Metaphysical Phenomena."
"That's a good one, too."
"I'm sorry they didn't bind it in blue—and here's a measly, yellow, paper-bound book in some foreign language—Italian, I guess, author, Morselli."
"Oh, that's a book I want to read. Let me take it?"
"Do you read Italian?"
"After a fashion."
"Then I engage you at once to translate that book to me. What is it all about?"
He abandoned his seat on the couch and drew a chair close to hers. "Begin at the first page and read very slowly all the way through. I wish it were a three volume edition."
She looked at him with side glance. "You're not in the least subtle."
"I intended to have you understand that I enjoy the thought of your reading to me. Did you catch it?"
"I caught it. No one else ever suggested that I was stupid."
"I didn't call you stupid. I think you're haughty and domineering, but you're not stupid."
"Thank you," she answered, demurely.
Eventually they drew together, and she began to read the marvelous story of the crucial experiments which Morselli and his fellows laid upon Eusapia Palladino. Two hours passed. The robins and thrushes began their evensong, the shadows lengthened on the lawn, and still these young folk remained at their reading—Victor sitting so close to his teacher's side that his cheek almost touched her shoulder. The sunset glory of the material world was forgotten in the tremendous conceptions called up by the author of this far-reaching book.
Sweeter hours of study Victor never had. Seeing the rise and fall of his interpreter's bosom and catching the faint perfume of her hair, he heard but vaguely some of the sentences, and had to have them repeated, what time her eyes were looking straight into his. At such moment she reminded him of the dream-face that had bloomed like a rose in the black night, for she was then very grave. Less ardent of blood than he, she succeeded in giving her whole mind to the great Italian's thesis, and the point of view—so new and so bold—stirred her like a trumpet.
"I like this man," she said. "He is not afraid."
Once or twice Mrs. Joyce looked out at them, but they made such a pretty picture she had not the heart to disturb them.
At seven o'clock she was forced to interrupt: "Whatareyou children up to?"
"Improving our minds," answered Leo. "Are we starting back? What time is it?"
Mrs. Joyce smiled. "That question is a great compliment to your company. It's dinner-time."
"Are we starting now?"
"No; we're going to stay all night."
"Fine!" shouted Victor. "I was wondering how I could put in the evening."
"It's time to dress," warned Mrs. Joyce. "This is no happy-go-easy establishment. I never saw such perfection of service as Alexander always has. I can't get it, or if I get it I can't keep it; while here, with the master gone half the time, the wheels go like a chronometer."
"It's all due to Marie. She worshiped Mrs. Bartol, and she venerates Mr. Bartol."
Mrs. Joyce cut her short. "Skurry to your room. We must not be late."
As they were going into the house together, Leo said: "I think we would better not let our elders read this book of Morselli's. It's too disturbing for them—don't you think so?"
"It certainly is a twister. However, mother doesn't read any foreign language, so she's safe."
Upon rising from the dinner table the young people returned to their books, and at ten o'clock Leo lifted her eyes from her page. "Did some one drive up?"
Victor looked at her dazedly. "I didn't hear anybody. Proceed."
"Mercy! It's ten o'clock. Where are Aunt Louise and your mother? I hear Mr. Bartol's voice!" she exclaimed, rising hastily. "Let's go get the latest news."
The master of the house entered before the young people could shake off the spell of what they had been imagining.
"What a waste of good moonlight!" he exclaimed, with smiling sympathy. "Why aren't you youngsters out on the lawn?"
"It's all your fault," responded Leo. "We've been absorbing one of the books you sent up."
"Have you? It must have been a wonderful romance. I can't conceive of anything but a love-story keeping youth indoors on a night like this."
Victor defended her. "We've been reading of Morselli's wonderful experiments. It's in Italian, and Miss Wood has been translating it for me."
"What luck you have!" exclaimed Mr. Bartol. "I engage her to re-translate it for me at the same rate."
Mrs. Ollnee and Mrs. Joyce came in as he was speaking, and Mrs. Joyce, after disposing herself comfortably, said, "Well, what is your report?"
He confessed that he had been too busy with other matters to give the Aiken accusation much thought. "However, I sent an armful of books out to my assistant attorney." He waved his hand toward Victor.
"You don't mean to read books," protested Mrs. Joyce, energetically, "when you've the very source of all knowledge right here in your own house? Why don't you study your client and convince yourself of her powers?—then you'll know what to do and say."
"I had thought of that," he said, hesitantly. "But—"
"You need not fear," Mrs. Joyce assured him. "It's true Lucy cannot always furnish the phenomena on the instant. In fact, the more eager she is the more reluctant the forces are; but you can at least try, and she is not only willing but eager for the test."
Bartol turned to Mrs. Ollnee. "Are you prepared now—to-night?" he asked.
"Yes, this moment," she answered.
Mrs. Joyce exulted. "The power is on her. I can see that. See how her hand trembles! One finger is signaling. Don't you see it?"
Mr. Bartol rose. "Come with me into my study. Mrs. Joyce may come some other time. I do not want any witnesses to-night," he added, with a smile.
Victor watched his mother go into Bartol's study with something of the feeling he might have had in seeing her enter the den of a lion. She seemed very helpless and very inexperienced in contrast with this great inquisitor, so skilled in cross-examination, so inexorable in logic, so menacing of eye.
Leo, perceiving Victor's anxiety, proposed that they return to the porch, and to this he acceded, though it seemed like a cowardly desertion of his mother. "Poor little mother," he said. "If she stands up against him she's a wonder."
The girl stretched herself out on the swinging couch, and the youth took his seat on a wicker chair close beside her. Mrs. Joyce kept at a decent distance, so that if the young people had anything private to say she might reasonably appear not to have overheard it.
Talk was spasmodic, for neither of them could forget for a moment the duel which was surely going on in that inner room. Indeed, Mrs. Joyce openly spoke of it. "If Lucy is not too anxious, too eager, she will change Alexander's whole conception of the universe this night."
"Of course you're exaggerating, Aunt Louise; but I certainly expect her to shake him up."
"It only needs one genuine phenomenon to convince him of her sincerity. What a warrior for the cause he would make! She must stay right here in his house till she utterly overwhelms him. He took up her case at first merely because I asked him to do so; but he likes her, and is ready to take it up on her own account if he finds her sincere. But I want him to believe in the philosophy she represents."
Half an hour passed with no sign from within, and Mrs. Joyce began to yawn. "That ride made me sleepy."
"Why don't you go to bed?" suggested Leo.
She professed concern. "And leave Lucy unguarded?"
"Nonsense! Go to bed and sleep. Mr. Ollnee and I will stand guard till the ordeal is ended."
"I believe I'll risk it," decided Mrs. Joyce. "I can hardly keep my eyes open."
"Nor your mouth shut," laughed Leo. "Hasten, or you'll fall asleep on the stair."
Left alone, the young people came nigh to forgetting that the world contained aught but dim stretches of moonlit greensward, dewy trees, and the odor of lilac blooms. In the dusk Victor stood less in fear of the girl, and she, moved by the witchery of the night and the melody of his voice (into which something new and masterful had come), grew less defiant. "How still it all is?" she breathed, softly. "It is like the Elysian Fields after the city's noise and grime."
"It's more beautiful out there." He motioned toward the lawn. "Let's walk down the drive."
And she complied without hesitation, a laugh in her voice. "But not too far. Remember, we are guardian angels."
As she reached his side he took her arm and tucked it within his own. "You might get lost," he said, in jocular explanation of his action.
"How considerate you are!" she scornfully responded, but her hand remained in his keeping.
There were no problems now. Down through the soft dusk of the summer night they strolled, rapturously listening to the sounds that were hardly more than silences, feeling the touch of each other's garments, experiencing the magic thrill which leaps from maid to man and man to maid in times like these.
"How big you are!" exclaimed the girl. "I didn't realize how much you overtopped me. I am considered tall."
"And so you are—and divinely fair."
"How banal! Couldn't you think of a newer one?"
"It was as much as ever I remembered, that. I'm not a giant in poetry. I'm a dub at any fine job."
Of this quality was their talk. To those of us who are old and dim-eyed, it seems of no account, perhaps, but to those who can remember similar walks and talks it is of higher worth than the lectures in the Sorbonne. Learning is a very chill abstraction on such a night to such a pair. Would we not all go back again to this sweet land of love and longing—if we could?
Victor did not deliberately plan to draw Leonora closer to his side, and the proud girl did not intend to permit him to do so; but somehow it happened that his arm stole round her waist as they walked the shadowy places of the drive, and their laggard feet were wholly out of rhythm to their leaping pulses.
The proof of Victor's naturally dependable character lay in the fact that he presumed no further. He was content with the occasional touch of her rounded hip to his, the caressing touch of her skirt as it swung about his ankle. To have attempted a kiss would have broken the spell, would have alarmed and repelled her. He honored her, loved her, but he was still in awe of her proud glance and the imperious carriage of her head. He preferred to think she suffered rather than invited the clasp of his arm.
She, on her part, was astonished and a little scared by her own complaisant weakness, and as they came out into the lighter part of the walk she disengaged herself with a self-derisive remark, and asked, "Do you always take such good care of the arms of your girl friends?"
"Always," he replied, instantly, though his heart was still in the clutch of his new-born passion.
"I shall be on my guard next time.... I see Mr. Bartol in the doorway. Don't you think we'd better go in? What time do you suppose it is?"
"The saddest time in the world for me if you are going to leave me."
"Don't be maudlin." She had recovered her self-command, and was disposed to be extra severe. "Sentimental nothings is hardly your strong point."
"What is my strong point?"
She was ready with an answer. "Plain down-right impudence."
He, too, was recovering speech. "I'm glad I haveonestrong trait. I was afraid there was nothing about me to make a definite impression on a proud beauty like you."
"Please don't try to be literary. Stick to your oars and your baseball raquet."
"Bat," he corrected.
"I meant bat."
"I know you did; but you said raquet."
In this juvenile spat they approached the porch where Mr. Bartol stood waiting for them.
"Young people," he called, in a voice that somehow voiced a deep emotion, "do you realize that it is midnight?"
Protesting their amazement, they mounted the steps and entered the house; but the moment they looked into their host's face they became serious, perceiving that something very tremendous had taken place in his laboratory.
"What has happened?" asked Leo. "What did she do?"
"I don't know yet," he replied, strangely inconclusive in tone and phrase. "I must think it all over. If I can persuade myself that the marvels which I have witnessed are realities, the universe is an entirely new and vastly different machine for me."
Thrilling to the excitement in his face and in his voice, they passed on. At the top of the stairs Leo faced Victor with eyes big with excitement. "What do you suppose came to him?"
"I haven't an idea. He seemed terribly wrought up, though."
"We must say good-night." She held out her hand, and he took it.
"This has been the finest, most instructive day of my life."
She released her hand with a little decisive, dismissing movement. "How nice of you! Signor Morselli should know of it. Good-night!" And the smile with which she left him was delightfully provoking and mirthful.
Victor would have gone straight to his mother had he known where to find her, for he was eager to know what had taken place in the deeps of Bartol's study. That she had been able to mystify the great lawyer, he was convinced; and yet, perhaps, this was only temporary. "He will go further. What will he find?"
He was standing before his dresser slowly removing his collar and tie when the door opened and his mother entered. She was abnormally wide awake, and her eyes, violet in their intensity, betrayed so much excitement that he exclaimed: "Why, mother, what's the matter? What kind of a session did you have? What has happened to you?"
"Victor, father tells me that Mr. Bartol will be convinced. He is the greatest mind I have ever met. If I can bring him to a belief in the spirit world it will be the most important victory of my life."
"What did he say to you? What did he think?"
"I don't know; and strange to say, I cannot read his mind. He seems convinced of the phenomena, and yet I can't tell for certain. He was skeptical at the beginning, as nearly every one is."
Hitherto, at every such opening, Victor had rushed in to pluck the heart out of her mystery, but now he restrained himself, for fear of trapping her into some admission, which would make his own testimony more difficult in court. He took a seat on the bed and regarded her with meditative eyes, and she went on.
"The Voices are clamoring round me still. They want to speak to you."
"I don't want to hear them—not to-night," he replied, coldly. "Tell them to wait and talk to me when Mr. Bartol is listening."
She seemed disappointed and a little hurt by his tone. "Altair is here. She wishes most to speak."
Interest awoke in him. "What does she want of me?"
She listened. "She says, 'Trust Mr. Bartol.'"
He could see nothing, hear nothing, therefore his face lost its light.
"Well, we've got to trust him. He's all the help in sight."
Something, a breath, the light caress of a hand, passed over his hair, and a whisper that was almost tone spoke in his ear, "Fear nothing, if you will be guided and protected."
Sweet as this voice was, it irritated him, for he could not disassociate his mother from it. Indeed, it had something subtly familiar in its utterance, and yet he could not accuse her of deceit. He only roughly said: "Don't do that! I don't like that!"
Silence followed, and then his mother sadly said: "You have hurt her. She will not speak again."
"Let her show herself. How do I know who is speaking to me? Let me see her face again." He added this in a gentler voice, being moved by a vivid memory of the exquisite picture Altair had made.
After another pause Mrs. Ollnee answered: "She will do so. She says soon. She has gone; but your father wants to speak to you."
Victor rose impatiently. "Tell him to come again some other time. I'm sleepy now."
She turned away saddened by his manner, and with a gentle "good-night" went softly from the room.
Victor regretted his bluntness, but could not free himself from a feeling that his mother's Voices were deceptive or imaginary, and her visit hurt and disgusted him so deeply that the charm of his evening's companionship with Leo was all but lost. "Part of her phenomena are real, but these Voices—" He broke off and went to his bed with a vague feeling of loss weighing him down.
For a half-hour he lay in growing bitterness, and then quite suddenly he thought he detected a thin, blue vapor rising from the rag rug at the side of his bed, and for an instant he was startled. "Is it smoke? Or do I imagine it?" As it rose and sank, expanded and contracted, he studied it closely. It was not smoke, for it did not ascend. It was more like filmy drapery tossed by a wind from a hidden aperture in the floor. Motionless, amazed, and awed, he watched it, till out of it the face of a woman looked, her wistful eyes touched with an accusing sorrow. It was Altair, and her form became more real from moment to moment, until at last he could detect the swell of her bosom, draped with the folds of a shimmering white robe. As he waited a hand appeared at her side, vaguely outlined, yet alive. He could see the fingers loosely clasped about a rose. She was so beautiful that he lay gazing at her in speechless wonder. "Am I dreaming?" he asked himself. "Imustbe dreaming." And yet he could feel the air from the window.
In the light of her glance he forgot all his other loves and cares. His worship for her returned like swift hunger, and he yearned to touch her, to hear her voice. "She is a dream," he decided, and his hand, lifted to test the vision, fell back upon the coverlet.
As if reading his thought, Altair put out her right arm and touched his wrist with a caress like the stroke of a beam of moonlight, so light and cold it was.
"Victor," she seemed to say, and his whisper was almost as light as her own.
"Who are you?"
"Don't you know me? I am Altair. Do not forget me."
"I will not forget you," he answered. "I can't forget you. Why do you look so sad?"
"It is cold and empty where I dwell. I come to you for happiness and warmth. You had forgotten me. You would not listen to my voice." Her reproach moved him almost to tears.
"I could not see you. I was not sure."
"I do not accuse you. It is natural for you to love. When the day comes you will seek another. One whose flesh is warm. Mine is cold. She is of the day. I am of the night. But do not refuse to speak to me."
Her bust had grown fuller, more complete as she spoke, and yet from the waist downward she seemed but a trailing garment of convoluting, phosphorescent gauze. Her left hand still hung at her side, vague, diaphanous, but her right lay upon her breast, as beautiful, as real as firelit ivory, and her face seemed to glow as though with some inward radiance.
Victor could follow the exquisite line of her brow, and her eyes were glorious pools of color, deep and dark with mystery and passion. Slowly she sank as if kneeling, her stately head lowered, bent above him, and he felt the touch of soft lips upon his own—a kiss so warm, so human that it filled his heart with worship. Gently he lifted his hand, seeking to draw her to him, and for an instant he felt her pliant body in the circle of his arms—then she dissolved, vanished—like some condensation of the atmosphere, and he was left alone, aching with longing and despair.
For a long time he waited, hoping she would return. He saw the moonlight fade from the carpet. He heard the night wind amid the maple leaves, and he knew he had not been dreaming, for that strange Oriental perfume lingered in the air, and on the coverlet where her exquisite hand had rested a white bloom lay, mystic and wonderful. He lifted it, and its breath, sweeter than that of any other flower he had ever held, filled him with instant languor and happy release of care.
His next perception was that of sunlight. It was morning, and the kine and fowls were astir.
He looked for the mysterious flower, but it was gone. He sprang from his bed and searched the room for it. "It did not exist," he sadly concluded. "It has returned to the mysterious world from whence it came."
For a long time afterward he suffered with a sense of loss, while the sunlight deepened in his room and the sounds of the barn-yard brought back to him the realization that he was in effect a fugitive in the house of a stranger. Slowly the normal action of his mind and body resumed its sway, and he dressed, quite sure that something abnormal had brought this vision to him. He wondered if he, too, were getting mediumistic. "Am I to be a son of my mother? Am I to hear voices and see visions?" he asked himself, with a note of alarm. He began to fear the disintegrating effects of these experiences. His personality; his body hitherto so solid, so stable, seemed about to develop disturbing capabilities.
He was profoundly pleased and reassured to find on his dressing-room table a large white rose, a rose precisely like that which had been laid upon his coverlet by the hand of the dream-woman. It's odor was the same, and its petals were as fresh as if it had just been cut. It reassured him by convincing him that his vision was real—that it had a basis of physical change; but it also started a perplexing chain of thought. "How came the rose here? Who brought it?" was his question. "It certainly was not there when I went to bed."
With the flower in his hand, he still stood looking down at the place where the hand of Altair had rested—still marveling at this mingling of the real and the fantastic, the dream and the rose, when something shining revealed itself half concealed by the pillow; and putting out his hand he took up a little brooch of turquoise set with diamonds, which he recognized instantly as one that Leo had worn at her throat when she said good-night.
Sinking into a chair, he stared now at the jewel, now at the rose, while a thrill of pride, of mastery, of joy stole through him. His blood warmed. His heart quickened its beat. Could it be that Leo had been his visitor? Was it possible that she, burning with hidden love of him, had stolen to his room, and there at his bedside, masking herself as Altair, had bent to his drowsy eyes, and laid upon his lips that fervid kiss? The thought confused him, overpowered him, exalted him.
His was a chivalrous nature, therefore this act, at the moment, seemed neither unmaidenly nor wrong—indeed, it appeared very beautiful in his eyes. It humbled him, made him wonder if he were worth the risk she had run? He was not abnormally self-appreciative, but he had not been left unaware of his appeal to women. His previous love-affairs had been those of the undergraduate, proceeding under the jocular supervision of his watchful fellows. His present case was in wholly different spirit. He was a man now—in fact, his quarrel with Leo from the first had been over her evident determination to treat him as a lad.
The memory of her serene self-possession made her self-surrender of the night all the more amazing to him. "It is cold and empty where I dwell," she had said. This meant that she loved him—longed for him—it could mean nothing else. Her love had begun during their ride on the lagoon, in their delicious drowse on the grass. It had been deepened by their afternoon of sweet companionship at tennis and over their books; then came the walk in the moonlight and her acceptance of his caress in the dusky place in the path—all were preparatory to this final wondrous visit and confession.
And yet her eyes had never been other than those of a friend. Seemingly she had laughed at herself for the momentary weakness of yielding to his arm. Her daylight expression had always been that of the humorous, self-reliant, rather intellectual girl, who acknowledges no fear of man and no sudden rush of passion, and yet—How reconcile the facts!
He smiled to think how he had been deceived by her imperious air, by her expressed contempt for his interest. "And all the while she was really waiting for me to break through her reserve," he said; and this delicious explanation satisfied him for a few moments, till he went deeper into his memory of what she had said and done.
He was forced to reassure himself again by the jewel and the rose that she had really come to him, so dream-like did the whole ethereal episode now seem. The more he dwelt upon the vision the deeper it moved him. It's growing significance set his blood aflame. In fiction and poesy women often sacrifice their reserve, moved by uncontrollable longing, like the heroine of mad Ophelia's song, because commanded by something stronger than their sweet selves. It was hard to think of Leo as one carried out of herself by love—and yet here lay the jewel of her bosom in his hand! How to meet her puzzled and excited him.
Up to this minute he had admired her and had paid court to her as a young man naturally addresses a handsome girl, but he was not violently in love with her; indeed, she had interested him rather less than a girl in Winona, daughter of Professor Boyden; but now, as he was about to meet her in the breakfast-room, she possessed more power, more significance, than any woman in the world. He recalled how fine and helpful she had been during the few days of their acquaintance—her serenity, her good sense, her pungent comment began to seem very wonderful.
He looked at himself in the glass, finding there a very good-looking, stalwart youth, but could not discover anything to account for the sudden blaze of Leonora's self-sacrificing passion. He was neither a fool nor a peacock, and he tried to account for her love on the ground of her regard for his mother. Then, like a flash of light, came the thought, "She was sleep-walking!"
He had read of the marvels of hypnotism and somnambulism. Perhaps in some strange way his mother's desire to have Leo love her son had sent the girl straight to his bedside. There was something uncanny in her speech and in her gestures—only in her kiss had she been solidly, warmly human.
And yet all this seemed so difficult to believe—and besides, if the girl came in her sleep, did it not prove her love quite as conclusively? It might be unconscious, but it was there.
With heart pounding mightily, and face set and stern, he left his room and began descending the stairway, uncertain still of the way in which he should meet her.
Happily he found no one in the dining-room but the maid, who said to him, "Mr. Bartol would like to see Mr. Ollnee in his study as soon as Mr. Ollnee has had his breakfast."
"Very well," he replied; "I will make short work of breakfast this morning."
As he sat thus awaiting Leo, his mind filled with the wonder of her self-surrender, he considered carefully in what way he should greet her. "She must not know that I know," he decided. "I will greet her as if I had not found the brooch, and I will leave it where she will happen upon it accidentally."
He was still at breakfast, deeply engaged with his alluring vision, when Mrs. Joyce and his mother entered the room. As he rose to greet them Mrs. Joyce asked, "Have you seen Mr. Bartol?"
"Not yet—but he is up. I am to see him soon. Where is Leo?"
"She is not feeling very brisk this morning, and is taking her coffee in bed."
He said no more, but resumed his seat, richer by this added proof of the deep perturbation through which the girl had passed. He was disappointed, and eager to see her, but the conviction that she had been sleepless from love of him put him among the clouds. He would have forgotten his appointment with Bartol had not the maid reminded him of it. Even then he tried to avoid it. "You're sure he wanted me? Didn't he mean my mother?"
"I'm quite sure he said Mister Ollnee."
"Mother, what do you suppose he wants of me?"
"I don't know, Victor. Perhaps he wants to talk over the trial."
"Come back and tell us as soon as you can," commanded Mrs. Joyce. "I'm crazy to know what he did last night, and what he really thinks of us?"
Victor promised to report, and went away to his interview with a vague alarm disturbing the blissful self-satisfaction of the early morning.
He found Bartol seated at a big table with a writing-pad before him and four or five open volumes disposed about as if for reference. He, too, looked old and worn and rather grim, but he greeted his guest politely. "Good-morning. Have you seen your mother this morning?"
"Yes, I have just left her at breakfast."
"How is she?"
"She seems quite herself—a little pale, perhaps."
"Be seated, please. I want to go over our case with you. First of all, I want you to tell me once more, and in full detail, all you know of your mother's life. Begin at the beginning and leave nothing out. Don't theorize or try to explain—give me the facts as you have observed them."
This was not the kind of business to which a love-exalted youth would set himself, but Victor squared himself before the brooding face and deep-set eyes of his host, and entered once more upon the story of the "ghost-room," which had been the one dark spot in his childhood, and which became again in a moment the overshadowing torment of his young manhood.
As he talked the intent look of the man before him, his short, sharp, significant questions inspired him. He poured forth in eloquent and moving phrase the story of his sudden awakening to a knowledge that his mother was a paid medium, and under persecution by the press of the city. He told of his sittings with her, wherein he had savagely determined to unmask her for her own good. He admitted his complete failure. He related his experiences during the time she lay in deathly trance, and his voice lost its smooth flow as he approached the most marvelous experience of all, when the vast and murmuring wind blew through the small room and Altair came with sad, sweet face, to bewitch him and to shake his conceptions of the universe to their foundation stones. He confessed his bewilderment and confusion, and ended by saying: "It's all unnatural, diseased. I can't believe it is the real side of things."
"I wonder that you kept your head at all," remarked Bartol. "Your youth and good, hot blood protect you. Have you talked with your mother about our sitting?"
"Only a few words. She came to my room last night and told me she had only a dim recollection of what took place. She said The Voices wanted to talk to me—but I didn't want them to talk to me—and said so—and she went away."
Bartol mused. "Belief is not a matter of evidence; it is a habit of mind. I find myself unable to follow the evidence of my own senses. My tests of your mother last night convinced me at the moment that she had the right to claim supernormal powers. She seemingly turned matter into a mere abstraction, and made the learning of physicists the chatter of children." As he spoke his memory of what he had seen freshened and his excitement increased. His voice deepened and his eyes glowed. "Here are my notes of what took place, and I have spent the night in comparing my observations with those of Sir William Crookes concerning the medium Home. In a certain very real sense the phenomena I witnessed were quite as marvelous as those Crookes chronicled." He rose and began to walk up and down the room. "And yet this morning I do not believe—I cannot believe—that writing was precipitated in a closed book held in my hand, that a pen rose of its own volition and tapped upon the table.
"The tendency of any mind, any science, is to harden, to crystallize, to reach a stopping point. The student is prone to think that the knowledge of the physical universe which we have must be the larger part of all that is knowable—and that soon we will have gathered it all into our text-books. Of course this is the sheerest self-delusion. A little thought will make clear that all we know is as nothing compared to that which remains to be known. Up to ten o'clock last night I was one of those who believe that the domain of nature is pretty thoroughly mapped out, staked, and plowed by the investigator, but this morning I find my horizons again extended. It would be foolish to say that an hour's experiments and a night of reading along new lines had overturned all the landmarks of biologic science; but I confess that the world for me has greatly changed. I held in my hand last night a forcein actionfor which science has no name and no place—and yet thirty years ago Sir William Crookes wrote of this same force in the spirit with which he discussed other elements and powers, and yet his testimony is not accepted by his fellows even to-day.
"Your mother met every test cheerfully and instantly, and demonstrated to me, as Home did to Crookes, as Slade did to Zöllner, that matter, as we think we know it, does not exist. She convinced me not merely of her honesty, but of her high powers as a psychic. A calm, persistent, logical purpose ran through all her manifestations, and her Voices—whatever they may mean to you—advised me to sit again with her and to have you and Miss Wood, Mrs. Joyce, and Marie always in the circle. This I intend to do. I feel at this moment as if no other business mattered. I have been here at my desk since midnight, reading, comparing notes, trying to convince myself that I have not gone suddenly mad.
"If I was not utterly deceived, if your fresh, keen young eyes are of any use whatsoever, if the words of Crookes, Wallace, Lombroso, and their like are of any weight, then we have in your mother a rare and subtle organism whose powers are of more importance than the rings of Saturn or the canals of Mars."
Victor was awed, carried out of himself and his small concerns by the deep voice of the great lawyer as he formulated his impassioned yet restrained musings. It was evident that he welcomed this opportunity of putting his thoughts into words, of ordering his words into argument. Half in reverie and half in conscious statement to the entranced youth, he poured forth his troubled soul.
"I was a materialist when your mother entered my house. I believed that the man who died went out like a candle. The grave was the end. To me the so-called revelations of Buddha, Gautama, Christ, were the vague dreams of the heart-sick, the stricken mourners of the earth—not one of them brought a beam of hope—but in this modern spirit of experimentation, in the work of Crookes and his like, I see a ray of light. Your mother's impersonations of my wife, her messages—Voices—may be due to mind-reading, to clairvoyance, butthe method of their deliverycertainly lies beyond any known law. In that glows my hope. Grant the possibility of direct writing, of the power of the mind tothinkits will upon paper without the aid of hand or pen, and a whole new world is opened up, the horizons of life are infinitely extended."
He paused abruptly. "I was weary of my days. Yesterday I moved as a creature of habit. This morning it seems that I have a new interest. I am convinced that in defending your mother I am defending something precious to the human race; but I must be very sure of my ground. I must scrutinize every phase of her power, and you must help me. You are young and well-trained. You have a good mind, and I am persuaded you will go far. Your mother worships you, lives for you. Now, you and I together must make such study of her mediumship as America has never seen—a study which shall have nothing to do with any ism, fad, or prejudice. Will you help me?"
Victor, overwhelmed by the confidence of the great lawyer, by the honor which this plea laid upon his young shoulders, could only stammer, "I will do my best."
Bartol thanked him. "I see now, as I never did before, that this power is a subtle, personal, psychical adjustment, and the part you are to play is a double one. First, you are her son, and your presence and influence are indispensable. Secondly, you are vigorous and alert, comparatively free from the wrecking effect of bereavement such as mine. I confess I cannot trust myself in the face of the supposed appeal of my dead. I am like the doctor who refuses to practise upon his own child—my desires blind me. At the same time I see that we cannot thrust strangers upon your mother, especially in her present excited state. What I propose is a series of private experiments, including chemical tests, instantaneous photographs, and the like, which shall convince both judge and jury of the reality of these phenomena. This case will come before my friend, Judge Matthews, and we have in him a just and penetrating mind. If I can make him feel my own present conviction we may rest our case safely with any unprejudiced jury."
He paused and picked up a volume from the table. "Crookes is explicit. He says hesawthe lath move without visible cause, hesawHome thrust his hand into the hearth and stir the coals, hesawthe accordion play without any reason; and in all this he is sustained by other men testing each phenomenon by means of electrical registering devices. Now we must duplicate these. We must go into court armed with photographs, records, and witnesses. We will make this acause célèbre—doing our small part to forward this superb and fearless European movement. I intend to be both lawyer and physicist hereafter," he ended, with a smile.
That the great lawyer was now completely engaged upon his mother's defense Victor exultantly perceived, and it gave him a feeling of pride and security, but this was followed by a sense of being uprooted. The sight of this man, inspired yet confounded by what had come to him in a single sitting, brought new and disturbing force to all that had happened to himself. Was it possible that thought could be precipitated like dew upon a sheet of paper?
"Now," resumed Bartol, "I have made a further discovery. There is a brotherhood of what we may call true experimentalists—beginning with Marc, Thury, and the Count de Gasparin, and running to Flammarion and Richet, in Paris; the Dialectical Society, Sir William Crookes, Alfred Russell Wallace, Sir Oliver Lodge, in England; thence back to the Continent, to Zöllner, Aksakof, Ochorowicz, De Rochas, Maxwell, Morselli, and Lombroso. I need a condensed record of these experiments, and a synopsis of each theory. Once within this group, you will learn by cross-reference the names of all those whom each of these experimentalists regard as reliable. You can work here or take the books to your room—perhaps, on the whole, Morselli's record is first in importance. Bring me a clear and full abstract of that as soon as you can."
"I do not read Italian," confessed Victor; "but Leo—Miss Wood—does; perhaps she will help me."
"Very good. Now as to the mechanical side of this matter. I have a nephew who is an expert photographer and a clever electrician. With your permission, I will send for him and see what he can do. He is a man of high standing in his profession, and a quiet personality—one that will not irritate or alarm your mother. Shall I bring him in and give her over to all?"
"Certainly. I'm sure mother wants you to have full charge."
"Very well. We will set to work at once, for our case may come up this week. At its lowest terms, the Aiken charge involves—to us—the admission that our client is highly suggestible and that she has been used as an unconscious stool-pigeon by Pettus. For the present we must proceed upon this basis. Suggestion is more or less accepted at the present time, and we may be able to get the jury to admit our plea; but I will not conceal from you the fact that your mother stands in danger of severe punishment. TheStarhas singled her out as a scapegoat, and is behind the Aikens. They will push her hard. I do not think they will follow her here, but if they do I shall send you to my nephew's home.—Now to Morselli. We must know just where he stands on this amazing branch of biology. Will you make this synopsis to-day?"
Victor's eyes glowed with the fire of his awakened pride and resolution. "If you'll let me help you, Mr. Bartol, I'll show you what my training has been. I'm quick in some things. I will collate and put in order all the latest deductions of science—" He stopped. "But what exactly do you intend to do with my mother?"
"I mean to confine her in such wise as to demonstrate precisely what she can do and what she cannot. I must divide what is conscious from that which is unconscious. I must understand precisely how she produces these messages, voices, and faces. We are agreed that she is notconsciouslydeceptive?" He questioned Victor with a glance.
"Iknowshe is honest."
"Very well, we must demonstrate her honesty. We must photograph her so-called materializations side by side with her own body, and we must register the work of these invisible hands, and in every possible way demonstrate that she is the medium and not the originating cause of these messages. In no other way can we save her from disgrace and a prison cell."
The youth went away with a humming sound in his head. The thought of his gentle little mother herded with vile women within the gray walls of a penitentiary filled him with such horror that his face went drawn and white. "It shall not be! I will not have it so!" he said, and yet he saw no other way in which to prevent it. All depended upon the man whose impassioned words still rang in his ears, and his admiration for the lawyer rose to that love which youth yields to the highest manhood.
Mrs. Joyce met him in the hall, excited, eager. "What did he say?"
Victor passed his hand over his face in bewilderment. "I must think," he protested. "He said so much—Where is mother?"
"She is on the porch—waiting. Let us go out to her."
He followed her with troubled face, but the bright sunshine and the songs of the birds miraculously restored him. He looked up and down the piazza hoping to see Leo, but she was not in sight. He took a seat in silence, and Mrs. Joyce saw his mother grow pale in sympathy as she read the trouble in his face.
Mrs. Joyce urged him to tell what had passed between them, and he replied:
"I can't do it. All I can say is this: he believes mother is honest, and that she has some strange power. He will defend her in court; but he intends to study into the whole business very closely, and he wants us to help him."
"Of course we'll help him," responded Mrs. Joyce, readily.
Mrs. Ollnee went to the heart of the problem. "Just what does he want to do, Victor?"
"It is necessary to prove absolutely that you have nothing to do with these phenomena."
"But I do have everything to do with them," she replied; "that's what being a medium means. However, I know what he needs better than you do. He wants to prove that the messages are supra-normal. Very well, I am ready for any test."