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 given him 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 interpenetrated the 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 to her 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 if what 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, but he never goes against Tony's."

The mother pondered. "But that is because Tony is content to follow his will."

The girl lost her firm tone. "I know that interpretation can be given to it, but to-day I feel that 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, and I 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 did he say?"

"He seemed impressed."

"What happened?"

"Father came, as usual—"

"I mean what happened outside the seance? 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 seances 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 to you?" 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—he impressed the 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 are planning 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 this kind 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 new and 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."

"She must see 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 to me."

"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 and hated 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 you now?" 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 snowy clouds—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.



XVII

WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE

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 individual must 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 a little 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, Von Hartmann, 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 to draw 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 to produce 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 to sneers 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 faintly and 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 certain way 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-books be 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 not relax 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.



XVIII

LAMBERT INTERVENES

Upon his return to his desk Serviss was delighted to find a telegram from Lambert, stating the time of his arrival, and asking for a meeting. There was a note of decision, almost command, in the wording of the despatch, which denoted that the miner had taken his warning to heart and was prepared for prompt and authoritative action.

The time of the train being near, Serviss closed the lid of his desk and took a car for the station—immensely relieved of responsibility, yet worn and troubled by a multitude of confused and confusing speculations. All the way to the depot, and while he stood waiting outside the gates, he pondered on the surprising change in Weissmann's thought, and also upon the momentous covenant between them. More than ever before he felt the burden and the mystery of organic life. Around him flowed an endless stream of humankind, rushing, spreading—each drop in the flood an immortal soul (according to the spiritist), attended by invisible guardians, watching, upholding, warning—"and the whole earth swarms with a billion other similar creatures with the same needs, the same destiny; for, after all, the difference between a Zulu and a Greek is not much greater than that between a purple-green humming-bird and a canary; and to think that this wave of man appearing to-day on the staid old earth, like the swarms of innumerable insects of June, is but one of a million other waves of a million other years. To consider, furthermore, that all those who have lived and died are still sentient! What a staggering, monstrous conception! Nor is this all. According to the monist conception there is no line at which we can say here the animal stops and the soul of man begins, so that ants and apes are claimants for immortality. If the individual man persists after death, why not his faithful collie? No, this theory will not do. It is far less disturbing to think of all these hurrying bipeds as momentary nodes of force—minute eddies on the boundless stream of ether."

The gates opened and another river of travellers, presumably from the great plains of the Middle West, poured forth, quite undistinguishable in general appearance from those which had preceded them; and, dropping his speculation, Morton peered among these faces, not quite sure that he would know Lambert if he saw him. As a matter of fact, he would have missed him had not the miner laid a hand upon his arm, saying, quaintly: "Howdy, professor, howdy! What's the state of the precinct?"

He was quite conventional in all outward signs, save for his red-brown complexion and the excessive newness of his hand-bag. "How are all the folks?" he went on to ask, with a keen glance.

"They were quite well when I saw them, but they need you. You're not an hour too soon."

"Is it as bad as that?" he exclaimed, anxiously. "What is it all about?"

"Wait till we reach a carriage, then I'll put you in possession of all the facts," replied Serviss, and led the way to a cab. "I am greatly relieved to see you to-day."

"I came as soon as your wire reached me; but the messenger arrived during a big snow-storm, and the trail was impassable for a day. Now, then, professor, let's have the whole story," he said, as the driver slammed the door. "Where are they and what is the matter?"

"They are here in New York, housed with a man named Pratt, a wealthy spiritist, and they are in excellent bodily health, but your daughter is threatened with a publicity which is most dangerous."

"How is that?"

"Clarke has decided to give an oration in the Spirit Temple announcing his faith and defying the unbeliever. As the climax of this discourse he intends to announce your daughter's name and her willingness to meet any test. She objects to this publicity, but Pratt, your wife, and the 'guides' all unite in forcing her into acquiescence."

"I see," said Lambert, reflectively. "When does this speech come off?"

"Sunday morning at eleven."

"I reckon I can stop that," was the miner's laconic comment.

"But this is not the only danger," Serviss hurried on to say. "This man Pratt is a rankly selfish old man, who is surrounded by flatterers and those who live off his desire to commune with his dead wife and daughters. He is accustomed to have his own private 'mediums' and to appropriate their entire time and energy till he is weary of them—or till a new one comes to his knowledge—then it is his pitiless habit to 'expose' them and throw them into the street. He is the worst possible man for your daughter to know, and to be in his house is a misfortune."

"How does she happen to be there?"

"Clarke took them there. He was eager to secure Pratt's endorsement of your daughter, and also of the book he is about to publish. Your daughter hates Pratt, and is very anxious to leave, but is afraid to do so for fear of him and of her 'controls.' Pratt has threatened to denounce her if she leaves him."

"Is he in love with her?"

"I don't think so—not in the way you mean. He is bound up in her powers, and would do anything to keep her. But she must be taken away at once and Clarke's oration stopped. I would have interfered, but I had no authority to act. Your wife is satisfied to remain, and the 'chief control,' her father, insists upon their remaining, and Clarke told me last night that your daughter was his affianced wife. You can see how helpless I am, even though your daughter in her normal mood begged me to save her from madness. I regard her condition as very critical. To expose her to a public trial of her powers may unsettle her reason."

Lambert was profoundly moved by Morton's rapid statement. "What would you advise me to do?"

"Take her away from that house and Clarke's influence instantly, no matter if your wife opposes it."

"Are we on our way there now?"

"Yes, we'll be there in a few minutes. My sister likes your wife and daughter and has invited them to stay with her for a few days. This they have promised to do. I suggest, therefore, that you take them immediately to our home and so get your daughter into a totally different mental atmosphere. This plan will give you time to decide on future action."

"Do they know I'm coming?"

"No, I was afraid you might not come, and—"

"I'm glad you didn't tell them. I wanted to test whether that ghostly grandfather would inform them. I'm mightily obliged to you, professor," he said, after a pause, and his eyes were moist with his emotion. "I never had a child of my own, and I'm fond of Viola. I've always resented this mediumistic business—she's too fine to be spoiled by it—but she wasn't mine, and Julia was so wrapped up in the faith I couldn't stop it. Then Clarke came, and Julia minded what I said no more than if I'd been a chipmunk. So I climbed into the hills and stayed there."

"You believe in your daughter's powers?"

"In her powers, yes; but not in every voice that speaks through her. Have you attended any of her sittings?"

"We had one in my house last night. I laid the burden of the performance to Clarke. He was the juggler."

"Oh no, you're wrong there. I have cause enough to hate Clarke, but he's honest. No, the power is all in Viola. I've had those things go on with nobody but Julia and the girl in the room. No, Clarke is a crazy fool in some ways, but he don't cheat."

His words were so direct, so weighted with conviction, that their force staggered Serviss, causing him to doubt his new explanation. Tolman's generalizations ceased at the moment to convince.

Lambert went on. "I suppose she is committed to him. She wrote me that she guessed she might as well; so long as she was a medium nobody else would ever want her—or something like that. I feel guilty, I'll admit, but you see how it was. The girl belongs to Julia, and since Clarke came into the family our correspondence has been pretty well confined to checks on my part and receipts on hers; but she's had plenty of money, professor. There wasn't any need of her going into anybody's house. She could have gone to the best hotels—"

"I don't see how you could have acted differently," said Serviss, with intent to comfort. "But I am sure that Viola"—he spoke the name with a little hesitation—"will eagerly go with you now. She begins to doubt Clarke and to realize the fearful mental peril in which she stands."

"That's what I don't understand, professor. This spiritualistic faith is mighty pretty on the face of it, but it seems to unhinge people's minds. I've known two or three to go 'locoed' with it; that's what kept me from interfering. It isn't for miners to monkey with; but I was in hopes that you would go into it. In fact, I was in hopes you'd got sort o' interested in Viola, and she in you, and that you'd help her someway."

"I am interested in her," replied Serviss, quickly, "and I want to help her; but so long as she is where she is, and acknowledges Clarke's claims, I can do nothing.—Here we are!"

As they drew up before the looming front of Pratt's house the miner whistled, "Must be one of those Wall Street pirates we read about. Nothing spirit-like about this castle, eh?"

"Nor about its lord."

"Why, this beats the Palace Hotel in Salina," he continued, his wonder increasing, then he smiled. "What'll you bet I don't catch the 'guides' napping! You send up word you're here and leave me out o' sight somewhere. I'd like to show Julia that her daddy don't know all that blows over the roof."

Again Serviss doubted the husband's ability to dominate the forces in opposition—so small and inoffensive did he seem and so ill-timed was his joke.

The colored man, more funereally dignified than before, showed them into the reception-room. "I'm afraid the ladies are out, sir, but if you'll wait a moment I'll see."

"Be sure Mrs. Lambert gets my card," said Serviss, with a note of warning in his voice. After the man left the room he turned to Lambert. "Pratt has a habit of intercepting the cards of visitors, and deciding who shall and who shall not see your daughter. He hates me and may order me out of the house." As they listened, the master's deep grumbling vibrated through the ceiling. "You see! my card has gone to him, not to your wife. The old ruffian is probably giving instructions to have me shown the door."

To this Lambert made no reply other than to say: "We'll soon know, the nigger is returning."

Some shade of the master's mood was reflected in the voice of the servant, as he said: "The ladies are out and Mr. Pratt is engaged." He had the air of waiting for them to go.

"Out, are they?" remarked Lambert, casually. "Then we'll wait till they come in. When did you say they'll return?"

"I didn't say, sir; probably not till very late."

"Is Clarke in?"

"I don't know, sir. I think not."

"But your boss is in?"

The man hesitated. "Yes, sir; but I told you he's engaged."

Lambert changed his tone. "Now, see here, Charley, you go right back and tell him that Joe Lambert, of Fremont Basin, is here on business, and would like to have a word with him if he don't mind."

The colored man saw a light, and visibly weakened. "I—I'll tell him," he stammered, and retired.

Lambert followed him to the door and called after him, in a clear tone: "You tell him to come down or I'll go up. Now mind you say just those words."

Morton smiled with joy in Lambert's decisive utterance. "So much for having authority, as well as the will to act!"

Pratt appeared at the head of the stairs. "What is it now, Jenkins?"

"The gentleman insists on seeing you, sir; it's Mr. Lambert."

"Stay where you are," commanded Pratt, "I'll come down and see what's wanted."

Lambert, with quiet, upturned face, watched the master of the house descend slowly step by step, and Morton, contrasting the two men, awaited the collision with rising apprehension. The Western man seemed so small, so inoffensive in manner, in contrast with the grizzled, insolent face of the sullen old man approaching with heavy jaw set at a bull-dog angle. "Well, sir, what is it?" he contemptuously inquired.

Lambert waited so long that his questioner began to wonder, and then remarked, quietly: "So you're Pratt!"

"I am."

"Well, I'm Joe Lambert, of Fremont, and I've come to relieve you of the keep of my wife and daughter." Nothing could have been more telling, more admirable, than his tone. Every word told, and as Pratt stood in a daze of surprise Lambert turned to the servant. "Now, George, you try again. You tell Mrs. Lambert her husband wants to see her, and you may ask Clarke to come along. I want a word or two with him."

"Wait!" called Pratt. "I want to know—"

Lambert pointed a finger like a pistol. "You go!" and the man went. The Westerner then turned to the owner of the house and said: "Out where I live a husband has some rights which he can enforce if he is minded to do so. I haven't looked after my family as closely as I might, but I'm going to do better hereafter. I believe my wife and daughter are in this house, and I intend to see them, and your wishes don't count in the matter. I'd advise you not to interfere."

Pratt began to retreat. "I didn't know—"

"But suppose you didn't—what right have you to supervise my wife's affairs? Why didn't you send Professor Serviss's card to her? What business had you to say she was out?"

Pratt came down from his lofty pose. "So many strangers insist on seeing the psychic—"

"But Professor Serviss is not a stranger, and, furthermore, unless my wife's mind has weakened, she's quite competent to turn down any one she don't want to see. I can't understand why she is here, but I intend to find out. So long as she bears my name I don't want her to be under any obligation to a man of your stamp."

There was power and a quiet dignity in the little man, and Pratt began to plead his case. "I've tried to make it comfortable for them, and help on their work—"

Lambert looked up and down the splendid hall, and in a softer tone replied: "So far I'm in your debt, but I don't like it. I am able to provide for my family and I don't intend to share their supervision with you nor any other man. So far as I know, my wife still considers me the head of the family—anyhow, that's what I'm here to find out."

Mrs. Lambert appeared at the head of the stairs and called, in a tremulous voice: "Is that you, Joe?"

"It is, Julia. Come down."

Viola, with a cry of joy, left her mother's side and running down the steps, flung herself into Lambert's arms like a frightened child. "Oh, Papa-Joe—I'm so glad to see you!"

Lambert was astonished by the warmth of her greeting, and while she hid her face on his shoulder patted her awkwardly with soothing words of endearment until at last she lifted her pale and tear-wet face and whispered:

"Oh, it's been a terrible day—take me away, quick!"

Lambert looked up at his wife. "Julia, what's been going on here? You both look like the dead."

Mrs. Lambert's face was wrinkled and haggard and wan like that of one grown suddenly old, and Morton was aware that her serenity was utterly gone before she spoke. Her voice was weak and piteous. "I thought it was all for the best, Joe. I followed the 'guides'—"

"Follow them a little longer and you'll all land in the mad-house," he replied. Then to Viola he tenderly said: "Don't you worry any more, girlie. Old Papa-Joe's going to take you home."

Serviss spoke. "You're to come to us to-night. Kate expects you both."

At the sound of his voice Viola turned with an impulsive reaching of the hands. "Oh, Dr. Serviss, that would be heavenly! I love your sister and her beautiful home."

Lambert issued his command. "Get your outfits together. I don't understand how you got here, but you're going to get out with me within the next half-hour."

Viola's spirit rose like flame. "We're all ready—this moment. I sent our trunks away this morning. They went to the West Park. I'll be down instantly," and she turned to run up the stairs, just as Clarke appeared at their head. His face was white and wild and his voice hoarse with fear and reproach as he intercepted her.

"What has happened? Who is below?"

"My step-father," she answered, curtly, and fled away to her room.

Mrs. Lambert was about to follow when she saw Clarke descending, and drew back with a look of appeal at her husband. It was evident to Serviss that her confidence in Clarke had given place to fear.

During all this time Pratt had been standing meditatively swaying to and fro on his feet, chewing upon something which he held far back in his cheek. He resembled a sullen, chained, and vindictive elephant meditating murder. He watched Clarke descend the stairs with very little change of expression; but Lambert's face darkened as the minister called out:

"What are you going to do?"

"That does not concern you," he replied, and his voice cut. "Your control of my household stops right here! Julia, go get your things." He laid an imperative hand on Clarke's arm. "Clear the way for her!"

With a look of alarm Mrs. Lambert started to follow her daughter. "Don't be harsh, Joe." Then to Clarke she said, pleadingly: "It's best, Anthony, for a little while. Viola is so nervous and morbid."

"I know what it means," he passionately answered. "It means the wreck of all my hopes. It means ruin to all my plans—"

Lambert again interfered. "Julia! get dressed. I will attend to Mr. Clarke." As she hurried up the stairs he turned to Morton in apology. "I've been to blame for this separation. I should have asserted my rights before. No man has the right to shirk his family duty. My duty was to look after the welfare of my wife and daughter, and now see their faces! This year has made Julia an old woman." His voice choked. When he could speak he addressed himself to Clarke. "You promised me that you wouldn't use the girl's name in any way, and yet I'm told you're about to publish it broadcast."

"The control consents—"

Here Lambert's wrath broke bonds. "Damn the control! I don't consent. And I serve notice on you, and on you too"—he directed a menacing look upon Pratt—"to respect the name of my wife as well as that of my daughter. Clarke has lived long enough in the West to know what I mean, but I'll explain to you." He faced Pratt, and with easy, almost gentle utterance, continued: "I've spent some thirty-five years on the border, where a man is called upon now and then to serve as his own judge, jury, and hangman. Perhaps we're a little prone to take matters into our own hands; but be that as it may, the professor here has posted me about you and your ways, and I merely want to state, once for all, that if you utter one word public or private against my wife or daughter I'll kill you as I would a wolf."

The slow pulsing flow of the miner's voice, the absence of all oaths or justifying gesture, froze Pratt into immobility and thrilled Serviss with joy, for he, too, perceived that every word came from the heart of a very determined and very dangerous man.

Clarke started forward. "You wrong me! Everything I have done has been for their good—for the good of the world."

Lambert stopped him with a gesture. "Right here you quit, my friend. I don't question your good intentions, but I'm sick of the whole crazy business, and so is Julia. Why, good God, man! she looks ten years older since she left the valley. You've been nothing but a curse to her and the girl from the very start, and here is where your trail forks."

The preacher's hollow cheeks were ashen gray and his throat thick with passion as he cried: "You can't do that! You must not separate us. I love her—she is mine! The spirit forces have promised her to me. They will resent your interference, they will over-ride your puny opposition."

"I take the consequences. They go and you stay!"

Clarke turned to Morton in a frenzy, his eyes flaming, his lips dry and contorted. "I see your hand in this! You stand there silent, but you are the machinator of this plot. You are stealing her away—"

"Be quiet!" commanded Morton, with a gesture towards the stairway. "Don't you see them coming?"

Viola, fully dressed, and breathless with eagerness to flee, was hurriedly descending.

As she neared him, Clarke cried out, with lamentable, despairing wail: "Viola, you are leaving me!"

She gave him one awed, pitying backward glance and passed on, hurrying as if to escape his outspread hand, swift to outrun the inevitable tragic shadow of his faith.

For an instant he reeled back against the wall, then sprang to follow, but the young scientist intervened and thrust him back.

"Keep to your own trail," he sternly said, and as he opened the door for the girl, she seemed to pass at once into the sunlit spring-time world of common life.



XIX

SERVISS ASSUMES CONTROL

At the carriage-door Mrs. Lambert halted, her heart sorely smitten by the vision of Clarke's agonized face. "Wait a moment!" she cried out. "We were too cruel. Let me say good-bye."

"No," Lambert replied, firmly. "You are done with him." And with these words he gently assisted her into the coach. "Get in, professor," he added, with a touch of the same command. "We must be moving."

With a succinct phrase of direction to the driver, Serviss complied, taking the front seat, opposite Viola. He was horrified to find her shaking violently as if with cold, her face white, her eyes big and wild. Her physical rescue was accomplished, but it was immediately made plain to him that the invisible bonds which linked her to Clarke were being drawn upon with merciless power, for with the first motion of the vehicle she fixed a look of terror and entreaty upon her mother, exclaiming, huskily: "They are calling me! They will not let me go."

Lambert stared in helpless dismay as he realized the force of this inner struggle; but the young scientist, filled with fierce rage at this assertion of the dark forces, met them promptly in pride of his own resources, his own desire.

"Give me your hands!" he commanded, sharply. She obeyed like a child in a stupor of pain, her breath coming through her pallid lips with a hissing sound as if she were sinking each moment deeper into an icy flood.

With both her inert hands in his, with love and mastering will in his eyes, he bent a deep, piercing gaze upon her with intent to rouse her and sustain her. "You must not give way. You are too strong, too brave, to yield to this delusion. You are clear of it all now—entering upon a free and happy life.... Think of the new conditions into which you are going.... Kate is waiting you. No one can control you if you set your will sharply against it.... Remember the Marshall Basin and the splendid sunshine.... You are leaving all hateful, evil influences behind." In this way he labored to fill her mind with new conceptions, building up in her a will to resist, and as he felt the tremor die out of her hands and saw the color coming back into her face he smiled with a sense of victory. "You see!" he resumed, in triumph. "You are better. Your hands are warmer. You are breathing naturally again. Your enemies are being left behind."

It was true. The hunted, piteous look had left her eyes. She seemed drowsy, but it was the languor of relief. The vital force, the sanity, the imperious appeal of the man before her had rolled back the cloud of fear which had all but closed over her head. He released her hands, saying: "We must have no more backward glances. Remember Lot's wife."

Lambert, filled with satisfaction, laid a silencing hand upon his wife's arm. His faith in science, in the force of exact learning, was being met, and he was resolved to leave the hypnotist free to act, to control.

Roused and confident, the young scientist continued his appeal, leaving her no time to dwell upon the past. "You are young," he said in effect, "and it is spring. You are false to yourself if you permit yourself to lose through any such morbid imagining a single hour of joy. All depends on your own will, your own desire to be free. Henceforth you are never to be sad or afraid. I will you to be happy and you must obey."

She rose from the deep of her depression as a lily rises from the sod after the trampling storm-wind has passed. Her response to his call filled him with hope as well as with astonishment. It was as if he had torn from her throat the hands of some hideous beast, half-man, half-devil, and they entered Kate's home in such normal, cheerful relationship that no one could possibly have associated any hidden grief with either of them, not even with Mrs. Lambert, and Viola met her hostess with the gay spirits of an unexpected but confident guest.

Kate was both amazed and delighted by their sudden irruption, and being eager to know all the details of their escape from the Pratt stronghold hurried Viola and her mother away to their rooms, leaving Lambert in Morton's care.

"Well, professor," said the miner, when they were alone, "we made the break and won out. I reckon they're side-tracked now."

"Yes, and I hope we are done with both Pratt and Clarke; but they'll both bear watching. Pratt I especially fear."

"He's had his notice," Lambert grimly replied. "As for Clarke, it looks as though even Julia had got enough of him. He looked like a man on the road to the mad-house, and I reckon she's convinced of it now."

"I pitied him, but I do not feel that you are in any sense indebted to him. On the contrary, a large part of your daughter's slavery to the trance is due to his pernicious influence."

"You must be something of an influence yourself, professor. It was wonderful the way you brought her out of that trance. I never saw that done before. I reckon you must have some kind of mesmerism about you."

"Not a particle more than you have. However, I should like to believe in my power to help her. In fact, I do believe that. It is really a question of her own will. The old idea of some subtle physical force or fluid passing from the operator to the subject is no longer held. It is not even necessary to make passes nor to put the subject in a trance. All we need to do is suggest to her that no one, not even her ghostly grandfather, can control her against her will. We must keep her mind full of bright and cheerful thoughts, and convince her that by leaving the Pratt house she has attained freedom."

"I will do what I can," said Lambert; "but I've seen her taken down so many times, I'm a little doubtful. She's in a bad way, I admit. It has its bad side as well as its pretty side, this religion. It unhinges a lot of people, and I reckon Clarke's a little off or he wouldn't have got my folks into that mess."

"Don't let Viola feel your doubt; present a confident face to her. There is nothing supernatural in the world, nothing lying outside of nature or outside of law. Many diseases which were once considered demoniacal possessions we now know to be quite as natural as any other in fact. Disease is only health gone wrong; and the mental disorder in which Viola now stands is certainly curable if we proceed properly and with confidence."

"I like to have you say these things, professor. They kind o' fit in with what I've thought over all by myself out there in the mountains. I like the man who says 'such and such a thing is so-and-so, because I can prove it.' That's what science is, I take it. There's altogether too much guess-work about this spiritualistic religion—it needs some engineer like you to get down to the bed-rock. Clarke is the kind of man who thinks he's on the vein when he ain't."

"I'm giving it a good deal of thought, and may be I will some day take up the experimentation—but not with your daughter as a subject. However, we'll discuss that later. You are tired and I'll show you your room and bath, and after you freshen up a bit we'll discuss our next movement."

Lambert turned as he entered the room assigned to him, and said, with deep feeling: "I'm trusting in you, professor. I'm out o' my latitude in this spirit enterprise. As I say, I've neglected my family since Clarke came into it, and it was all wrong. I should have asserted my rights. I don't blame Julia as much as I did. Women are kind o' weak in some ways—more religious, you may say—and Clarke got hold of Julia in a way that I couldn't understand. I didn't mind her thinking more of Waldron than of me—that's natural, we all have our first loves—but I couldn't stand Clarke's overbearing ways in my own house." His voice grew firm. "Well, now, here I am with time and money. Tell me what to do and I'll do it."

Morton's liking for the Western man was raised almost to affection, as he looked into his earnest, remorseful eyes and listened to his low-toned confession. "You may depend on my help," he responded, heartily, extending his hand in token. "Your step-daughter interests me deeply. There is something for you to do, but I will not ask it now."

"Yes, tell me, so I can be thinking it over."

Morton pondered a moment, then said: "I had a consultation to-day with a great nerve specialist, a man who uses hypnotism, or 'suggestion,' as he calls it, in his practice. He is perfectly sure that your daughter can be restored to mental health, but she must have a complete change of companionship and environment. He agrees with me that she must be separated not merely from Pratt and Clarke, but from her mother also. I need your help in this."

"That will be hard on Julia," Lambert slowly responded. "She hasn't much else but the girl and her religion." He looked down at the floor. "Yes, that is a rough sentence, professor, but I shouldn't wonder if you were right."

"It must be done, Lambert; and the very best service you can render is to take your wife and go home, leaving Viola here in our care—But that can wait till after you are rested." And with this final word he closed the door and returned to his library to await Kate's return and her inevitable demand for the story of what had taken place.

He took up one of the most recent books treating of Suggestion, and resumed consideration of a paragraph which had arrested him as if a hand had been placed upon his shoulder. "Suggestion does not limit or depress the subconscious self, it sets it free, exalts its powers, making it not something less, but something vastly more than the normal and the conscious self."

Could it be possible that Viola, in common with hundreds of other apparently well-authenticated cases, possessed the "psychic force" which Maxwell, Richet, and Lombroso recognized? The hypothesis, difficult as it was, profoundly inexplicable from every point of view, was, after all, less of a wrench to the reason, came closer to the frame of his philosophy than the claims of Crookes and Wallace. To accept the spiritist faith even as a "working hypothesis" was impossible to his definite type of mind.

If these raps, movements, voices, could be related to the working of the subconscious mind, or, as Meyers called it, the "subliminal self," then the power of the hypnotist might be able to control their order and to a certain extent their character. They were not signs of a diseased brain (according to Meyers again), but were the manifestations of a power scattered here and there among men, without system, without known law. Maxwell agreeing with this, ends by saying: "These mysterious phenomena are due, therefore, neither to spirits nor disease, but to a perfectly natural force lying within the minds of the sitters and exercised by the psychic."

He had already derived much hope from the monumental work of Meyers and his school. Hundreds of cases of hallucinations, alternating personality, hysterio-epilepsy, and other kindred apparent abnormalities, had been studied by means of hypnotism, and certain processes inhibited or set going at the will of an operator. The latest word of these masters was most heartening. They had demonstrated that the trance was no longer a necessary part of hypnotism. That the subject would not follow out in trance any improper or criminal suggestion which he would not do in conscious state; and, "There is no great physical difference between the normal and the hypnotic state," he read; "the real mental difference lies in the temporary removal of motives tending to counteract the suggestion, and this removal does not imply an inhibition of faculty, but an actual extension or liberation of faculty."

In fine, these men agreed that the mind, reaching back, by its very structure, to the beginning of organic life, was limited by consciousness to a comparatively small number of its potentialities, whereas its subliminal life (on the contrary) was infinite and unsearchably subtle. All minds partook, in varying degrees, of these baffling powers, but only now and then, through unusual favoring circumstances, was the brain able to manifest its depth and subtlety. Sickness, sleeplessness, physical shock, some accidental series of events now and then permitted a display of these hidden acquirements, and thereafter the individual was marked as abnormal, possessed, according to the ancient view, by angels or devils.

Others still, by putting themselves deliberately into the study, had been able to subordinate the conscious mind, little by little liberating their subliminal forces by practice, attaining thus almost miraculous powers. In this way the "medium" became clairvoyant, clairaudient, telekinetic. In other cases still, as in Viola's case, this subordination of the supra-liminal self had been accomplished by the suggestion of others, by submission to the will of others.

He had been profoundly instructed by Tolman's account of a case of alternating personality which he had studied with so much care. The fact that the secondary self appeared when the subject's life seemed at a lower ebb, and when the cerebral centres were sparsely supplied with the life-current, and the further fact that the use of a certain substance which stimulated (without poisoning) the higher brain-centres, was able to bring back the primary or supra-liminal self, was of the utmost value. It threw a flood of light upon Viola's condition, for had she not in her trance become inert, cold, and almost without pulse? He had provided himself with this drug, and as he studied its appearance in the phial, so minute, so colorless, so helpless in its prison, he felt once again the mystery of matter, and smiled to think how childish was the popular conception of the physical universe as something dead and inorganic. Nothing is more mysterious.

"The office of this drug can be twofold. It has the power in itself to flush the cerebral centres with fresh blood, and it can also serve as a point of support for the suggestion I am about to give. It does not really matter whether she has any phase of what they call mediumistic power or not. To rid her of her trances will liberate her from a belief in her ills, and that is the main consideration."

He found the greatest encouragement at this point in the many cases where perfect mental health had been restored by means of a complete change of mental stimuli. "All hypnotic methods," he read, "have one thing in common, and that is the diversion of attention from the insistency of external surroundings.... The hypnotic state has one broad characteristic, and that is the working of the subliminal consciousness in directions unusual in ordinary life."

"The way to help her is to cut off every suggestion which leads to the trance and to the thought of the dead; to centre her mind on the serene, the busy, the sunny. Thus flooding her brain with sights and sounds utterly disassociated with her past."

The realization that she was at last domesticated under his roof made her redemption seem easy, certain, almost accomplished. There remained only the painful duty of separating her from her mother. He could see that this would bring keen sorrow upon them both, but that if she could be brought to consider him in the light of her future husband, the change would seem less violent; for, after all, it was the law of life which subordinated the claims of the mother to those of the husband.

"At any rate, the issue is now clear in my mind. A powerful chain of suggestion has been formed and fastened upon her by her own mother and by Clarke. That chain must be broken; it is broken in Clarke's case, and no matter what the pain, the fear, this course may cause the mother, it must be pursued in order to restore Viola to health."

He passed from this to a forecast of the radical changes in his own life which an avowal of love would make, and his mood chilled. He had always imagined the announcement of his engagement, falling into a sober and decorous paragraph among the society notes, and had figured himself receiving with dignified composure the congratulations of his associates and club-fellows. He had never considered the possibility of shrinking from these publicities, nor fancied himself in the light of finding excuses to justify or explain his marriage. He now clearly foresaw, foreheard the comment, the surprise, the opposition of his family.

He pulled himself up short with a word of derision at the length to which he had permitted his mind to run. "All this for the future. The immediate question is, Can she be freed from her bonds?"

He was deep in his book when Kate entered with excited greeting. "Morton, do you know that those women have been locked in their rooms all day for fear of Clarke and Pratt? Well, they were! Clarke has gone stark mad with jealousy, and even that besotted mother was afraid of him, and admits it. They would be there in that house prisoners this minute only for you."

"Don't lay your wreath on my head; keep it for Lambert. Really, Kate, he was magnificent. Little as he is, he towered. I had no doubt of his willingness and ability to kill either Pratt or Clarke; and I don't think they questioned the integrity of his promise."

Kate's mind took a new turn. "She's broken with Clarke, thank Heaven! But the mother clings to him in spite of all."

"I am about to suggest to Mrs. Lambert that she go West with her husband, leaving the girl in your care for a little while."

"I wish they would!"

"She must be freed from even her mother's presence for a while—that is, if they really want to have her cured of her trances."

"I see," said Kate, thoughtfully. "The mother is so closely associated with all that tapping."

"Precisely. I wish, when Mrs. Lambert is rested, you would ask her to let me see her here. I want to talk these matters over with her in private."

"They're both lying down, but I'll tell her when she rises. Don't do anything rash," she added, with a reaction towards caution which amused him.

"You may trust me."

She came back a few steps, and hesitatingly said. "For, after all, Morton, the girl is abnormal."

"So are we all—under abnormal conditions. I am going to see if I can't so change the current of her thought that she will forget her besetments—and you must help me."

"She's shockingly pretty and it will be very dangerous having her beneath your very roof." She gave a warning backward look. "How dare you permit it?"

"I am a very brave man," he replied, with a smile, and an inflection that puzzled her.



XX

THE MOTHER'S FAITH

Mrs. Lambert entered timidly, her gentle face sadder and its lip-line firmer than he had ever seen it. It was evident that the experiences of the last few days had touched her and shaken her.

Up to this time Morton had considered her as a genial but rather negative personality, a soul naturally subordinate to others, but she now rose to an importance in his life which made her real self of the highest significance. His first glance was one of sincerest admiration. Doubtless she had once been as slender and quite as tall as her daughter, and though increasing age and weight had combined to rob her of height and grace, she was, nevertheless, still a distinctly commanding figure. Her head was nobly fashioned, her eyes a candid blue, and her glance clear and unworn in its appeal.

Altogether he could not but acknowledge in her a mother of which no man need be ashamed, and in this spirit he met her and invited her to a seat. "Mr. Lambert and I have been talking of the mountains to-day," he began. "I wish we were on our way out there this moment, for I am tired of the city."

She brightened under his smile. "I wouldn't mind going home at once, but I know Viola would be disappointed. She has seen so little of the city, and then Mr. Clarke—" She broke off in some confusion as if in sudden recollection of the chasm which had opened between the young clergyman and her daughter.

He seized upon this allusion to say: "I did not think of including Mr. Clarke, Mrs. Lambert. I think you and your daughter have both had too much of him. I do not doubt his sincerity, but I am quite certain that he was leading you both into an abyss. I hope you will make the most of this chance to free yourself from his influence. I quite stand with your husband in that resolution."

Her face grew cold again. "As to that, I must wait for further illumination. These last few hours have been so disturbed we are quite cut off from our guides."

"You depend upon them—they are very real to you, are they not?" He spoke musingly.

"They are just as real to me as you are—or any one."

"Did you not doubt their wisdom to-day?"

She drew herself up. "Why should I?"

"They knew nothing of your husband's coming?"

"Oh yes, they did, only they couldn't communicate on account of Viola's mental condition." Then, with unshakable conviction, she added: "If I doubted them I should doubt everything."

"I am sorry to trouble you. I am not one to needlessly destroy a comforting faith, and yet I confess I thought the time had come to invoke your husband's aid. It was in that spirit I sent the telegram."

"I am very glad you did, although I had no fear. I knew my father would find the right way when the time came. Let me tell you, sir," she replied, expanding in the warmth of his interest. "Before these revelations came to me I had no real faith in God or heaven. The world beyond the grave was dark and cold. It seemed to me as if my little boy and my husband were in the cruel, wet ground. I couldn't feel that they had gone to Christ. But now the tomb is but a portal to the light. The spirit-plane is as real as the earth-plane, and filled with joyous souls. I can hear them sing sometimes when I hold Viola's hand, and the sound is very beautiful and very comforting."

"I can understand that," he answered, but quietly, critically, still studying her face. "It has a warmer charm than any other religion I know."

She went on, eagerly: "I wish you could come to believe. Your sister said your mother and your uncle spoke last night. Why can't you accept the faith?"

The young philosopher gained, as she spoke, a new conception of her character, and chilled with a growing sense of the difficult and ungracious task which lay before him. He began to perceive that her awe of him had kept her silent, thus concealing from him the spirit of the evangelist which he now saw she possessed. She counted more largely in Viola's development than he had hitherto granted. Her faith was solidly based on years of experience and was not to be easily moved. As she went on he perceived that her daughter's mediumship was much more than a theory in her thought; it was a fact, and a daily, almost an hourly, necessity. He lost his last suspicion of her, and caught a glimpse of the larger aspect of her relationship to his future. She was deceived, of course, but she was honest in every fibre. He could not accuse her of the slightest deceit or falsification.

In her lame way she tried to argue the question, quoting the platitudes of the "inspirational speakers," as well as the pompous phrases of her spirit-father, while he listened courteously.

When she paused, he said, gravely: "My dear Mrs. Lambert, I can't leave you in any doubt of my position. I cannot for a single instant accept what happened last night as the manifestation of the disembodied. I cannot think that the phenomena exist. I must rather think they were performed by Clarke, or my sister, or Weissmann, in joke." She looked at him with an expression of horror, of incredulity, and he went on, quickly: "Even if I admitted the fact of direct writing or the movement of the horn, I should not by any means be driven to accept your spirit-hypothesis. There are men, and very great investigators, who would say that your daughter's trances and all phenomena connected therewith were pathologic, explainable on the grounds of some obscure neural derangement. I do not say this is the case, but I do say that if she persists in these practices she will lose control of her mental faculties. I have had a consultation to-day with Dr. Tolman, a man who makes a specialty of such cases, and when I had laid the whole matter before him, he and Dr. Weissmann both advised the immediate stopping of these trances."

"We can't do that. They come from the other side. My father induces the trance, and it is entirely in his hands."

He fixed a keen look upon her. "Did it ever occur to you that the words of your 'guides' were, in reality, but a reflex of the wishes of Pratt or Clarke?"

"How could that be when they came to me long before I even knew Anthony?"

"But was not the advice of a different quality at that time? Maybe your father yields to the will of living people when they are strong enough."

"Oh no, quite the contrary. He opposes Mr. Clarke often. Sometimes he opposes us all."

"I am perfectly sure that the voices that spoke to us last night were a subtle delusion, an emanation from our own bodies—or the work of a joker. My reason repels them as spirits."

She smiled a little. "I think you scientific people go a long way round to explain a very simple thing. I've read some of the explanations of the way in which you think these phenomena come, but they are harder to understand than the thing itself. My father, my husband, and my little son are alive. I know that. No one can destroy that faith in me."

"I do not wish to destroy that faith—only so far as it seems to threaten your daughter."

"I am perfectly sure they know better what we should do than any one on the earth-plane. I cannot see why you people oppose the idea of the spirit-world when it is so beautiful and could fill the world with hope. The Bible teaches it when you read it right. It is full of references to spirits. Did not Christ rise from the dead and manifest to His disciples?"

"And did He not cast out devils?"

She was momentarily at a loss, but soon recovered. "But if you admit there are evil spirits—"

"But I don't. I said that merely to show you that a sceptic can quote Scripture to his purpose. There is no place in my philosophy for the supernatural."

"That is what we believe," she eagerly responded. "I used to be frightened by the things that happened to Viola, but now I know they are natural, just as natural as anything else. My loved ones are not far away, they are very near, but, oh, so intangible. If I could only touch them!" In this was the cry of her soul. She deeply sighed. "I am growing old, and that means I live in the past more and more. When Waltie comes I can imagine myself as I was when we first went to the mountains. Robert means more and more to me, and all fear of 'the change' is gone. Really, if it were not for Viola I would like to go over to the other side to-night. The spirit-plane seems so much more care-free and bright. This life is but a preparatory school at best."