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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vera, by Richard Harding Davis
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Vera
+       The Medium
+
+Author: Richard Harding Davis
+
+Posting Date: November 23, 2008 [EBook #1843]
+Release Date: August, 1999
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VERA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeetender B. Chandna
+
+
+
+
+
+VERA, THE MEDIUM
+
+By Richard Harding Davis
+
+
+
+
+Part I
+
+Happy in the hope that the news was "exclusive", the Despatch had thrown
+the name of Stephen Hallowell, his portrait, a picture of his house, and
+the words, "At Point of Death!" across three columns. The announcement
+was heavy, lachrymose, bristling with the melancholy self-importance
+of the man who "saw the deceased, just two minutes before the train hit
+him."
+
+But the effect of the news fell short of the effort. Save that city
+editors were irritated that the presidents of certain railroads figured
+hastily on slips of paper, the fact that an old man and his millions
+would soon be parted, left New York undisturbed.
+
+In the early 80's this would not have been so. Then, in the uplifting of
+the far West, Stephen Hallowell was a national figure, in the manoeuvres
+of the Eastern stock market an active, alert power. In those days, when
+a man with a few millions was still listed as rich, his fortune was
+considered colossal.
+
+A patent coupling-pin, the invention of his brother-in-law, had given
+him his start, and, in introducing it, and in his efforts to force it
+upon the new railroads of the West, he had obtained a knowledge of their
+affairs. From that knowledge came his wealth. That was twenty years
+ago. Since then giants had arisen in the land; men whose wealth made
+the fortune of Stephen Hallowell appear a comfortable competence, his
+schemes and stratagems, which, in their day, had bewildered Wall Street,
+as simple as the trading across the counter of a cross-roads store. For
+years he had been out of it. He had lost count. Disuse and ill health
+had rendered his mind feeble, made him at times suspicious, at times
+childishly credulous. Without friends, along with his physician and the
+butler, who was also his nurse, he lived in the house that in 76, in
+a burst of vanity, he had built on Fifth Avenue. Then the house was a
+"mansion," and its front of brown sandstone the outward sign of wealth
+and fashion. Now, on one side, it rubbed shoulders with the shop of a
+man milliner, and across the street the houses had been torn down and
+replaced by a department store. Now, instead of a sombre jail-like
+facade, his outlook was a row of waxen ladies, who, before each change
+of season, appeared in new and gorgeous raiment, and, across the avenue,
+for his approval, smiled continually.
+
+"It is time you moved, Stephen," urged his friend and lawyer, Judge
+Henry Gaylor. "I can get you twice as much for this lot as you paid for
+both it and the house."
+
+But Mr. Hallowell always shook his head. "Where would I go, Henry?"
+he would ask. "What would I do with the money? No, I will live in this
+house until I am carried out of it."
+
+With distaste, the irritated city editors "followed up" the three-column
+story of the Despatch.
+
+"Find out if there's any truth in that," they commanded. "The old man
+won't see you, but get a talk out of Rainey. And see Judge Gaylor. He's
+close to Hallowell. Find out from him if that story didn't start as a
+bear yarn in Wall Street."
+
+So, when Walsh of the Despatch was conducted by Garrett, the butler of
+Mr. Hallowell, upstairs to that gentlemen's library, he found a group of
+reporters already entrenched. At the door that opened from the library
+to the bedroom, the butler paused. "What paper shall I say?" he asked.
+
+"The Despatch," Walsh told him.
+
+The servant turned quickly and stared at Walsh.
+
+He appeared the typical butler, an Englishman of over forty, heavily
+built, soft-moving, with ruddy, smooth-shaven cheeks and prematurely
+gray hair. But now from his face the look of perfunctory politeness had
+fallen; the subdued voice had changed to a snarl that carried with it
+the accents of the Tenderloin.
+
+"So, you're the one, are you?" the man muttered.
+
+For a moment he stood scowling; insolent, almost threatening, and then,
+once more, the servant opened the door and noiselessly closed it behind
+him.
+
+The transition had been so abrupt, the revelation so unexpected, that
+the men laughed.
+
+"I don't blame him!" said young Irving. "I couldn't find a single fact
+in the whole story. How'd your people get it--pretty straight?"
+
+"Seemed straight to us," said Walsh.
+
+"Well, you didn't handle it that way," returned the other. "Why didn't
+you quote Rainey or Gaylor? It seems to me if a man's on the point of
+death"--he lowered his voice and glanced toward the closed door--"that
+his private doctor and his lawyer might know something about it."
+
+Standing alone with his back to the window was a reporter who had
+greeted no one and to whom no one had spoken.
+
+Had he held himself erect he would have been tall, but he stood
+slouching lazily, his shoulders bent, his hands in his pockets. When he
+spoke his voice was in keeping with the indolence of his bearing. It was
+soft, hesitating, carrying with it the courteous deference of the South.
+Only his eyes showed that to what was going forward he was alert and
+attentive.
+
+"Is Dr. Rainey Mr. Hallowell's family doctor?" he asked.
+
+
+Irving surveyed him in amused superiority.
+
+"He is!" he answered. "You been long in New York?" he asked.
+
+Upon the stranger the sarcasm was lost, or he chose to ignore it, for he
+answered simply, "No, I'm a New Orleans boy. I've just been taken on the
+Republic."
+
+"Welcome to our city," said Irving. "What do you think of our Main
+Street?"
+
+From the hall a tall portly man entered the room with the assurance of
+one much at home here and, with an exclamation, Irving fell upon him.
+
+"Good morning, Judge," he called. He waved at him the clipping from the
+Despatch. "Have you seen this?"
+
+Judge Gaylor accepted the slip of paper gingerly, and in turn moved
+his fine head pompously toward each of the young men. Most of them
+were known to him, but for the moment he preferred to appear too deeply
+concerned to greet them. With an expression of shocked indignation, he
+recognized only Walsh.
+
+"Yes, I have seen it," he said, "and there is not a word of truth in it!
+Mr. Walsh, I am surprised! You, of all people!"
+
+"We got it on very good authority," said the reporter.
+
+"But why not call me up and get the facts?" demanded the Judge. "I was
+here until twelve o'clock, and--"
+
+"Here!" interrupted Irving. "Then he did have a collapse?"
+
+Judge Gaylor swung upon his heel.
+
+"Certainly not," he retorted angrily. "I was here on business, and I
+have never known his mind more capable, more alert." He lifted his hands
+with an enthusiastic gesture. "I wish you could have seen him!"
+
+"Well," urged Irving, "how about our seeing him now?"
+
+For a moment Judge Gaylor permitted his annoyance to appear, but he at
+once recovered and, murmuring cheerfully, "Certainly, certainly; I'll
+try to arrange it," turned to the butler who had re-entered the room.
+
+"Garett," he inquired, "is Mr. Hallowell awake yet?" As he asked the
+question his eyebrows rose; with an almost imperceptible shake of the
+head he signaled for an answer in the negative.
+
+"Well, there you are!" the Judge exclaimed heartily. "I can't wake him,
+even to oblige you. In a word, gentlemen, Stephen Hallowell has never
+been in better health, mentally and bodily. You can say that from
+me--and that's all there is to say."
+
+"Then, we can say," persisted Irving, "that you say, that Walsh's story
+is a fake?"
+
+"You can say it is not true," corrected Gaylor. "That's all, gentlemen."
+The audience was at an end. The young men moved toward the hall and
+Judge Gaylor turned to the bedroom. As he did so, he found that the new
+man on the Republic still held his ground.
+
+
+"Could I have a word with you, sir?" the stranger asked. The reporters
+halted jealously. Again Gaylor showed his impatience.
+
+"About Mr. Hallowell's health?" he demanded. "There's nothing more to
+say."
+
+"No, it's not about his health," ventured the reporter.
+
+"Well, not now. I am very late this morning." The Judge again moved to
+the bedroom and the reporter, as though accepting the verdict, started
+to follow the others. As he did so, as though in explanation or as a
+warning he added: "You said to always come to you for the facts."
+The lawyer halted, hesitated. "What facts do you want?" he asked. The
+reporter bowed, and waved his broad felt hat toward the listening men.
+In polite embarrassment he explained what he had to say could not be
+spoken in their presence.
+
+Something in the manner of the stranger led Judge Gaylor to pause. He
+directed Garrett to accompany the reporters from the room. Then, with
+mock politeness, he turned to the one who remained. "I take it, you are
+a new comer in New York journalism. What is your name?" he asked.
+
+"My name is Homer Lee," said the Southerner. "I am a New Orleans boy.
+I've been only a month in your city. Judge," he began earnestly, but in
+a voice which still held the drawl of the South, "I met a man from home
+last week on Broadway. He belonged to that spiritualistic school on
+Carondelet Street. He knows all that's going on in the spook world,
+and he tells me the ghost raisers have got their hooks into the old man
+pretty deep. Is that so?"
+
+The bewilderment of Judge Gaylor was complete and, without question,
+genuine.
+
+"I don't know what you mean," he said.
+
+"My informant tells me," continued the reporter, "that Mr. Hallowell has
+embraced--if that's what you call it--spiritualism."
+
+Gaylor started forward.
+
+"What!" he roared.
+
+Unmoved, the other regarded the Judge keenly.
+
+"Spiritualism," he repeated, "and that a bunch of these mediums have got
+him so hypnotized he can't call his soul his own, or his money, either.
+Is that true?"
+
+Judge Gaylor's outburst was overwhelming. That it was genuine Mr. Lee,
+observing him closely, was convinced.
+
+"Of all the outrageous, ridiculous"--the judge halted, gasping for
+words--"and libelous statements!" he went on. "If you print that,"
+he thundered, "Mr. Hallowell will sue your paper for half a million
+dollars. Can't you see the damage you would do? Can't your people see
+that if the idea got about that he was unable to direct his own affairs,
+that he was in the hands of mediums, it would invalidate everything he
+does? After his death, every act of his at this time, every paper he
+had signed, would be suspected, and--and"--stammered the Judge as his
+imagination pictured what might follow--"they might even attack his
+will!" He advanced truculently. "Do you mean to publish this libel?"
+
+Lee moved his shoulders in deprecation. "I'm afraid we must," he said.
+
+"You must!" demanded Gaylor. "After what I've told you? Do you think I'm
+lying to you?"
+
+"No," said the reporter; "I don't think you are. Looks more like you
+didn't know."
+
+"Not know? I?" Gaylor laughed hysterically. "I am his lawyer. I am his
+best friend! Who will you believe?" He stepped to the table and pressed
+an electric button, and Garrett appeared in the hall. "Tell Dr. Rainey I
+want to see him," Gaylor commanded, "and return with him."
+
+As they waited, Judge Gaylor paced quickly to and fro. "I've had to deny
+some pretty silly stories about Mr. Hallowell," he said, "but of all
+the absurd, malicious--There's some enemy back of this; some one in Wall
+Street is doing this. But I'll find him--I'll--" he was interrupted
+by the entrance of the butler and Dr. Rainey, Mr. Hallowell's personal
+physician.
+
+Rainey was a young man with a weak face, and knowing, shifting eyes
+that blinked behind a pair of eyeglasses. To conceal an indecision of
+character of which he was quite conscious, he assumed a manner that,
+according to whom he addressed, was familiar or condescending. At one
+of the big hospitals he had been an ambulance surgeon and resident
+physician, later he had started upon a somewhat doubtful career as a
+medical "expert." Only two years had passed since the police and
+the reporters of the Tenderloin had ceased calling him "Doc." In a
+celebrated criminal case in which Gaylor had acted as chief counsel, he
+had found Rainey complaisant and apparently totally without the moral
+sense. And when in Garrett he had discovered for Mr. Hallowell a model
+servant, he had also urged upon his friend, for his resident physician,
+his protege Rainey.
+
+Still at white heat, the older man began abruptly: "This gentleman is
+from the Republic. He is going to publish a story that Mr. Hallowell has
+fallen under the influence of mediums, clairvoyants; that everything he
+does is on advice from the spirit world--" he turned sharply upon Lee.
+"Is that right?" The reporter nodded.
+
+"You can see the effect of such a story. It would invalidate every act
+of Mr. Hallowell's!"
+
+Dr. Rainey laughed offensively.
+
+"It might," he said, "but who'd believe it?"
+
+"He believes it!" cried Gaylor, "or he pretends to believe it. Tell
+him!" he commanded. "He won't believe me. Does Mr. Hallowell associate
+with mediums, and spirits--and spooks?"
+
+Again the young doctor laughed.
+
+"Of course not!" he exclaimed. "It's not worth answering, Judge. You
+ought to treat it with silent contempt." From behind his glasses he
+winked at the reporter with a jocular, intimate smile. He was adapting
+himself to what he imagined was his company. "Where did you pick up that
+pipe dream?" he asked.
+
+Without answering, the Southerner regarded him steadily with inquiring,
+interested eyes. The doctor coughed nervously and turned to Judge
+Gaylor. In the manner of a cross-examination Gaylor called up his next
+witness.
+
+"Garrett, does any one visit Mr. Hallowell without your knowledge?" he
+asked. "You may not open the door for him, but you know every one who
+gets in to see Mr. Hallowell, do you not?"
+
+"Every one, sir."
+
+"Do you admit any mediums, palm-readers, or people of that sort?"
+
+"Certainly not," returned the butler.
+
+"Dr. Rainey," he added, "would not permit it, sir."
+
+Gaylor stamped his foot with impatience.
+
+"Do you admit any one," he demanded, "without Dr. Rainey's permission?"
+
+"No, sir!" The reply could not have rung with greater emphasis.
+Triumphantly, Gaylor, with a wave of the hand, as though saying, "Take
+the witness," turned to Lee. "There you are," he cried. "Now, are you
+satisfied?"
+
+The reporter moved slowly toward the door. "I am satisfied," he said,
+"that the man doesn't admit any one without Dr. Rainey's permission."
+
+Indignantly, as though to intercept him, Judge Gaylor stepped forward.
+Both Rainey and himself spoke together.
+
+"What do you mean by that?" Rainey demanded.
+
+"Are you trying to be insolent, sir?" cried the Judge.
+
+Lee smiled pleasantly. "I had no intention of being insolent," he said.
+"We have the facts--I only came to give you a chance to explain them."
+
+Gaylor lost all patience.
+
+"What facts?" he shouted. "What facts? That mediums come here?"
+
+"Yes," said Lee.
+
+"When?" Gaylor cried. "Tell me that! When?"
+
+Lee regarded the older man thoughtfully.
+
+"Well, today is Thursday," he said. "They were here Monday morning, and
+Tuesday morning--and--the one they call Vera--will be here in half an
+hour."
+
+Rainey ran across the room, stretching out eager, detaining hands.
+
+"See here!" he begged. "We can fix this!"
+
+"Fix it?" said the reporter. "Not with me, you can't." He turned to the
+door and found Garrett barring his exit. He halted, fell back on his
+heels, and straightened his shoulders. For the first time they saw how
+tall he was.
+
+"Get out of my way," he said. The butler hesitated and fell back. Lee
+walked into the hall.
+
+"I'll leave you gentlemen to fight it out among you," he said. "It's a
+better story than I thought."
+
+As he descended to the floor below, the men remained motionless. The
+face of Judge Gaylor seemed to have grown older. When the front
+door closed, he turned and searched the countenance of each of his
+companions. The butler had dropped into a chair muttering and beating
+his fist into his open palm.
+
+Gaylor's voice was hardly louder than a whisper. "Is this true?" he
+asked.
+
+Like a cur dog pinned in a corner and forced to fight, Rainey snarled at
+him evilly. "Of course it's true," he said.
+
+"You've let these people see him!" cried Gaylor. "After I forbade it?
+After I told you what would happen?"
+
+"He would see them," Rainey answered hotly. "Twas better I chose them
+than--"
+
+Gaylor raised his clenched hands and took a sudden step forward. The
+Doctor backed hastily against the library table. "Don't you come near
+me!" he stammered. "Don't you touch me."
+
+"And you've lied to me!" cried Gaylor. "You've deceived me. You--you
+jailbirds--you idiots." His voice rose hysterically. "And do you think,"
+he demanded fiercely, "I'll help you now?"
+
+"No!" said the butler.
+
+The word caught the Judge in the full rush of his anger. He turned
+stupidly as though he had not heard aright. "What?" he asked. From the
+easy chair the butler regarded him with sullen, hostile eyes.
+
+"No!" he repeated. "We don't think you'll help us. You never meant to
+help us. You've never thought of any one but yourself."
+
+The face of the older man was filled with reproach.
+
+"Jim!" he protested.
+
+"Don't do that!" commanded the butler sharply. "I've told you not to do
+that."
+
+The Judge moved his head slowly in amazement. The tone of reproach was
+still in his voice.
+
+"I thought you could understand," he said. "It doesn't matter about him.
+But you! You should have seen what I was doing!"
+
+"I saw what you were doing," the butler replied. "Buying stocks, buying
+a country place. You didn't wait for him to die. What were we getting?"
+
+With returning courage, Rainey nodded vigorously.
+
+"That's right, all right," he protested. "What were we getting?"
+
+"What were you getting?" demanded Gaylor, eagerly. "If you'd only left
+him to me, till he signed the new will, you'd have had everything. It
+only needs his signature."
+
+"Yes," interrupted Garrett contemptuously; "that's all it needs."
+
+"Oh, he'd have signed it!" cried Gaylor. "But what's it worth now!
+Nothing! Thanks to you two--nothing! They'll claim undue influence,
+they'll claim he signed it under the influence of mediums--of ghosts."
+His voice shook with anger and distress. "You've ruined me!" he cried.
+"You've ruined me."
+
+He turned and paced from them, his fingers interlacing, his teeth
+biting upon his lower lip. The two other men glanced at each other
+uncomfortably; their silence seemed to assure Gaylor that already they
+regretted what they had done. He stood over Garrett, and for an instant
+laid his hand upon his shoulder. His voice now was sane and cold.
+
+"I've worked three years for this," he said. "And for you, too, Jim. You
+know that. I've worked on his vanity, on his fear of death, on his damn
+superstition. When he talked of restitution, of giving the money to
+his niece, I asked Why?' I said, Leave it for a great monument to your
+memory. Isn't it better that ten million dollars should be spent in good
+works in your name than that it should go to a chit of a child to
+be wasted by some fortune hunter? And--then--I evolved the Hallowell
+Institute, university, hospital, library, all under one roof, all
+under one direction; and I would have been the director. We should have
+handled ten millions of dollars! I'd have made you both so rich," he
+cried savagely, "that in two years you'd have drunk yourselves into
+a mad-house. And you couldn't trust me! You've filled this house with
+fakes and palm-readers. And, now, every one will know just what he
+is--a senile, half-witted old man who was clay in my hands, clay in my
+hands--and you've robbed me of him, you've robbed me of him!" His voice,
+broken with anger and disappointment, rose in an hysterical wail. As
+though to meet it a bell rang shrilly. Gaylor started and stood with
+eyes fixed on the door of the bedroom. The three men eyed each other
+guiltily.
+
+The butler was the first to recover. With mask-like face he hastened
+noiselessly across the room. In his tones of usual authority, Gaylor
+stopped him.
+
+"Tell Mr. Hallowell," he directed, "that his niece and District Attorney
+Winthrop will be here any moment. Ask him if he wishes me to see them,
+or if he will talk to them himself?"
+
+When the faithful servant had entered the bedroom Gaylor turned to
+Rainey.
+
+"When do these mediums come today?" he asked.
+
+Rainey stared sulkily at the floor.
+
+"I think they're here now--downstairs," he answered. "Garrett generally
+hides them there till you're out of the house."
+
+"Indeed," commented Gaylor dryly. "After Winthrop and Miss Coates have
+gone, I want to talk with your friends."
+
+"Now, see here, Judge," whined Rainey; "don't make trouble. It isn't as
+bad as you think. The old man's only investigating--"
+
+"Hush!" commanded the Judge.
+
+From the bedroom, leaning on the butler's arm, Stephen Hallowell came
+stumbling toward them and, with a sigh, sank into an invalid's chair
+that was placed for him between the fire and the long library table..
+He was a very feeble, very old man, with a white face, and thin, white
+hair, but with a mouth and lower jaw as hard and uncompromising as those
+of a skull. His eyes, which were strangely brilliant and young-looking,
+peered suspiciously from under ragged white eyebrows. But when they fell
+upon the doctor, the eyes became suddenly credulous, pleading, filled
+with self-pity.
+
+"I'm a very sick man, Doctor," said Mr. Hallowell.
+
+Judge Gaylor bustled forward cheerily. "Nonsense, Stephen, nonsense," he
+cried; "you look a different man this morning. Doesn't he, Doctor?"
+
+"Sure he does!" assented Rainey. "Little sleep was all he needed." Mr.
+Hallowell shook his head petulantly. "Not at all!" he protested. "That
+was a very serious attack. This morning my head hurts--hurts me to
+think--"
+
+"Perhaps," said Gaylor, "you'd prefer that I talked to your niece."
+
+"No!" exclaimed the invalid excitedly. "I want to see her myself. I want
+to tell her, once and for all--" He checked himself and frowned at the
+Doctor. "You needn't wait," he said. "And Doctor," he added meaningly,
+"after these people go, you come back."
+
+With a conscious glance at the Judge, Rainey nodded and left them.
+
+"No," continued the old man; "I want to talk to my niece myself. But I
+don't want to talk to Winthrop. He's too clever a young man, Winthrop.
+In the merger case, you remember--had me on the stand for three hours.
+Made me talk too." The mind of the old man suddenly veered at a tangent.
+"How the devil can Helen retain him?" he demanded peevishly. "She can't
+retain him. She hasn't any money. And he's District Attorney too. It's
+against the law. Is he doing it as a speculation? Does he want to marry
+her?"
+
+Judge Gaylor laughed soothingly.
+
+"Heavens, no!" he said. "She's in his office, that's all. When she
+took this craze to be independent of you, he gave her a position as
+secretary, or as stenographer, or something. She's probably told him her
+story, her side of it, and he's helping her out of charity." The Judge
+smiled tolerantly. "He does that sort of thing, I believe."
+
+The old man struck the library table with his palm. "I wish he'd mind
+his own business," he cried. "It's my money. She has no claim to it,
+never had any claim--"
+
+The Judge interrupted quickly.
+
+"That's all right, Stephen; that's all right," he said. "Don't excite
+yourself. Just get what you're to say straight in your mind and stick to
+it. Remember," he went on, as though coaching a child in a task already
+learned, "there never was a written agreement.
+
+"No!" muttered Hallowell. "Never was!"
+
+"Repeat this to yourself," commanded the Judge. "The understanding
+between you and your brother-in-law was that if you placed his patent
+on the market, for the first five years you would share the profits
+equally. After the five years, all rights in the patent became yours. It
+was unfortunate," commented the Judge dryly, "that your brother-in-law
+and your sister died before the five years were up, especially as
+the patent did not begin to make money until after five years.
+Remember--until after five years."
+
+"Until after five years," echoed Mr. Hallowell. "It was over six years,"
+he went on excitedly, "before it made a cent. And, then, it was my
+money--and anything I give my niece is charity. She's not entitled--"
+
+Garrett appeared at the door. "Miss Coates," he announced, "and Mr.
+Winthrop." Judge Gaylor raised a hand for silence, and as Mr. Hallowell
+sank back in his chair, Helen Coates, the only child of Catherine
+Coates, his sister, and the young District Attorney of New York came
+into the library. Miss Coates was a woman of between twenty-five and
+thirty, capable, and self-reliant. She had a certain beauty of a severe
+type, but an harassed expression about her eyes made her appear to be
+always frowning. At times, in a hardening of the lower part of her face,
+she showed a likeness to her uncle. Like him, in speaking, also, her
+manner was positive and decided.
+
+In age the young man who accompanied her was ten years her senior, but
+where her difficulties had made her appear older than she really was,
+the enthusiasm with which he had thrown himself against those of his own
+life, had left him young.
+
+The rise of Winthrop had been swift and spectacular. Almost as soon as
+he graduated from the college in the little "up-state" town where he
+had been educated, and his family had always lived, he became the
+prosecuting attorney of that town, and later, at Albany, represented
+the district in the Assembly. From Albany he entered a law office in
+New York City, and in the cause of reform had fought so many good fights
+that on an independent ticket, much to his surprise, he had been lifted
+to the high position he now held. No more in his manner than in his
+appearance did Winthrop suggest the popular conception of his role. He
+was not professional, not mysterious. Instead, he was sane, cheerful,
+tolerant. It was his philosophy to believe that the world was innocent
+until it was proved guilty.
+
+He was a bachelor and, except for two sisters who had married men of
+prominence in New York and who moved in a world of fashion into which he
+had not penetrated, he was alone.
+
+When the visitors entered, Mr. Hallowell, without rising, greeted his
+niece cordially.
+
+"Ah, Helen! I am glad to see you," he called, and added reproachfully,
+"at last."
+
+"How do you do, sir?" returned Miss Helen stiffly. With marked
+disapproval she bowed to Judge Gaylor.
+
+"And our District Attorney," cried Mr. Hallowell. "Pardon my not rising,
+won't you? I haven't seen you, sir, since you tried to get the Grand
+Jury to indict me." He chucked delightedly. "You didn't succeed," he
+taunted.
+
+Winthrop shook hands with him, smiling, "Don't blame me," he said, "I
+did my best. I'm glad to see you in such good spirits, Mr. Hallowell. I
+feared, by the Despatch--"
+
+"Lies, lies," interrupted Hallowell curtly. "You know Judge Gaylor?"
+
+As he shook hands, Winthrop answered that the Judge and he were old
+friends; that they knew each other well.
+
+"Know each other so well!" returned the Judge, "that we ought to be old
+enemies."
+
+The younger man nodded appreciatively. "That's true!" he laughed, "only
+I didn't think you'd admit it."
+
+With light sarcasm Mr. Hallowell inquired whether Winthrop was with them
+in his official capacity.
+
+"Oh, don't suggest that!" begged Winthrop; "you'll be having me indicted
+next. No sir, I am here without any excuse whatsoever. I am just
+interfering as a friend of this young lady."
+
+"Good," commented Hallowell. "I'd be sorry to have my niece array
+counsel against me--especially such distinguished counsel. Sit down,
+Helen."
+
+Miss Coates balanced herself on the edge of a chair and spoke in cool,
+business-like tones, "Mr. Hallowell," she began, "I came."
+
+"Mr. Hallowell?" objected her uncle.
+
+"Uncle Stephen," Miss Coates again began, "I wish to be as brief as
+possible. I asked you to see me today because I hoped that by talking
+things over we might avoid lawsuits and litigation."
+
+Mr. Hallowell nodded his approval. "Yes," he said encouragingly.
+
+"I have told Mr. Winthrop what the trouble is," Miss Coates went on,
+"and he agrees with me that I have been very unjustly treated--"
+
+"By whom?" interrupted Hallowell.
+
+"By you," said his niece.
+
+"Wait, Helen," commanded the old man. "Have you also told Mr. Winthrop,"
+he demanded, "that I have made a will in your favor? That, were I to
+die tonight, you would inherit ten millions of dollars? Is that the
+injustice of which you complain?"
+
+Judge Gaylor gave an exclamation of pleasure.
+
+"Good!" he applauded. "Excellent!"
+
+Hallowell turned indignantly to Winthrop. "And did she tell you also,"
+he demanded, "that for three years I have urged her to make a home in
+this house? That I have offered her an income as large as I would
+give my own daughter, and that she has refused both offers. And what's
+more"--in his excitement his voice rose hysterically--"by working
+publicly for her living she has made me appear mean and uncharitable,
+and--"
+
+"That's just it," interrupted Miss Coates. "It isn't a question of
+charity."
+
+"Will you allow me?" said Winthrop soothingly. "Your niece contends,
+sir," he explained, "that this money you offered her is not yours to
+offer. She claims it belongs to her. That it's what should have been her
+father's share of the profits on the Coates-Hallowell coupling pin. But,
+as you have willed your niece so much money, although half of it is
+hers already, I advised her not to fight. Going to law is an expensive
+business. But she has found out--and that's what brings me uptown this
+morning--that you intend to make a new will, and leave all her money and
+your own to establish the Hallowell Institute. Now," Winthrop continued,
+with a propitiating smile, "Miss Coates also would like to be a
+philanthropist, in her own way, with her own money. And she wishes to
+warn you that, unless you deliver up what is due her, she will proceed
+against you."
+
+Judge Gaylor was the first to answer.
+
+"Mr. Winthrop," he said impressively, "I give you my word, there is not
+one dollar due Miss Coates, except what Mr. Hallowell pleases to give
+her."
+
+Miss Coates contradicted him sharply. "That is not so," she said. She
+turned to her uncle, "You and my father," she declared, "agreed in
+writing you would share the profits always." Mr. Hallowell looked from
+his niece to his lawyer. The lawyer, eyeing him apprehensively, nodded.
+With the patient voice of one who tried to reason with an unreasonable
+child, Mr. Hallowell began. "Helen," he said, "I have told you many
+times there never was such an agreement. There was a verbal--"
+
+"And I repeat, I saw it," said Miss Coates.
+
+"When?" asked Hallowell.
+
+"I saw it first when I was fifteen," answered the young woman steadily,
+"and two years later, before mother died, she showed it to me again. It
+was with father's papers."
+
+"Miss Coates," asked the Judge, "where is this agreement now?"
+
+For a moment Miss Coates hesitated. Her dislike for Gaylor was so
+evident that, to make it less apparent, she lowered her eyes. "My
+uncle should be able to tell you," she said evenly. "He was my father's
+executor. But, when he returned my father's papers"--she paused and
+then, although her voice fell to almost a whisper, continued defiantly,
+"the agreement was not with them."
+
+There was a moment's silence. To assure himself the others had heard as
+he did, Mr. Hallowell glanced quickly from Winthrop to Gaylor. He half
+rose from his chair and leaned across the table.
+
+"What!" he demanded. His niece looked at him steadily.
+
+"You heard what I said," she answered.
+
+The old man leaned farther forward.
+
+"So!" he cried; "so! I am not only doing you an injustice, but I am
+a thief! Mr. Winthrop," he cried appealingly, "do you appreciate the
+seriousness of this?"
+
+Winthrop nodded cheerfully. "It's certainly pretty serious," he
+assented.
+
+"It is so serious," cried Mr. Hallowell, "that I welcome you into this
+matter. Now, we will settle it once and forever." He turned to his
+niece. "I have tried to be generous," he cried; "I have tried to be
+kind, and you insult me in my own house." He pressed the button that
+summoned the butler from the floor below. "Gentlemen, this interview is
+at an end. From now on this matter is in the hands of my lawyer. We will
+settle this in the courts."
+
+With an exclamation of pleasure that was an acceptance of his challenge,
+Miss Coates rose.
+
+"That is satisfactory to me," she said. Winthrop turned to Mr.
+Hallowell.
+
+"Could I have a few minutes talk with Judge Gaylor now?" he asked. "Not
+as anybody's counsel," he explained; "just as an old enemy of his?"
+
+"Well, not here," protested the old man querulously. "I'm--I'm expecting
+some friends here. Judge, take Mr. Winthrop to the drawing room
+downstairs." He turned to Garrett, who had appeared in answer to his
+summons, and told him to bring Dr. Rainey to the library. The butler
+left the room and, as Gaylor and Winthrop followed, the latter asked
+Miss Coates if he might expect to see her at the "Office." She told him
+that she was now on her way there. Without acknowledging the presence
+of her uncle, she had started to follow the others, when Mr. Hallowell
+stopped her.
+
+After they were alone, for a moment he sat staring at her, his eyes
+filled with dislike and with a suggestion of childish spite. "I might as
+well tell you," he began, "that after what you said this morning, I will
+never give you a single dollar of my money."
+
+The tone in which his niece replied to him was no more conciliatory than
+his own. "You cannot give it to me," she answered, "because it is not
+yours to give." As though to add impressiveness to what she was about
+to say, or to prevent his interrupting her, she raised her hand. So
+interested in each other were the old man and the girl that neither
+noticed the appearance in the door of Dr. Rainey and the butler, who
+halted, hesitating, waiting permission to enter.
+
+"That money belongs to me," said Miss Coates slowly, "and as sure as
+my mother is in Heaven and her spirit is guiding me, that money will be
+given me."
+
+In the pause that followed, a swift and singular change came over the
+face of Mr. Hallowell. He stared at his niece as though fascinated.
+His lower lip dropped in awe. The look of hostility gave way to one of
+intense interest. His voice was hardly louder than a whisper.
+
+"What do you mean?" he demanded.
+
+The girl looked at him, uncomprehending. "What do I mean?" she repeated.
+
+"When you said," he stammered eagerly, "that the spirit of your mother
+was guiding you, what did you mean?"
+
+In the doorway, Rainey and the butler started. Each threw the other a
+quick glance of concern.
+
+"Why," exclaimed the girl impatiently, "her influence, her example, what
+she taught me."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the old man. He leaned back with an air almost of
+disappointment.
+
+"When she was alive?" he said.
+
+"Of course," answered the girl.
+
+"Of course," repeated the uncle. "I thought you meant--" He looked
+suspiciously at her and shook his head. "Never mind," he added. "Well,"
+he went on cynically, striving to cover up the embarrassment of the
+moment, "your mother's spirit will probably feel as deep an interest in
+her brother as in her daughter. We shall see, we shall see which of us
+two she is going to help." He turned to Garrett and Rainey in the hall.
+"Take my niece to the door, Garrett," he directed.
+
+As soon as Miss Coates had disappeared, Hallowell turned to Rainey, his
+face lit with pleased and childish anticipation.
+
+"Well," he whispered eagerly, "is she here?"
+
+Rainey nodded and glanced in the direction opposite to the one Miss
+Coates had taken. "She's been waiting half an hour. And the Professor
+too."
+
+"Bring them at once," commanded Mr. Hallowell excitedly. "And then shut
+the door--and--and tell the Judge I can't see him--tell him I'm too
+tired to see him. Understand?"
+
+Rainey peered cautiously over the railing of the stairs to the first
+floor, and then beckoned to some one who apparently was waiting at the
+end of the hall.
+
+"Miss Vera, sir," he announced, "and Professor Vance."
+
+Although but lately established in New York, the persons Dr. Rainey
+introduced had already made themselves comparatively well-known. For the
+last six weeks as "headliners" at one of the vaudeville theatres, and
+as entertainers at private houses, under the firm name of "The Vances,"
+they had been giving an exhibition of code and cipher signaling. They
+called it mind reading. During the day, at the house of Vance and his
+wife, the girl, as "Vera, the Medium," furnished to all comers memories
+of the past or news of the future. In their profession, in all of its
+branches, the man and the girl were past masters. They knew it from the
+A, B, C of the dream book to the post-graduate work of projecting from a
+cabinet the spirits of the dead. As the occasion offered and paid
+best, they were mind readers, clairvoyants, materializing mediums, test
+mediums. From them, a pack of cards, a crystal globe, the lines of the
+human hand, held no secrets. They found lost articles, cast horoscopes,
+gave advice in affairs of the heart, of business and speculation,
+uttered warnings of journeys over seas and against a smooth-shaven
+stranger. They even stooped to foretell earthquakes, or caused to drop
+fluttering from the ceiling a letter straight from the Himalayas. Among
+those who are the gypsies of the cities, they were the aristocrats of
+their calling, and to them that calling was as legitimate a business as
+is, to the roadside gypsy, the swapping of horses. The fore-parents
+of each had followed that same calling, and to the children it was
+commonplace and matter-of-fact. It held no adventure, no moral obloquy.
+
+"Prof." Paul Vance was a young man of under forty years. He looked like
+a fox. He had red eyes, alert and cunning, a long, sharp-pointed nose,
+a pointed red beard, and red eyebrows that slanted upward. His hair,
+standing erect in a pompadour, and his uplifted eyebrows gave him the
+watchful look of the fox when he hears suddenly the hound baying in
+pursuit. But no one had ever successfully pursued Vance. No one had ever
+driven him into a corner from which, either pleasantly, or with raging
+indignation, he was not able to free himself. Seven years before he had
+disloyally married out of the "profession" and for no other reason than
+that he was in love with the woman he married. She had come to seek
+advice from the spirit world in regard to taking a second husband. After
+several visits the spirit world had advised Vance to advise her to marry
+Vance.
+
+She did so, and though the man was still in love with his wife, he had
+not found her, in his work, the assistance he had hoped she might
+be. She still was a "believer"; in the technical vernacular of her
+husband--"a dope." Not even the intimate knowledge she had gained
+behind the scenes could persuade her that Paul, her husband, was not in
+constant communication with the spirit world, or that, if he wished, he
+could not read the thoughts that moved slowly through her pretty head.
+
+At the time of his marriage, the girl Vera, then a child of fourteen,
+had written to Vance for help. She was ill, without money, and asked for
+work. To him she was known as the last of a long line of people who had
+always been professional mediums and spiritualists, and, out of
+charity and from a sense of noblesse oblige to one of the elect of the
+profession, Vance had made her his assistant. He had never regretted
+having done so. The bread cast upon the waters was returned a
+thousandfold. From the first, the girl brought in money. And his wife,
+the older of the two, had welcomed her as a companion. After a fashion
+the Vances had adopted her. In the advertisements she was described as
+their "ward."
+
+Vera now was twenty-one, tall, wonderfully graceful, and of the most
+enchanting loveliness. Her education had been cosmopolitan. In the
+largest cities of America she had met persons of every class--young
+women, old women, mothers with married sons and daughters; women of
+society as it is exploited in the Sunday supplements; school girls, shop
+girls, factory girls--all had told her their troubles; and men of every
+condition had come to scoff and had remained to express, more or less
+offensively, their admiration. Some of the younger of these, after a
+first visit, returned the day following, and each begged the beautiful
+priestess of the occult to fly with him, to live with him, to marry
+him. When this happened Vera would touch a button, and "Mannie" Day,
+who admitted visitors, and later, in the hall, searched their hats and
+umbrellas for initials, came on the run and threw the infatuated one out
+upon a cold and unfeeling sidewalk.
+
+So Vera had seen both the seamy side of life and, in the drawing rooms
+where Vance and she exhibited their mind reading tricks, had been made
+much of by great ladies and, for an hour as brief as Cinderella's,
+had looked upon a world of kind and well-bred people. Since she was
+fourteen, for seven years, this had been her life--a life as open to
+the public as the life of an actress, as easy of access as that of
+the stenographer in the hotel lobby. As a result, the girl had encased
+herself in a defensive armor of hardness and distrust, a protection
+which was rendered futile by the loveliness of her face, by the softness
+of her voice, by the deep, brooding eyes, and the fine forehead on
+which, like a crown, rested the black waves of her hair.
+
+In her work Vera accepted, without question, the parts to which Vance
+assigned her. When in their mummeries they were successful, she neither
+enjoyed the credulity of those they had tricked nor was sobered with
+remorse. In the world Vance found a certain number of people with money
+who demanded to be fooled. It was his business and hers to meet that
+demand. If ever the conscience of either stirred restlessly, Vance
+soothed it by the easy answer that if they did not take the money some
+one else would. It was all in the day's work. It was her profession.
+
+As she entered the library of Mr. Hallowell, which, with Vance, she
+already had visited several times, she looked like a child masquerading
+in her mother's finery. She suggested an ingenue who had been suddenly
+sent on in the role of the Russian adventuress. Her slight girl's figure
+was draped in black lace. Her face was shaded by a large picture
+hat, heavy with drooping ostrich feathers; around her shoulders was a
+necklace of jade, and on her wrists many bracelets of silver gilt. When
+she moved they rattled. As the girl advanced, smiling, to greet Mr.
+Hallowell, she suddenly stopped, shivered slightly, and threw her right
+arm across her eyes. Her left arm she stretched over the table.
+
+"Give me your hand!" she commanded. Dubiously, with a watchful glance at
+Vance, Mr. Hallowell leaned forward and took her hand.
+
+"You have been ill," cried the girl; "very ill--I see you--I see you
+in a kind of faint--very lately." Her voice rose excitedly. "Yes, last
+night."
+
+Mr. Hallowell protested with indignation. "You read that in the morning
+paper," he said.
+
+Vera lowered her arm from her eyes and turned them reproachfully on him.
+
+"I don't read the Despatch," she answered.
+
+Mr. Hallowell drew back suspiciously. "I didn't say it was the
+Despatch," he returned.
+
+Vance quickly interposed. "You don't have to say it," he explained
+with glibness; "you thought it. And Vera read your thoughts. You
+were thinking of the Despatch, weren't you? Well, there you are! It's
+wonderful!"
+
+"Wonderful? Nonsense!" mocked Mr. Hallowell. "She did read it in the
+paper or Rainey told her."
+
+The girl shrugged her shoulders patiently. "If you would rather find
+out you were ill from the newspapers than from the spirit world," she
+inquired, "why do you ask me here?"
+
+"I ask you here, young woman," exclaimed Hallowell, sinking back in his
+chair, "because I hoped you would tell me something I can't learn from
+the newspapers. But you haven't been able to do it yet. My dear young
+lady," exclaimed the old man wistfully, "I want to believe, but I must
+be convinced. No tricks with me! I can explain how you might have found
+out everything you have told me. Give me a sign!" He beat the flat of
+his hand upon the table. "Show me something I can't explain!"
+
+"Mr. Hallowell is quite right, Vera," said Vance. "He is entering what
+is to him a new world, full of mysteries, and that caution which in this
+world has made him so successful--"
+
+With an exclamation, Hallowell cut short the patter of the showman.
+
+"Yes, yes," he interrupted petulantly; "I tell you, I want to believe.
+Convince me."
+
+Considering the situation with pursed lips and thoughtful eyes, Vera
+gazed at the old man, frowning. Finally she asked, "Have you witnessed
+out demonstrations of mind reading?"
+
+Mr. Hallowell snorted. "Certainly not," he replied; "it's a trick!"
+
+"A trick!" cried the girl indignantly, "to read a man's mind--to see
+right through your forehead, through your skull, into your brain? Is
+that a trick?" She turned sharply to Vance. "Show him!" she commanded;
+"show him!" She crossed rapidly to the window and stood looking down
+into the street, with her back to the room.
+
+Vance, with his back turned to Vera, stood close to the table, on the
+other side of which Hallowell was reclining in his arm chair. Vance
+picked up a pen holder.
+
+"Think of what I have in my hand, please," he said. "What is this,
+Vera?" he asked. The girl, gazing from the window at the traffic in the
+avenue below her, answered with indifference, "A pen holder."
+
+"Yes, what about it?" snapped Vance.
+
+"Gold pen holder," Vera answered more rapidly. "Much engraving--initials
+S. H.--Mr. Hallowell's initials--"
+
+"There is a date too. Can you--"
+
+"December--" Vera hesitated.
+
+"Go on," commanded Vance.
+
+"Twenty-five, one, eight, eight, six; one thousand eight hundred and
+eighty-six." She moved her shoulders impatiently.
+
+"Oh, tell him to think of something difficult," she said.
+
+From behind Mr. Hallowell's chair Rainey signaled to Vance to take
+from the table a photograph frame of silver which held the picture of a
+woman.
+
+Vance picked it up, holding it close to him.
+
+"What have I here, Vera?" he asked.
+
+Hallowell, seeing what Vance held in his hand, leaned forward. "Put that
+down!" he commanded. But Vera had already begun to answer.
+
+"A picture, a picture of a young woman. Ask him to think of who it is
+and I will tell him."
+
+At the words Mr. Hallowell hesitated, frowned, and then nodded.
+
+"It is his sister," called Vera. "Her name was--I seem to get a
+Catherine--yes, that's it; Catherine Coates. She is no longer with
+us. She passed into the spirit world three years ago." The girl turned
+suddenly and approached the table, holding her head high, as though
+offended.
+
+"How do you explain that trick?" she demanded.
+
+Mr. Hallowell moved uneasily in his chair. "Oh, the picture's been on my
+desk each time you've been here," he answered dubiously. "Rainey could
+have told you."
+
+"As a matter of fact, I didn't," said Rainey.
+
+Hallowell's eyes lightened with interest. "Didn't you?" he asked. He
+turned to Vera. "If you can read my mind," he challenged--"you," he
+added, pointing at Vance, "keep out of this now--tell me of what I am
+thinking." As Vance drew back, Rainey and himself exchanged a quick
+glance of apprehension, but the girl promptly closed her eyes, and at
+once, in a dull, measured tone, began to speak.
+
+"You were thinking you would like to ask a question of some one in the
+spirit," she recited. "But you are afraid. You do not trust me. You will
+wait until I give you a sign; then you will ask that question of some
+one dear to you, who has passed beyond, and she will answer, and your
+troubles will be at an end." She opened her eyes and stared at Mr.
+Hallowell like one coming out of a dream. "What did I say?" she asked.
+"Was I right?"
+
+Hallowell slank back in his chair, shaking his head.
+
+"Yes," he began grudgingly, "but--"
+
+With an eagerness hardly concealed, Vance interrupted.
+
+"What is the question you wish to ask?" he begged.
+
+With a frown of suspicion, Hallowell turned from him to Rainey.
+
+"I don't think I ought to let them know," he questioned; "do you?" But
+his attention was sharply diverted.
+
+Vera, in a hushed and solemn voice, called for silence.
+
+"My control," she explained--her tone was deep and awestruck--"is trying
+to communicate with me."
+
+Vance gave an exclamation of concern. The prospect of the phenomena
+Vera promised seemed to fill him with delightful expectations. "Be very
+quiet," he cautioned, "do not disturb her."
+
+Deeply impressed, Mr. Hallowell struggled from his chair. Unaided, he
+moved to below the table and leaning against it looked, with unwilling
+but fascinated interest, at Vera's uplifted face.
+
+"Some one in the spirit," Vera chanted, in an unemotional, drugged
+voice, "wishes to speak to Mr. Hallowell. Give me your hand."
+
+"Quick!" directed Vance, "give her your hand. Take her hand."
+
+"Yes, he is here," Vera continued. "A woman has a message for you, she
+is standing close beside you. She is holding out her arms. And she
+is trying, so hard, to tell you something. What is it?" the girl
+questioned. "Oh, what is it? Tell me," she begged. "Can't you tell me?"
+
+Hallowell eyed her greedily, waiting almost without breathing for her
+words. The hand with which he held hers crushed her rings into her
+fingers.
+
+"What sort?"--whispered the old man. "What sort of a woman?"
+
+With eyes still closed, swaying slightly and with abrupt shudders
+running down her body, the girl continued in dull, fateful tones.
+
+"She is a fair woman; about forty-five. She is speaking. She calls to
+you, Brother, brother." Vera's voice rose excitedly. "It is the woman
+in the picture; your sister! Catherine! I see it written above her
+head--Catherine. In letters of light." She turned suddenly and fiercely.
+"Ask her your question!" she commanded. "Ask her your question, now!"
+
+By the sudden swaying forward of Vance and Rainey, in the intent look
+in their eyes, it was evident that a crisis had approached. But Mr.
+Hallowell, terrified and trembling, shrank back. His voice broke
+hysterically. "No, no!" he pleaded. Both anger and disappointment showed
+in the face of Vance and Rainey; but the girl, as though detached from
+any human concerns, continued unmoved. "I see another figure," she
+recited. "A young girl, but she is of this world. I seem to get an H.
+Yes. Helen, in letters of fire."
+
+"My niece, Helen!" Hallowell whispered hoarsely.
+
+"Yes, your niece," chanted the girl. Her voice rose and thrilled. "And
+I see much gold," she cried. "Between the two women, heaps of gold.
+Everywhere I look I see gold. And, now, the other woman, your sister, is
+trying to speak to you. Listen! She calls to you, Brother!"
+
+So centered was the interest of those in the room, so compelling the
+sound of the girl's voice, that, unnoticed, the sliding doors to the
+library were slipped apart. Unobserved, Judge Gaylor and Winthrop halted
+in the doorway. To the Judge the meaning of the scene was instantly
+apparent. His face flushed furiously. Winthrop, uncomprehending, gazed
+unconcerned over Gaylor's shoulder. The voice of Vera rose hysterically
+to her climax.
+
+"She bids me tell you," Vera cried; "Tell my brother--"
+
+Gaylor swept toward her.
+
+"What damned farce is this?" he shouted.
+
+The effect of the interruption was instant and startling. Mr. Hallowell,
+who, in the last few minutes, had believed he was listening to a voice
+from the dead, collapsed upon the shoulder of Rainey, who sprang to
+support him. Like a somnambulist wrenched from sleep, Vera gave a scream
+of fright, half genuine, half assumed, and swayed as though about to
+fall. Vance caught her in his arms. He turned on Gaylor, his cunning red
+eyes flashing evilly.
+
+"You brute!" he cried, "you might have killed her."
+
+Between her sobs, Vera, her head upon the shoulder of Vance, whispered a
+question. As quickly, under cover of muttered sympathy, Vance answered:
+"Gaylor. The Judge."
+
+Still slightly swaying, Vera stood upright. She passed her hand vaguely
+before her eyes. "Where am I?" she asked feebly. "Where am I?"
+
+Gaylor shook his fist at the girl.
+
+"You know where you are!" he thundered; "and you know where you're
+going--you're going to jail!"
+
+In the hush that followed Vera drew herself to her full height. She
+regarded Gaylor wonderingly, haughtily, as though he were some drunken
+intruder from the street.
+
+"Are you speaking to me?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, to you," shouted the lawyer. "You're an imposter, and a swindler,
+and--and--"
+
+Winthrop pushed between them.
+
+"Yes, and she's a woman," he said briskly. "If you want a row, talk to
+the man."
+
+To this point the scene had brought to Vera no emotion save the
+excitement that is felt by the one who is struggling to escape. The
+appearance of a champion added a new interest. Through no fault of her
+own, she had learned by experience that to the one man who annoyed her
+there always were six to spring to her protection. So the glance she
+covertly turned upon Winthrop was one less of gratitude than curiosity.
+
+But at the first sight of him the girl started, her eyes lit with
+recognition, her face flushed. And then, although the man was in no
+way regarding her, her eyes filled, and in mortification and dismay she
+blushed crimson.
+
+His anger still unsatisfied, Gaylor turned upon Vance.
+
+"And you," he cried; "you're going to jail too. I'll drive--"
+
+The voice of Mr. Hallowell, shaken with pain and distress, rose feebly,
+beseechingly. "Henry!" he begged. "I can't stand it!"
+
+"Judge Gaylor!" thundered Rainey, "I won't be responsible if you keep
+this up."
+
+With an exclamation of remorse, Vera ran to the side of the old man.
+With Rainey on his other hand, she raised him upright upon his feet.
+
+"Lean on me," begged the girl breathlessly. "I'm very strong. Lean on
+me."
+
+Mr. Hallowell shook his head. "No, child," he protested, "not you." He
+turned to his old friend. "You help me, Henry," he begged.
+
+With the authority of the medical man, Rainey waved Vance into the
+bedroom. "Close those windows," he ordered. "You help me!" he commanded
+of Gaylor. "Put your arm under him."
+
+Mr. Hallowell, protesting feebly and leaning heavily upon the two men,
+stumbled into the bedroom, and the door was shut behind him.
+
+For a moment the girl and the man stood in silence, and then, as though
+suddenly conscious of her presence, Winthrop turned and smiled.
+
+The girl did not answer his smile. From under the shadow of the
+picture hat and the ostrich feathers her eyes regarded him searchingly,
+watchfully.
+
+For the first time, Winthrop had the chance to observe her. He saw that
+she was very young, that her clothes cruelly disguised her, that she was
+only a child masquerading as a brigand, that her face was distractingly
+lovely. Having noted this, the fact that she had driven several grown
+men to abuse and vituperation struck him as being extremely humorous;
+nor did he try to conceal his amusement. But the watchfulness in the
+eyes of the girl did not relax.
+
+"I'm afraid I interfered with your seance," said the District Attorney.
+
+The girl regarded him warily, like a fencer fixing her eyes on those
+of her opponent. There was a pause which lasted so long that had the
+silence continued it would have been rude. "Well," the girl returned at
+last, timidly, "that's what the city expects you to do, is it not?"
+
+Winthrop laughed. "How did you know who I was?" he asked, and then added
+quickly, "Of course, you're a mind reader."
+
+For the first time the girl smiled. Winthrop found it a charming smile,
+wistful and confiding.
+
+"I don't have to ask the spirit world," she said, "to tell me who is
+District Attorney of New York."
+
+"Yes," said the District Attorney; "yes, I suppose you have to be pretty
+well acquainted with some of the laws--those about mediums?"
+
+"If you knew as much about other laws," began Vera, "as I do about the
+law--" She broke off and again smiled upon him.
+
+"Then you probably know," said Winthrop, "that what our excited friend
+said to you just now is legally quite true?"
+
+The smile passed from the face of the girl. She looked at the young man
+with fine disdain, as a great lady might reprove with a glance the man
+who snapped a camera at her. "Yes?" she asked. "Well, what are you going
+to do about it--arrest me?" Mocking him, in a burlesque of melodrama,
+she held out her arms. "Don't put the handcuffs on me," she begged.
+
+Winthrop found her impudence amusing; and, with the charm of her
+novelty, he was conscious of a growing conviction that, somewhere, they
+had met before; that already at a crisis she had come into his life.
+
+"I won't arrest you," he said with a puzzled smile, "on one condition."
+
+"Ah!" mocked Vera; "he is generous."
+
+"And the condition is," Winthrop went on seriously, "that you tell me
+where we met before?"
+
+The girl's expression became instantly mask-like. To learn if he
+suspected where it was that they had met, she searched his face quickly.
+She was reassured that of the event he had no real recollection.
+
+"That's rather difficult, isn't it," she continued lightly, "when you
+consider I've been giving exhibitions of mind readings for the last six
+weeks on Broadway, and in the homes of people you probably know?"
+
+"No," Winthrop exclaimed eagerly, "it wasn't in a theatre, and it wasn't
+in a private house. It was--" he shook his head helplessly, and looked
+at her for assistance. "You don't know, do you?"
+
+The girl regarded him steadily. "How should I?" she said. And then, as
+though decided upon a course of action of the wisdom of which she was
+uncertain, she laughed uneasily.
+
+"But the spirits would know," she said. "I might ask them."
+
+"Do!" cried Winthrop, delightedly. "How much would that be?"
+
+As though to reprove his flippancy, the girl frowned. With a nervous
+tremor, which this time seemed genuine enough, she threw back her head,
+closed her eyes, and laid her arm across her forehead.
+
+Winthrop, unobserved, watched her with a smile, partly of amusement,
+partly on account of her beauty, of admiration.
+
+"I see--a court room," said the girl. "It is very mean and bare. It is
+somewhere up the State; in a small town. Outside, there are trees, and
+the sun is shining, and people are walking in a public park. Inside, in
+the prisoner's dock, there is a girl. She has been arrested--for theft.
+She has pleaded guilty! And I see--that she has been very ill--that she
+is faint from shame--and fear--and lack of food. And there is a young
+lawyer. He is defending her; he is asking the judge to be merciful,
+because this is her first offence, because she stole the cloak to get
+money to take her where she had been promised work. Because this is his
+first case."
+
+Winthrop gave a gasp of disbelief.
+
+"You don't mean to tell me--" he cried.
+
+"Hush!" commanded the girl. "And he persuades the judge to let her go,"
+she continued quickly, her voice shaking, "and he and the girl walk out
+of the court house together. And he talks to her kindly, and gives her
+money to pay her way to the people who have promised her work."
+
+Vera dropped her arm, and stepping back, faced Winthrop. Through her
+tears her eyes were flashing proudly, gratefully; the feeling that shook
+her made her voice vibrate. The girl seemed proud of her tears, proud of
+her debt of gratitude.
+
+"And I've never forgotten you," she said, her voice eager and trembling,
+"and what you did for me. And I've watched you come to this city, and
+fight it, and fight it, until you made them put you where you are." She
+stopped to control her voice, and smiled at him. "And that's why I knew
+you were District Attorney," she said; "and please--" she fumbled in
+the mesh purse at her waist and taking a bill from it, threw it upon
+the table. "And please, there's the money I owe you, and--and--I thank
+you--and goodbye." She turned and almost ran from him toward the door to
+the hall.
+
+"Stop!" cried Winthrop.
+
+Poised for flight, the girl halted, and looked back.
+
+"When can I see you again?" said the man. The tone made it less a
+question than a command.
+
+In a manner as determined as his own, the girl shook her head.
+
+"No!" she said.
+
+"I must!" returned the man.
+
+Again the girl shook her head, definitely, finally.
+
+"It won't help you in your work," she pleaded, "to come to see me."
+
+"I must!" repeated Winthrop simply.
+
+The eyes of the girl met his, appealingly, defiantly.
+
+"You'll be sorry," said the girl.
+
+Winthrop laughed an eager, boyish laugh. When he spoke the tenseness in
+his voice had gone. His tone was confident, bantering.
+
+"Then I will not come to see you," he said.
+
+Uncertain, puzzled, Vera looked at him in distress. She thought he was
+mocking her.
+
+"No?" she questioned.
+
+"I'll come to see Vera, the medium," he explained.
+
+Vera frowned, and then, in happy embarrassment, smiled wistfully.
+
+"Oh, well," she stammered; "of course, if you're coming to consult me
+professionally--my hours are from four to six."
+
+"I'll be there," cried the District Attorney.
+
+Vera leaned forward eagerly.
+
+"What day will you come?" she demanded.
+
+"What day!" exclaimed the young man indignantly. "Why, this day!"
+
+Vera gave a guilty, frightened laugh.
+
+"Oh, will you?" she exclaimed delightedly. She clasped her fingers in a
+gesture of dismay. "Oh, I hope you won't be sorry!" she cried.
+
+For some moments the District Attorney of New York stood looking at the
+door through which she had disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+Part II
+
+The home of the Vances was in Thirty-fifth Street, nearly opposite the
+Garrick Theatre. It was one of a row of old-fashioned brick houses with
+high steps. As the seeker after truth entered the front hall, he saw
+before him the stairs to the second story; on his right, the folding
+doors of the "front parlor," and at the far end of the hall, a single
+door that led to what was, in the old days, before this row of houses
+had been converted into offices, the family dining room. To Vera the
+Vances had given the use of this room as a "reception parlor." The
+visitor first entered the room on his right, from it passed through
+another pair of folding doors to the reception parlor, and then, when
+his audience was at an end, departed by the single door to the hall, and
+so, to the street.
+
+The reception parlor bore but little likeness to a cave of mystery.
+There were no shaded lights, no stuffed alligator, no Indian draperies,
+no black cat. On a table, in the centre, under a heavy and hideous
+chandelier with bronze gas jets, was a green velvet cushion. On this
+nestled an innocent ball of crystal. Beside it lay the ivory knitting
+needle with which Vera pointed out, in the hand of the visitor, those
+lines that showed he would be twice married, was of an ambitious
+temperament, and would make a success upon the stage. In a corner stood
+a wooden cabinet that resembled a sentry box on wheels. It was from
+this, on certain evenings, before a select circle of spiritualists, that
+Vera projected the ghosts of the departed. Hanging inside the cabinet
+was a silver-gilt crown and a cloak of black velvet, lined with purple
+silk and covered in gold thread with signs of the zodiac.
+
+Save that these stage properties illustrated the taste of Mabel Vance,
+the room was of no interest. It held a rubber plant, a red velvet
+rocking chair, across the back of which Mrs. Vance had draped a
+Neapolitan scarf; an upright piano, upon which Emmanuel Day, or, as
+he was known to the cross-roads of Broadway and Forty-second street,
+"Mannie" Day, provoked the most marvelous rag-time, an enlarged
+photograph in crayon, of Professor Vance, in a frock coat and lawn tie,
+a china bull dog, coquettishly decorated with a blue bow, and, on the
+mantel piece, two tall beer steins and a hand telephone. From the long
+windows one obtained a view of the iron shutters of the new department
+store in Thirty-fourth Street, and of a garden, just large enough to
+contain a sumach tree, a refrigerator, and the packing-case in which the
+piano had arrived.
+
+After leaving Winthrop, without waiting for Vance, Vera had returned
+directly to the house in Thirty-fifth Street, and locked herself in her
+room. And although "Mannie" Day had already ushered two visitors into
+the front room, Vera had not yet come downstairs. In consequence, Mabel
+Vance was in possession of the reception parlor.
+
+Mrs. Vance was plump, pink-and-blonde, credulous and vulgar, but at all
+times of the utmost good humor. Her admiration for Vera was equaled only
+by her awe of her. On this particular afternoon, although it already was
+after five o'clock, Mrs. Vance still wore a short dressing sack, open at
+the throat, and heavy with somewhat soiled lace. But her blonde hair was
+freshly "marcelled," and her nails pink and shining. In the absence of
+Vera, she was making a surreptitious and guilty use of the telephone.
+From the fact that in her left hand she held the morning telegraph open
+at the "previous performances" of the horses, and that the page had been
+cruelly lacerated by a hat pin, it was fair to suppose that whoever was
+at the other end of the wire, was tempting her with the closing odds at
+the races.
+
+In her speculations, she was interrupted by "Mannie" Day, who entered
+softy through the door from the hall.
+
+"Mannie" Day was a youth of twenty-four. It was his heart's desire to be
+a "Broadwayard." He wanted to know all of those, and to be known only by
+those, who moved between the giant pillars that New York threw into the
+sky to mark her progress North.
+
+He knew the soiled White Way as the oldest inhabitant knows the single
+street of the village. He knew it from the Rathskellers underground,
+to the roof gardens in the sky; in his firmament the stars were the
+electric advertisements over Long Acre Square, his mother earth was
+asphalt, the breath of his nostrils gasolene, the telegraph was his
+Bible. His grief was that no one in the Tenderloin would take him
+seriously; would believe him wicked, wise, predatory. They might love
+him, they might laugh with him, they might clamor for his company, in no
+flat that could boast a piano, was he not, on his entrance, greeted with
+a shout; but the real Knights of the Highway treated him always as the
+questioning, wide-eyed child. In spite of his after-midnight pallor, in
+spite of his honorable scars of dissipation, it was his misfortune to be
+cursed with a smile that was a perpetual plea of "not guilty."
+
+"What can you expect?" an outspoken friend, who made a living as a
+wireless wire tapper, had once pointed out to him. "That smile of yours
+could open a safe. It could make a show girl give up money! It's an
+alibi for everything from overspeeding to murder."
+
+Mannie, as he listened, flushed with mortification. From that moment
+he determined that his life should be devoted to giving the lie to that
+smile, to that outward and visible sign of kindness, good will, and
+innate innocence. As yet, he had not succeeded.
+
+He interrupted Mabel at the telephone to inquire the whereabouts of
+Vera. "There's two girls in there, now," he said, "waiting to have their
+fortunes doped."
+
+"Let'em wait!" exclaimed Mabel. "Vera's upstairs dressing." In her eyes
+was the baleful glare of the plunger. "What was that you give me in the
+third race?"
+
+At the first touch of the ruling passion, what interest Mannie may
+have felt for the impatient visitors vanished. "Not in the third," he
+corrected briskly. "Keene entry win the third."
+
+Mabel appealed breathlessly to the telephone. "What price the Keene
+entry in the third?" She turned to Mannie with reproachful eyes. "Even
+money!" she complained.
+
+"That's what I told you," retorted Mannie. He lowered his voice, and
+gazed apprehensively toward the front parlor. "If you want a really good
+thing," he whispered hoarsely, "ask Joe what Pompadour is in the fifth!"
+Mabel laughed scornfully, disappointedly.
+
+"Pompadour!" she mocked.
+
+"That's right!" cried the expert. "That's the one daily hint from Paris
+today. Joe will give you thirty to one."
+
+Upon the defenseless woman he turned the full force of his accursed
+smile. "Put five on for me, Mabel?" he begged.
+
+With unexpected determination of character Mabel declared sharply that
+she would do nothing of the sort.
+
+"Two, then?" entreated the boy.
+
+"Where," demanded Mabel unfeelingly, "is the twenty you owe me now?"
+
+The abruptness of this unsportsmanlike blow below the belt caused Mannie
+to wince.
+
+"How do I know where it is?" he protested. "As long as you haven't got
+it, why do you care where it is?" He heard the door from the hall open
+and, turning, saw Vera. He appealed to her. "Vera," he cried, "You'll
+loan me two dollars? I stand to win sixty. I'll give you thirty."
+
+Vera looked inquiringly at Mabel. "What is it, Mabel," she asked, "a
+hand book?"
+
+Mrs. Vance nodded guiltily.
+
+"Mannie!" exclaimed Vera gently but reproachfully, "I told you I
+wouldn't loan you any more money till you paid Mabel what you've
+borrowed."
+
+"How can I pay Mabel what I borrowed," demanded Mannie, "if I can't
+borrow the money from you to pay her? Only two dollars, Vera!"
+
+Vera nodded to Mabel.
+
+Mabel, at the phone, called, "Two dollars on Pompadour--to--win--for
+Mannie Day," and rang off.
+
+"That makes thirty for you," exclaimed Mannie enthusiastically, "and
+twenty I owe to Mabel, and that leaves me ten."
+
+Mrs. Vance, no longer occupied in the whirlpool of speculation, for the
+first time observed that Vera had changed her matronly robe of black
+lace for a short white skirt and a white shirtwaist. She noted also that
+there was a change in Vera's face and manner. She gave an impression of
+nervous eagerness, of unrest. Her smile seemed more appealing, wistful,
+girlish. She looked like a child of fourteen.
+
+But Mabel was concerned more especially with the robe of virgin white.
+
+For the month, which was July, the costume was appropriate, but, in the
+opinion of Mabel, in no way suited to the priestess of the occult and
+the mysterious.
+
+"Why, Vera!" exclaimed Mrs. Vance, "whatever have you got on? Ain't you
+going to receive visitors? There's ten dollars waiting in there now."
+
+In sudden apprehension, Vera looked down at her spotless garments.
+
+"Don't I look nice?" she begged.
+
+"Of course you look nice, dearie," Mabel assured her, "but you don't
+look like no fortune teller."
+
+"If you want to know what you look like," said Mannie sternly, "you look
+like one of the waiter girls at Childs's--that's what you look like."
+
+"And your crown!" exclaimed Mabel, "and your kimono. Ain't you going to
+wear your kimono?"
+
+She hastened to the cabinet and produced the cloak of black velvet and
+spangles, and the silver-gilt crown.
+
+"No, I am not!" declared Vera. She wore the frightened look of a
+mutinous child. "I--I look so--foolish in them!"
+
+Such heresy caused Mannie to gasp aloud; "You look grand in them," he
+protested; "don't she, Mabel?"
+
+"Sure she does," assented that lady.
+
+"And your junk?" demanded Mannie, referring to the jade necklace and the
+gold-plated bracelets. His eyes opened in sympathy. "You haven't pawned
+them, have you?"
+
+"Pawned them?" laughed Vera; "I couldn't get anything on them!" As
+the only masculine point of view available, she appealed to Mannie
+wistfully. "Don't you like me better this way, Mannie?" she begged.
+
+But that critic protested violently.
+
+"Not a bit like it," he cried. "Now, in the gold tiara and the spangled
+opera cloak," he differentiated, "you look like a picture postal card!
+You got Lotta Faust's blue skirt back to Levey's. But not in the white
+goods!" He shook his head sadly, firmly. "You look, now, like you was
+made up for a May-day picnic in the Bronx, and they'd picked on you to
+be Queen of the May."
+
+Mabel carried the much-admired opera cloak to Vera, and held it out,
+tempting her. "You'll wear it, just to please me and Mannie, won't you,
+dearie?" she begged. Vera retreated before it as though it held the
+germs of contagion.
+
+"I will not," she rebelled. "I hate it! When I have that on, I
+feel--mean. I feel as mean as though I were picking pennies out of a
+blind man's hat." Mannie roared with delight.
+
+"Gee!" he shouted, "but that's a hot one."
+
+"Besides," said Vera consciously, "I'm--I'm expecting some one."
+
+The manner more than the words thrilled Mabel with the most joyful
+expectations.
+
+She exclaimed excitedly. "A gentleman friend, Vera?" she asked.
+
+That Vera shunned all young men had been to Mabel a source of wonder and
+of pride. Even when the young men were the friends of her husband and
+of herself, the preoccupied manner with which Vera received them did not
+provoke in Mabel any resentment. It rather increased her approbation.
+Although horrified at the recklessness of the girl, she had approved
+even when Vera rejected an offer of marriage from a wine agent.
+
+Secretly, for a proper alliance for her, Mabel read the society columns
+in search of eligible, rich young men. Finding that they invariably
+married eligible, rich young women, she had lately determined that
+Vera's destiny must be an English duke.
+
+Still if, as she hoped, Vera had chosen for herself, Mabel felt assured
+that the man would prove worthy, and a good match. A good match meant
+one who owned not only a runabout, but a touring car.
+
+"It's a man from home," said Vera. "Home?" queried Mannie.
+
+"From up the State," explained Vera, "from Geneva. It's--Mr. Winthrop."
+
+With an exclamation of alarm, Mannie started upright. "Winthrop!" he
+cried; then with a laugh of relief he sank back. "Gee! You give me a
+scare," he cried. "I thought you meant the District Attorney."
+
+Mabel laughed sympathetically.
+
+"I thought so too," she admitted.
+
+"I do mean the District Attorney," said the girl.
+
+"Vera!" cried Mabel.
+
+"Winthrop--coming here?" demanded Mannie.
+
+"I met him at Mr. Hallowell's this morning," said Vera. "Didn't Paul
+tell you?"
+
+"Paul ain't back yet," said Mannie. "I wish he was!" His lower jaw
+dropped in dazed bewilderment. "Winthrop--coming here?" he repeated.
+"And they're all coming here!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Paul just phoned
+me. They've taken Gaylor in with them, and we're all working together
+now on some game for tonight. And Winthrop's coming here!" He shook his
+head decidedly, importantly. As the only man of the family present, he
+felt he must meet this crisis. "Paul won't stand for it!" he declared.
+
+"Well, Paul will just have to stand for it!" retorted Mrs. Vance.
+
+With a murmur of sympathy she crossed to Vera. "I'm not going to see our
+Vera disappointed," she announced. "She never sees no company. Vera, if
+Mr. Winthrop comes when that bunch is here, I'll show him into the front
+parlor."
+
+Vera sat down in front of the piano and let her fingers drop upon the
+keys. The look of eagerness and anticipation had left her eyes.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," she said, "that I want to see him--now."
+
+With complete misunderstanding, Mannie demanded truculently, "Why not?"
+His loyalty to Vera gave him courage, in her behalf, to face even a
+District Attorney. "He doesn't think he's coming here to make trouble
+for you, does he?"
+
+Vera shook her head and, bending over the piano, struck a few detached
+chords.
+
+"Oh, no," she said consciously; "just to see me--professionally--like
+everybody else."
+
+Mabel could no longer withhold her indignation at the obtuseness of the
+masculine intellect.
+
+"My gracious, Mannie!" she exclaimed, "can't you understand he's coming
+here to make a call on Vera--like a gentleman--not like no District
+Attorney."
+
+Mannie precipitately retreated from his position as champion.
+
+"Sure, I understand," he protested.
+
+With the joy that a match-making mother takes in the hunt, Mabel sank
+into the plush rocking chair and, rocking violently, turned upon Vera an
+eager and excited smile.
+
+"Think of our Vera knowing Mr. Winthrop socially?" she exclaimed. "It's
+grand! And they say his sisters are elegant ladies. Last winter I read
+about them at the opera, and it always printed what they had on. Why
+didn't you tell me you knowed him, Vera?" she cried reproachfully. "I
+tell you everything!"
+
+"I don't know him," protested the girl. "I used to see him when he lived
+in the same town."
+
+Mabel, inviting further confidences, ceased rocking and nodded
+encouragingly. "Up in Geneva?" she prompted.
+
+"Yes," said Vera, "I used to see him every afternoon then, when he
+played ball on the college nine--"
+
+"Who?" demanded Mannie incredulously.
+
+"Winthrop," said Vera.
+
+"Did he?" exclaimed Mannie. His tone suggested that he might still be
+persuaded that there was good in the man.
+
+"What'd he play?" he demanded suspiciously.
+
+"First," said Vera.
+
+"Did he!" exclaimed Mannie. His tone now was of open approbation.
+
+Vera had raised her eyes and turned them toward the windows. Beyond the
+soot-stained sumach tree, the fire escapes of the department store,
+she saw the sun-drenched campus, the buttressed chapel, the ancient,
+drooping elms; and on a canvas bag, poised like a winged Mercury, a tall
+straight figure in gray, dusty flannels.
+
+"He was awfully good-looking," murmured the girl, "and awfully tall. He
+could stop a ball as high as--that!" She raised her arm in the air, and
+then, suddenly conscious, flushed, and turned to the piano.
+
+"Go on, tell us," urged Mabel. "So you first met him in Geneva, did
+you?"
+
+"No," corrected Vera, "saw him there. I--only met him once."
+
+Mannie interrupted hilariously.
+
+"I only saw him once, too," he cried, "that was enough for me."
+
+Vera swiftly spun the piano stool so that she faced him. Her eyes were
+filled with concern.
+
+"You, Mannie!" she demanded anxiously. "What had you done?"
+
+"Done!" exclaimed Mannie indignantly, "nothing! What'd you think I'd
+done? Did you think I was a crook?"
+
+Vera bowed her shoulders and shivered as though the boy had cursed at
+her. She shook her head vehemently and again swung back to the piano.
+Stumbling awkwardly, her fingers ran over the keys in a swift clatter of
+broken chords. "No," she whispered, "no, Mannie, no."
+
+With a laugh of delighted recollection, Mannie turned to Mabel.
+
+"He raided a poolroom I was working at," he explained. "He picked me out
+as a sheet writer because I had my coat off, see? I told him I had it
+off because it was too hot for me, and he says, Young man, if you lie
+to me, I'll make I a damn sight hotter!" Mannie threw back his head and
+shouted uproariously. "He's all right, Winthrop!" he declared.
+
+Mabel, having already married Winthrop to Vera in Grace Church, with
+herself in the front pew, in a blue silk dress, received this unexpected
+evidence of his rare wit with delight. In ecstasy of appreciation she
+slapped her knees.
+
+"Did he say that, Mannie?" she cried. "Wasn't that quick of him! Did you
+hear what he said to Mannie, Vera?" she demanded.
+
+Their mirth was interrupted by the opening and closing of the front door
+and, in the hall, the murmur of men's voices.
+
+Vance opened the door from the hall and entered, followed by Judge
+Gaylor and Rainey. With evident pride in her appearance, Vance
+introduced the two men to his wife, and then sent her and Mannie from
+the room--the latter with orders to dismiss the visitors in the front
+parlor and to admit no others.
+
+At the door Mrs. Vance turned to Vera and nodded mysteriously.
+
+"If that party calls," she said with significance, "I'll put him in the
+front parlor." With a look of dismay, Vera vehemently shook her head
+but, to forestall any opposition, Mrs. Vance hastily slammed the door
+behind her.
+
+In his most courteous manner Judge Gaylor offered the chair at the head
+of the centre table to Vera, and at the same table seated himself.
+Vance took a place on the piano stool; Rainey stood with his back to the
+mantel piece.
+
+"Miss Vera," Gaylor began impressively, "I desire to apologize for my
+language this morning. As Rainey no doubt has told you, I have opposed
+you and Professor Vance. But I--I know when I'm beaten. Your influence
+with Mr. Hallowell today--is greater than mine. It is paramount. I
+congratulate you." He smiled ingratiatingly. "And now," he added, "we
+are all working in unison."
+
+"You've given up your idea of sending me to jail," said Vera.
+
+"Vera!" exclaimed Vance reprovingly. "Judge Gaylor has apologized. We're
+all in harmony now."
+
+"Is that door locked?" asked Gaylor. Vance told him, save Mrs. Vance,
+Mannie, and themselves, there was none in the house; and that he might
+speak freely.
+
+"Miss Vera," began the Judge, "we left Mr. Hallowell very much impressed
+with the message you gave him this morning. The message from his dead
+sister. He wants another message from her. He wants her to decide how he
+shall dispose of a very large sum of money--his entire fortune."
+
+"His entire fortune!" exclaimed Vera. "Do you imagine," she asked,
+"that Mr. Hallowell will take advice from the spirit world about that? I
+don't!"
+
+"I do," Gaylor answered stoutly, "I know I would."
+
+"You?" asked Vera incredulously.
+
+"If I could believe my sister came from the dead to tell me what to
+do," said the lawyer, "of course, I'd do it. I'd be afraid not to. But I
+don't believe he does. And he believes you can bring his sister herself
+before him. He insists that tonight you hold a seance in his house, and
+that you materialize the spirit of his dead sister. So that he can see
+his sister, and talk with his sister. Vance says you can do that. Can
+you?"
+
+From Vera's face the look of girlishness, of happy anticipation, had
+already disappeared.
+
+"It is my business to do that," the girl answered. She turned to Vance
+and, in a matter-of-fact voice, inquired, "What does his sister look
+like--that photograph we used this morning?"
+
+"No," Vance answered. "I've a better one, Rainey gave me. Taken when she
+was older. Has white hair and a cap and a kerchief crossed--so." He drew
+his hands across his shoulders. "Rainey, show Miss Vera that picture."
+
+"Not now," Gaylor commanded. "The important thing now is that Miss Vera
+understands the message Mr. Hallowell is to receive from his sister."
+
+The two other men nodded quickly in assent. Gaylor turned to Vera. He
+spoke slowly, earnestly.
+
+"Miss Vera," he said, "Mr. Hallowell's present will leaves his fortune
+to his niece. He has made another will, which he has not signed, leaving
+his fortune to the Hallowell Institute. He will ask his sister to which
+of these he should leave his money. You will tell him--" he corrected
+himself instantly. "She will tell him to give it where it will be of the
+greatest good to the most people--to the Institute." There was a pause.
+"Do you understand?" he asked.
+
+"To the Institute. Not to the niece," Vera answered. Gaylor nodded
+gravely.
+
+"What," asked Vera, "are the fewest words in which that message could
+be delivered? I mean--should she say, You are to endow the Hallowell
+Institute, or Brother, you are to give--Sign the new will?" With
+satisfaction the girl gave a sharp shake of her head, and nodded to
+Vance. "Destroy the old will. Sign the new will. That is the best," she
+said.
+
+"That's it exactly," Gaylor exclaimed eagerly; "that's excellent!" Then
+his face clouded. "I think," he said in a troubled voice, "we should
+warn Miss Vera, that to guard himself from any trickery, Mr. Hallowell
+insists on subjecting her to the most severe tests. He--"
+
+"That will be all right," said the girl. She turned to Vance and, in
+a lower tone but without interest, asked: "What, for instance?" Vance
+merely laughed and shrugged his shoulders. The girl smiled. Nettled,
+and alarmed at what appeared to be their overconfidence, Gaylor objected
+warmly.
+
+"That's all very well," he cried, "but for instance, he insists that the
+entire time you are in the cabinet, you hold a handful of flour in
+one hand and of shot in the other"--he illustrated with clenched
+fists--"which makes it impossible," he protested, "for you to use your
+hands."
+
+The face of the girl showed complete indifference.
+
+"Not necessarily," she said.
+
+"But you are to be tied hand and foot," cried the Judge. "And on top of
+that," he burst forth indignantly, pointing aggrievedly at Vance, "he
+himself proposed this flour-and-shot test. It was silly, senseless
+bravado!"
+
+"Not necessarily," repeated the girl. "He knew that I invented it."
+Rainey laughed. Gaylor gave an exclamation of enlightenment.
+
+"If it will be of any comfort to you, Judge," said Vance, "I'll tell you
+one thing; every test that ever was put to a medium--was invented by a
+medium."
+
+Vera rose. "If there is nothing more," she said, "I will go and get the
+things ready for this evening. Destroy the old will. Sign the new
+will." she repeated. She turned suddenly to Vance, her brow drawn in
+consideration. "I suppose by this new will," she asked, "the girl gets
+nothing?" "Not at all!" exclaimed Gaylor emphatically. "We don't want
+her to fight the will. She gets a million."
+
+"A million dollars?" demanded Vera. For an instant, as though trying to
+grasp the possibilities of such a sum, she stood staring ahead of her.
+With doubt in her eyes, and shaking her head, she turned to Vance.
+
+"How can one woman spend a million dollars?" she protested.
+
+"Well, you see, we don't intend to starve her," exclaimed Gaylor
+eagerly, "and at the same time the Institute will be benefiting all
+humanity. Doing good to--"
+
+Vera interrupted him with a sharp, peremptory movement of the hand.
+
+"We won't go into that, please," she begged.
+
+The Judge inclined his head. "I only meant to point out," he said
+stiffly, "that you are giving Mr. Hallowell the best advice, and doing
+great good."
+
+For a moment the girl looked at him steadily. On her lips was a faint
+smile of disdain, but whether for him or for herself, the Judge could
+not determine.
+
+"I don't know that," the girl said finally. "I don't ask." She turned to
+Rainey. "Have you that photograph?" He gave her a photograph and after,
+for an instant, studying it in silence, she returned it to him.
+
+"It will be quite easy," she said to Vance. She walked to the door, and
+instinctively the two men, who were seated, rose.
+
+"I will see you tonight at Mr. Hallowell's," she said, and, with a nod,
+left them.
+
+"Well," exclaimed Rainey, "you didn't tell her!"
+
+"I know," Vance answered. "I decided we'd be wiser to take advice from my
+wife. She understands Vera better than I do." He opened the door to the
+hall, and called "Mannie! Tell Mabel--Oh, Mabel," he corrected, "come
+here a minute." He returned to his seat on the piano stool. "She can
+tell us," he said.
+
+In expectation of the arrival of Winthrop, Mrs. Vance had arrayed
+herself in a light blue frock, and, as though she had just come in from
+the street, in such a hat as she considered would do credit not only to
+Vera but to herself.
+
+"Mabel," her husband began, "we're up against a hard proposition.
+Hallowell insists that Winthrop and Miss Coates must come to the seance
+tonight."
+
+"Winthrop and Miss Coates!" cried Mabel. In astonishment she glanced
+from her husband to Rainey and Gaylor. "Then, it's all off!" she
+exclaimed.
+
+"That's what I say," growled Rainey.
+
+"We want you to tell us," continued Vance, unmoved, "whether Vera should
+know that now, or wait until tonight?"
+
+"Paul Vance!" almost shrieked his wife, "do you mean to tell me you're
+thinking of giving a materialization in front of the District Attorney!
+You're crazy!"
+
+"That's what I tell them," chorused Rainey.
+
+Gaylor raised his hand for silence.
+
+"No, Mrs. Vance," he said wearily. "We are not crazy, but," he added
+bitterly, "we can't help ourselves. You mediums have got Mr. Hallowell
+in such a state that he'll only do what his sister's spirit tells him.
+He says, if he's robbing his niece, his sister will tell him so; if he's
+to give the money to the Institute, his sister will tell him that. He
+says, if Vance is fair and above-board, he shouldn't be afraid to have
+his niece and any friends of hers present. We can't help ourselves."
+
+"I helped a little," said Vance, "by insisting on having our own friends
+there--told him the spirit could not materialize unless there were
+believers present."
+
+"Did he stand for that?" asked Mabel.
+
+"Glad to have them," her husband assured her. "They like to think there
+are others as foolish as they are. And I'm going to place Mr. District
+Attorney," he broke out suddenly and fiercely, "between two mediums.
+They'll hold his hands!"
+
+Already frightened by the possible result of the plot, Rainey, with a
+vehemence born of fear, retorted sharply: "Hold his hands! How're you
+going to make him hold his tongue, afterward?"
+
+Gaylor turned upon him savagely.
+
+"My God, man!" he cried, "we're not trying to persuade the District
+Attorney that he's seen a ghost. If your friends can persuade Stephen
+Hallowell that he's seen one, the District Attorney can go to the
+devil!"
+
+"Well, he won't!" returned Rainey, "he'll go to law!"
+
+"Let him!" cried Gaylor defiantly. "Get Hallowell to sign that will, and
+I'll go into court with him."
+
+His bravado was suddenly attacked from an unexpected source.
+
+"You'll go into court with him, all right," declared Mrs. Vance, "all of
+you! And if you don't want him to catch you," she cried, "you'll clear
+out, now! He's coming here any minute."
+
+"Who's coming here?" demanded her husband.
+
+"Winthrop," returned his wife, "to see Vera."
+
+"To see Vera!" cried Vance eagerly. "What about? About this morning?"
+
+"No," protested Mabel, "to call on her. He's an old friend--"
+
+In alarm Rainey pushed into the group of now thoroughly excited people.
+"Don't you believe it!" he cried. "If he's coming here, he's coming to
+give her the third degree--"
+
+The door from the hall suddenly opened, was as suddenly closed, and
+Mannie slipped into the room. One hand he held up for silence; with the
+other he pointed at the folding doors.
+
+"Hush!" he warned them. "He's in there! He says he's come to call on
+Vera. She says he's come professionally, and I must bring him in here.
+I've shut the door into the parlor, and you can slip upstairs without
+his seeing you."
+
+"Upstairs!" gasped Rainey, "not for me!" He appealed to Gaylor in
+accents of real alarm. "We must get away from this house," he declared.
+"If he finds us here--" With a gesture of dismay he tossed his hands
+in the air. Gaylor nodded. In silence all, save Mannie, moved into the
+hall, and halted between the outer and inner doors of the vestibule.
+Gaylor turned to Vance. "Are you going to tell her," he asked, "that he
+is to be there tonight?"
+
+"He'll tell her himself, now!"
+
+"No," corrected Rainey, "he doesn't know yet there's to be a seance.
+Hallowell was writing the note when he left."
+
+"Then," instructed Gaylor, "do not let her know until she arrives--until
+it will be too late for her to back out."
+
+Vance nodded and, waiting until from the back room he heard the voices
+of Mannie and Winthrop, he opened the front door and the two men ran
+down the steps into the street.
+
+While the conspirators were hidden in the vestibule, Mannie had opened
+the folding doors, and invited Winthrop to enter the reception parlor.
+
+"Miss Vera will be down in a minute," he said. "If you want your hand
+read," he added, pointing, "you sit over there."
+
+As Winthrop approached the centre table, Mannie backed against the
+piano. The presence of the District Attorney at such short range
+aroused in him many emotions. Alternately he was torn with alarm, with
+admiration, with curiosity. He regarded him apprehensively, with a
+nervous and unhappy smile.
+
+About the smile there was something that Winthrop found familiar, and,
+with one almost as attractive, he answered it.
+
+"I think we've met before, haven't we?" he asked pleasantly.
+
+Mannie nodded. "Yes, sir," he answered promptly. "At Sam Hepner's old
+place, on West Forty-fourth street."
+
+"Why, of course!" exclaimed the District Attorney.
+
+"Don't you--don't you remember?" stammered Mannie eagerly. He was deeply
+concerned lest the distinguished cross-examiner should think, that
+from him of his lurid past he could withhold anything. "I had my coat
+off--and you said you'd make it hot for me."
+
+"Did I?" asked Winthrop with an effort at recollection.
+
+"No, you didn't!" Mannie hastened to reassure him. "I mean, you didn't
+make it hot for me."
+
+Winthrop laughed, and seated himself comfortably beside the centre
+table. "Well I'm glad of that," he said. "So our relations are still
+pleasant, then?" he asked.
+
+"Sure!" exclaimed Mannie heartily. "I mean--yes, sir."
+
+Winthrop mechanically reached for his cigarette case, and then,
+recollecting, withdrew his hand.
+
+"And how are the ponies running?" he asked.
+
+The interview was filling Mannie with excitement and delight. He
+chuckled with pleasure. His fear of the great man was rapidly departing.
+Could this, he asked himself, be the "terror to evil-doers," the man
+whose cruel questions drove witnesses to tears, whose "third degree"
+sent veterans of the underworld staggering from his confessional box,
+limp and gasping?
+
+"Oh, pretty well," said the boy, "seems as if I couldn't keep away from
+them. I got a good thing for today--Pompadour--in the fifth. I put all
+the money on her I could get together," he announced importantly,
+and then added frankly, with a laugh, "two dollars!" The laugh was
+contagious, and the District Attorney laughed with him.
+
+"Pompadour," Winthrop objected, "she's one of those winter track
+favorites."
+
+"I know, but today," declared Mannie, "she win, sure!" Carried away
+by his enthusiasm, and by the sympathy of his audience, he rushed,
+unheeding, to his fate. "If you'd like to put a little on," he said, "I
+can tell you where you can do it."
+
+The District Attorney stared and laughed. "You mustn't tell me where you
+can do it," he said.
+
+Mannie gave a terrified gasp and, for an instant, clapped his hands over
+his lips. "That's right," he cried. "Gee, that's right! I'm such a crank
+on all kinds of sport that I clean forgot!"
+
+He gazed at the much-dreaded District Attorney with the awe of the
+new-born hero-worshipper. "I guess you are, too, hey?" he protested
+admiringly. "Vera was telling me you used to be a great ball tosser."
+
+In the face of the District Attorney there came a sudden interest. His
+eyes lightened.
+
+"How did she--"
+
+"She used to watch you in Geneva," said Mannie, "playing with the
+college lads. I--I," he added consciously, "was a ball player myself
+once. Used to pitch for the Interstate League." He stopped abruptly.
+
+"Interstate?" said Winthrop encouragingly. "You must have been good."
+
+The enthusiasm had departed from the face of the boy. "Yes," he said,
+"but--" he smiled shamefacedly, "but I got taking coke, and they--" He
+finished with a dramatic gesture of the hand as of a man tossing away a
+cigarette.
+
+"Cocaine?" said the District Attorney.
+
+The boy nodded and, for an instant, the two men eyed each other, the
+boy smiling ruefully. The District Attorney shook his head. "My young
+friend," he said, "you can never beat that game!"
+
+Mannie stared at him, his eyes filled with surprise.
+
+"Don't you suppose," he said simply, "that I know that better than
+you do?" With a boy's pride in his own incorrigibility he went on
+boastingly: "Oh, yes," he said, "I used to be awful bad! Cocaine and all
+kinds of dope, and cigarettes, and whiskey. I was nearly all in--with
+morphine, it was then--till she took hold of me, and stopped me."
+
+"She?" said Winthrop.
+
+"Vera," said Mannie. "She made me stop. I had to stop. She started
+taking it herself."
+
+"What!" cried Winthrop.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Mannie hastily, "I don't mean what you mean--I mean
+she started taking it to make me stop. She says to me, Mannie, you're
+killing yourself, and you got to quit it; and if you don't, every time
+you take a grain, I'll take two. And she did! I'd come home, and she'd
+see what I'd been doing, and she'd up with her sleeves, and--" In
+horrible pantomime, the boy lifted the cuff of his shirt, and pressed
+his right thumb against the wrist of his other arm. At the memory of it,
+he gave a shiver and, with a blow, roughly struck the cuff into place.
+"God!" he muttered, "I couldn't stand it. I begged, and begged her not.
+I cried. I used to get down, in this room, on my knees. And each time
+she'd get whiter, and black under the eyes. And--and I had to stop.
+Didn't I?"
+
+Winthrop moved his head.
+
+"And now," cried the boy with a happy laugh, "I'm all right!" He
+appealed to the older man eagerly, wistfully. "Don't you think I'm
+looking better than I did the last time you saw me?"
+
+Again, without venturing to speak, Winthrop nodded.
+
+Mannie smiled with pride. "Everybody tells me so," he said. "Well,
+she did it. That's what she did for me. And, I can tell you," he said
+simply, sincerely, "there ain't anything I wouldn't do for her. I guess
+that's right, hey?" he added.
+
+The eyes of the cruel cross-examiner, veiled under half-closed lids,
+were regarding the boy with so curious an expression that under their
+scrutiny Mannie, in embarrassment, moved uneasily. "I guess that's
+right," he repeated.
+
+To his surprise, the District Attorney rose from his comfortable
+position and, leaning across the table, held out his hand. Mannie took
+it awkwardly.
+
+"That's all right," he said.
+
+"Sure, it's all right," said the District Attorney.
+
+From the hall there was the sound of light, quick steps, and Mannie,
+happy to escape from a situation he did not understand, ran to the door.
+
+"She's coming," he said. He opened the door and, as Vera entered, he
+slipped past her and closed it behind him.
+
+Vera walked directly to the chair at the top of the centre table. She
+was nervous, and she was conscious that that fact was evident. To avoid
+shaking hands with her visitor, she carried her own clasped in front of
+her, with the fingers interlaced. She tried to speak in her usual suave,
+professional tone. "How do you do?" she said.
+
+But Winthrop would not be denied. With a smile that showed his pleasure
+at again seeing her, he advanced eagerly, with his hand outstretched.
+"How are you?" he exclaimed. "Aren't you going to shake hands with me?"
+he demanded. "With an old friend?"
+
+Vera gave him her hand quickly, and then, seating herself at the table,
+picked up the ivory pointer.
+
+"I didn't know you were coming as an old friend," she murmured
+embarrassedly. "You said you were coming to consult Vera, the medium."
+
+"But you said that was the only way I could come," protested Winthrop.
+"Don't you remember, you said--"
+
+Vera interrupted him. She spoke distantly, formally. "What kind of a
+reading do you want?" she asked. "A hand reading, or a crystal reading?"
+
+Winthrop leaned forward in his chair, frankly smiling at her. He made
+no attempt to conceal the pleasure the sight of her gave him. His manner
+was that of a very old and dear friend, who, for the first time, had met
+her after a separation of years.
+
+"Don't want any kind of a reading," he declared. "I want a talking. You
+don't seem to understand," he objected, "that I am making an afternoon
+call." His good humor was unassailable. Looking up with a perplexed
+frown, Vera met his eyes and saw that he was laughing at her. She threw
+the ivory pointer down and, leaning back in her chair, smiled at him.
+
+"I don't believe," she said doubtfully, "that I know much about
+afternoon calls. What would I do, if we were on Fifth Avenue? Would I
+give you tea?" she asked, "because," she added hastily, "there isn't any
+tea."
+
+"In that case, it is not etiquette to offer any," said Winthrop gravely.
+
+"Then," said Vera, "I'm doing it right, so far?"
+
+They both laughed; Vera because she still was in awe of him, and
+Winthrop because he was happy.
+
+"You're doing it charmingly," Winthrop assured her.
+
+"Good!" exclaimed Vera. "Well, now," she inquired, "now we talk, don't
+we?"
+
+"Yes," assented Winthrop promptly, "we talk about you."
+
+"No, I--I don't think we do," declared Vera, in haste. "I think we talk
+about--Geneva." She turned to him with real interest. "Is the town much
+changed?" she asked.
+
+As though preparing for a long talk, Winthrop dropped his hat to the
+floor and settled himself comfortably. "Well, it is, and it isn't," he
+answered. "Haven't you been back lately?" he asked. Vera looked quickly
+away from him.
+
+"I have never been back!" she answered. There was a pause and when she
+again turned her eyes to his, she was smiling. "But I always take the
+Geneva Times," she said, "and I often read that you've been there.
+You're a great man in Geneva."
+
+Winthrop nodded gravely.
+
+"Whenever I want to be a great man," he said, "I go to Geneva."
+
+"Why, yes," exclaimed Vera. "Last June you delivered the oration to the
+graduating class," she laughed, "on The College Man in Politics. Such an
+original subject! And did you point to yourself?" she asked mockingly,
+"as the--the bright example?"
+
+"No," protested Winthrop, "I knew they'd see that."
+
+Much to her relief, Vera found that of Winthrop she was no longer
+afraid.
+
+"Oh!" she protested, "didn't you say, twelve years ago, a humble boy
+played ball for Hobart College. That boy now stands before you? Didn't
+you say that?"
+
+"Something like that," assented the District Attorney. "Oh!" he
+exclaimed, "that young man who showed me in here--your confederate or
+fellow-conspirator or lookout man or whatever he is--told me you used to
+be a regular attendant at those games."
+
+"I never missed one!" Vera cried. She leaned forward, her eyes shining,
+her brows knit with the effort of recollection.
+
+"I used to tell Aunt," she said, "I had to drive in for the mail. But
+that was only an excuse. Aunt had an old buggy, and an old white horse
+called Roscoe Conkling. I called him Rocks. He was blind in one eye, and
+he would walk on the wrong side of the road; you had to drive him on one
+rein." The girl was speaking rapidly, eagerly. She had lost all fear
+of her visitor. With satisfaction Winthrop recognized this; and
+unconsciously he was now frankly regarding the face of the girl with a
+smile of pleasure and admiration.
+
+"And I used to tie him to the fence just opposite first base," Vera went
+on excitedly, "and shout--for you!"
+
+"Don't tell me," interrupted Winthrop, in burlesque excitement, "that
+you were that very pretty little girl, with short dresses and long legs,
+who used to sit on the top rail and kick and cheer."
+
+Vera shook her head sternly.
+
+"I was," she said, "but you never saw me."
+
+"Oh, yes, we did," protested Winthrop. "We used to call you our mascot."
+
+"No, that was some other little girl," said Vera firmly. "You
+never looked at me, and I"--she laughed, and then frowned at him
+reproachfully--"I thought you were magnificent! I used to have your
+pictures in baseball clothes pinned all around my looking glass, and
+whenever you made a base hit, I'd shout and shout--and you'd never look
+at me! And one day--" she stopped, and as though appalled by the memory,
+clasped her hands. "Oh, it was awful!" she exclaimed; "one day a foul
+ball hit the fence, and I jumped down and threw it to you, and you said,
+Thank you, sis! And I," she cried, "thought I was a young lady!"
+
+"Oh! I couldn't have said that," protested Winthrop, "maybe I said
+sister."
+
+"No," declared Vera energetically shaking her head, "not sister, sis.
+And you never did look at me; and I used to drive past your house every
+day. We lived only a mile below you."
+
+"Where?" asked Winthrop.
+
+"On the lake road from Syracuse," said Vera. "Don't you remember the
+farm a mile below yours--the one with the red barn right on the road?
+Yes, you do," she insisted, "the cows were always looking over the fence
+right into the road."
+
+"Of course!" exclaimed Winthrop delightedly. "Was that your house?"
+
+"Oh, no," protested Vera, "ours was the little cottage on the other
+side--"
+
+"With poplars round it?" demanded Winthrop.
+
+"That's it!" cried Vera triumphantly, "with poplars round it."
+
+"Why, I know that house well. We boys used to call it the haunted
+house."
+
+"That's the one," assented Vera. She smiled with satisfaction. "Well,
+that's where I lived until Aunt died," she said.
+
+"And then, what?" asked Winthrop.
+
+For a moment the girl did not answer. Her face had grown grave and she
+sat motionless, staring beyond her. Suddenly, as though casting her
+thoughts from her, she gave a sharp toss of her head.
+
+"Then," she said, speaking quickly, "I went into the mills, and was ill
+there, and I wrote Paul and Mabel to ask if I could join them, and they
+said I could. But I was too ill, and I had no money--nothing. And then,"
+she raised her eyes to his and regarded him steadily, "then I stole that
+cloak to get the money to join them, and you--you helped me to get away,
+and--and" Winthrop broke in hastily. He disregarded both her manner and
+the nature of what she had said.
+
+"And how did you come to know the Vances?" he asked.
+
+After a pause of an instant, the girl accepted the cue his manner gave
+her, and answered as before.
+
+"Through my aunt," she said, "she was a medium too."
+
+"Of course!" cried Winthrop. "I remember now, that's why we called it
+the haunted house."
+
+"My aunt," said the girl, regarding him steadily and with, in her
+manner, a certain defiance, "was a great medium. All the spiritualists
+in that part of the State used to meet at our house. I've witnessed some
+wonderful manifestations in that front parlor." She turned to Winthrop
+and smiled. "So, you see," she exclaimed, "I was born and brought up
+in this business. I am the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. My
+grandmother was a medium, my mother was a medium--she worked with
+the Fox sisters before they were exposed. But, my aunt," she added
+thoughtfully, judicially, "was the greatest medium I have ever seen. She
+did certain things I couldn't understand, and I know every trick in the
+trade--unless," she explained, "you believe the spirits helped her."
+
+Winthrop was observing the girl intently, with a new interest.
+
+"And you don't believe that?" he asked, quietly.
+
+"How can I?" Vera said. "I was brought up with them." She shook her head
+and smiled. "I used to play around the kitchen stove with Pocahontas and
+Alexander the Great, and Martin Luther lived in our china closet. You
+see, the neighbors wouldn't let their children come to our house; so,
+the only playmates I had were--ghosts." She laughed wistfully. "My!" she
+exclaimed, "I was a queer, lonely little rat. I used to hear voices and
+see visions. I do still," she added. With her elbows on the arms of
+her chair, she clasped her hands under her chin and leaned forward. She
+turned her eyes to Winthrop and nodded confidentially.
+
+"Do you know," she said, "sometimes I think people from the other world
+do speak to me."
+
+"But you said," Winthrop objected, "you didn't believe."
+
+"I know," returned Vera. "I can't!" Her voice was perplexed, impatient.
+"Why, I can sit in this chair," she declared earnestly, "and fill this
+room with spirit voices and rappings, and you sitting right there can't
+see how I do it. And yet, in spite of all the tricks, sometimes I believe
+there's something in it."
+
+She looked at Winthrop, her eyes open with inquiry. He shook his head.
+
+"Yes," insisted the girl. "When these women come to me for advice, I
+don't invent what I say to them. It's as though something told me what
+to say. I have never met them before, but as soon as I pass into the
+trance state I seem to know all their troubles. And I seem to be half
+in this world and half in another world--carrying messages between them.
+Maybe," her voice had sunk to almost a whisper; she continued as though
+speaking to herself, "I only think that. I don't know. I wonder."
+
+There was a long pause.
+
+"I wish," began Winthrop earnestly, "I wish you were younger, or I were
+older."
+
+"Why?" asked Vera.
+
+"Because," said the young man, "I'd like to talk to you--like a father."
+
+Vera turned and smiled on him securely, with frank friendliness. "Go
+ahead," she assented, "talk to me like a father."
+
+Winthrop smiled back at her, and then frowned.
+
+"You shouldn't be in this business," he said.
+
+The girl regarded him steadily.
+
+"What's the matter with the business?" she asked.
+
+Winthrop felt she had put him upon the defensive, but he did not
+hesitate.
+
+"Well," he said, "there may be some truth in it. But we don't know
+that. We do know that there's a lot of fraud and deceit in it. Now," he
+declared warmly, "there's nothing deceitful about you. You're fine," he
+cried enthusiastically, "you're big! That boy who was in here told me
+one story about you that showed--"
+
+Vera stopped him sharply.
+
+"What do you know of me?" she asked bitterly. "The first time you ever
+saw me I was in a police court; and this morning--you heard that man
+threaten to put me in jail--"
+
+In turn, by abruptly rising from his chair, Winthrop interrupted her.
+He pushed the chair out of his way, and, shoving his hands into his
+trousers' pockets, began pacing with long, quick strides up and down the
+room. "What do I care for that?" he cried contemptuously. He tossed the
+words at her over his shoulder. "I put lots of people in jail myself
+that are better than I am. Only, they won't play the game." He halted,
+and turned on her. "Now, you're not playing the game. This is a mean
+business, taking money from silly girls and old men. You're too good
+for that." He halted at the table and stood facing her. "I've got two
+sisters uptown," he said. He spoke commandingly, peremptorily. "And
+tomorrow I am going to take you to see them. And we fellow townsmen," he
+smiled at her appealingly, "will talk this over, and we'll make you come
+back to your own people."
+
+For a moment the two regarded each other. Then the girl answered firmly,
+but with a slight hoarseness in her voice, and in a tone hardly louder
+than a whisper:
+
+"You know I can't do that!"
+
+"I don't!" blustered Winthrop. "Why not?"
+
+"Because," said the girl steadily, "of what I did in Geneva." As
+though the answer was the one he had feared, the man exclaimed sharply,
+rebelliously.
+
+"Nonsense!" he cried. "You didn't know what you were doing. No decent
+person would consider that."
+
+"They do," said the girl, "they are the very ones who do. And--it's been
+in the papers. Everybody in Geneva knows it. And here too. And whenever
+I try to get away from this"--she stretched out her hands to include
+the room about her--"Someone tells! Five times, now." She leaned forward
+appealingly, not as though asking pity for herself, but as wishing
+him to see her point of view. "I didn't choose this business," she
+protested, "I was sort of born in it, and," she broke out loyally,
+"I hate to have you call it a mean business; but I can't get into any
+other. Whenever I have, some man says, That girl in your front office is
+a thief." The restraint she put upon herself, the air of disdain which
+at all times she had found the most convenient defense, fell from her.
+
+"It's not fair!" she cried, "it's not fair." To her mortification, the
+tears of self-pity sprang to her eyes, and as she fiercely tried to
+brush them away, to her greater anger, continued to creep down her
+cheeks. "It was nine years ago," she protested, "I was a child. I've
+been punished enough." She raised her face frankly to his, speaking
+swiftly, bitterly.
+
+"Of course, I want to get away!" she cried. "Of course, I want friends.
+I've never had a friend. I've always been alone. I'm tired, tired! I
+hate this business. I never know how much I hate it until the chance
+comes to get away--and I can't."
+
+She stopped, but without lowering her head or moving her eyes from his.
+
+"This time," said the man quietly, "you're going to get away from it."
+
+"I can't," repeated the girl, "you can't help me!"
+
+Winthrop smiled at her confidently.
+
+"I'm going to try," he said.
+
+"No, please!" begged the girl. Her voice was still shaken with tears.
+She motioned with her head toward the room behind her.
+
+"These are my people," she declared defiantly, as though daring him
+to contradict her. "And they are good people! They've tried to be good
+friends to me, and they've been true to me."
+
+Winthrop came toward her and stood beside her, so close that he could
+have placed his hand upon her shoulder. He wondered, whimsically, if she
+knew how cruel she seemed in appealing with her tears, her helplessness
+and loveliness to what was generous and chivalric in him; and, at the
+same time, by her words, treating him as an interloper and an enemy.
+
+"That's all right," he said gently. "But that doesn't prevent my being a
+good friend to you, too, does it? Or," he added, his voice growing tense
+and conscious--"my being true to you? My sisters will be here tomorrow,"
+he announced briskly.
+
+Vera had wearily dropped her arms upon the table and lowered her head
+upon them. From a place down in the depths she murmured a protest.
+
+"No," contradicted Winthrop cheerfully, "this time you are going to win.
+You'll have back of you, If I do say it, two of the best women God ever
+made. Only, now, you must do as I say." There was a pause. "Will you?"
+he begged.
+
+Vera raised her head slowly, holding her hand across her eyes. There was
+a longer silence, and then she looked up at him and smiled pathetically,
+gratefully, and nodded. "Good!" cried Winthrop. "No more spooks," he
+laughed, "no more spirit rappings."
+
+Through her tears Vera smiled up at him a wan, broken smile. She gave
+a shudder of distaste. "Never!" she whispered. "I promise." Their eyes
+met; the girl's looking into his shyly, gratefully; the man's searching
+hers eagerly. And suddenly they saw each other with a new and wonderful
+sympathy and understanding. Winthrop felt himself bending toward her. He
+was conscious that the room had grown dark, and that he could see only
+her eyes. "You must be just yourself," he commanded, but so gently, so
+tenderly, that, though he did not know it, each word carried with it the
+touch of a caress, "just your sweet, fine, noble self!"
+
+Something he read in the girl's uplifted eyes made him draw back with
+a shock of wonder, of delight, with an upbraiding conscience. To pull
+himself together, he glanced quickly about him. The day had really grown
+dark. He felt a sudden desire to get away; to go where he could ask
+himself what had happened, what it was that had filled this unknown,
+tawdry room with beauty and given it the happiness of a home.
+
+"By Jove!" he exclaimed nervously, "I had no idea I'd stayed so long.
+You'll not let me come again. Goodbye--until tomorrow." He turned,
+holding out his hand, and found that again the girl had dropped her face
+upon her arm, and was sobbing quietly, gently.
+
+"Oh, what is it?" cried Winthrop. "What have I said?" The catch in the
+girl's voice as she tried to check the sobs wrenched his heart. "Oh,
+please," he begged, "I've said something wrong? I've hurt you?" With her
+face still hidden in her arms, the girl shook her head.
+
+"No, no!" she sobbed. Her voice, soft with tears, was a melody of sweet
+and tender tones. "It's only--that I've been so lonely--and you've made
+me happy, happy!"
+
+The sobs broke out afresh, but Winthrop, now knowing that they brought
+to the girl peace, was no longer filled with dismay.
+
+Her head was bent upon her left arm, her right hand lightly clasped the
+edge of the table. With the intention of saying farewell, Winthrop
+took her hand in his. The girl did not move. To his presence she seemed
+utterly oblivious. In the gathering dusk he could see the bent figure,
+could hear the soft, irregular breathing as the girl wept gently,
+happily, like a child sobbing itself to sleep. The hand he held in his
+neither repelled nor invited, and for an instant he stood motionless,
+holding it uncertainly. It was so delicate, so helpless, so appealing,
+so altogether lovable. It seemed to reach up, and, with warm, clinging
+fingers, clutch the tendrils of his heart.
+
+Winthrop bent his head suddenly, and lifting the hand, kissed it; and
+then, without again speaking, walked quickly into the hall and shut the
+door. In the room the dusk deepened. Through the open windows came the
+roar of the Sixth Avenue Elevated, the insistent clamor of an electric
+hansom, the murmur of Broadway at night. The tears had suddenly ceased,
+but the girl had not moved. At last, slowly, stiffly, she raised her
+head. Her eyes, filled with wonder, with amazement, were fixed upon her
+hand. She glanced cautiously about her. Assured she was alone, with her
+other hand she lifted the one Winthrop had kissed and held it pressed
+against her lips.
+
+The folding doors were thrown open, letting in a flood of light, and
+Mabel Vance, entering swiftly, knelt at the table and bent her head
+close to Vera.
+
+"That woman's in the hall," she whispered, "that niece of Hallowell's.
+Paul and Mannie can't get rid of her. Now she's got hold of Winthrop.
+She says she will see you. Be careful!"
+
+Vera rose. That Mabel might not see she had been weeping, she walked to
+the piano, covertly drying her eyes.
+
+"What," she asked dully, "does she want with me?"
+
+"About tonight," answered Mabel. She exclaimed fiercely, "I told them
+there'd be trouble!"
+
+With Vance upon her heels, Helen Coates came in quickly from the hall.
+Her face was flushed, her eyes lit with indignation and excitement. In
+her hand she held an open letter.
+
+As though to protect Vera, both Vance and his wife moved between her and
+their visitor, but, disregarding them, Miss Coates at once singled out
+the girl as her opponent.
+
+"You are the young woman they call Vera, I believe," she said. "I have a
+note here from Mr. Hallowell telling me you are giving a seance tonight
+at his house. That you propose to exhibit the spirit of my mother. That
+is an insult to the memory of my mother and to me. And I warn you, if
+you attempt such a thing, I will prevent it."
+
+There was a pause. When Vera spoke it was in the tone of every-day
+politeness. Her voice was even and steady.
+
+"You have been misinformed," she said, "there will be no seance
+tonight."
+
+Vance turned to Vera, and, in a voice lower than her own, but
+sufficiently loud to include Miss Coates, said: "I don't think we told
+you that Mr. Hallowell himself insists that this lady and her friends be
+present."
+
+"Her presence makes no difference," said Vera quietly. "There will be
+no seance tonight. I will tell you about it later, Paul," she added. She
+started toward the door, but Miss Coates moved as though to intercept
+her.
+
+"If you think," she cried eagerly, "you can give a seance to Mr.
+Hallowell without my knowing it, you are mistaken."
+
+Vera paused, and made a slight inclination of her head.
+
+"That was not my idea," she said. She looked appealingly to Vance. "Is
+that not enough, Paul?" she asked.
+
+"Quite enough!" exclaimed the man. He turned to the visitor and made a
+curt movement of the hand toward the open door.
+
+"There will be a seance tonight," he declared. "At Mr. Hallowell's. If
+you wish to protest against it, you can do so there. This is my house.
+If you have finished--" He repeated the gesture toward the open door.
+
+"I have not finished," said Miss Coates sharply; "and if you take
+my advice, you will follow her example." With a nod of the head she
+signified Vera. "When she sees she's in danger, she knows enough to
+stop. This is not a question of a few medium's tricks," she cried,
+contemptuously. "I know all that you planned to do, and I intend that
+tomorrow every one in New York shall know it too."
+
+Like a cloak Vera's self-possession fell from her. In alarm she moved
+forward.
+
+"What do you mean?" she demanded.
+
+"I have had you people followed pretty closely," said Miss Coates. Her
+tone was assured. She was confident that of those before her she was the
+master, and that of that fact they were aware.
+
+"I know," she went on, "just how you tried to impose upon my uncle--how
+you tried to rob me, and tonight I have invited the reporters to my
+house to give them the facts."
+
+With a cry Vera ran to her.
+
+"No!" she begged, "you won't do that. You must not do that!"
+
+"Let her talk!" growled Vance. "Let her talk! She's funny."
+
+"No!" commanded Vera. Her voice rang with the distress. "She cannot do
+that!" She turned to Miss Coates. "We haven't hurt you," she pleaded;
+"we haven't taken your money. I promise you," she cried, "we will never
+see Mr. Hallowell again. I beg of you--"
+
+Vance indignantly caught her by the arm and drew her back. "You don't
+beg nothing of her!" he cried.
+
+"I do," Vera answered wildly. She caught Vance's hand in both of hers.
+"I have a chance, Paul," she entreated, "don't force me through it
+again. I can't stand the shame of it again." Once more she appealed to
+the visitor. "Don't!" she begged. "Don't shame me."
+
+But the eyes of the older girl, blind to everything save what, as she
+saw it, was her duty, showed no consideration.
+
+Vera's hands, trembling on his arm, drove Vance to deeper anger. He
+turned savagely upon Miss Coates.
+
+"You haven't lost anything yet, have you?" he demanded. "She hasn't hurt
+you, has she? If it's revenge you want," he cried insolently, "why don't
+you throw vitriol on the girl?"
+
+"Revenge!" exclaimed Miss Coates indignantly. "It is my duty. My public
+duty. I'm not alone in this; I am acting with the District Attorney.
+It is our duty." She turned suddenly and called, "Mr. Winthrop, Mr.
+Winthrop!"
+
+For the first time Vera saw, under the gas jet, at the farther end of
+the hall, the figures of Mannie and Winthrop.
+
+"No, no!" she protested, "I beg of you," she cried hysterically. "I've
+got a chance. If you print this thing tomorrow, I'll never have a chance
+again. Don't take it away from me." Impulsively her arms reached out in
+an eager final appeal. "I'm down," she said simply, "give me a chance to
+get up."
+
+When Miss Coates came to give battle to the Vances, she foresaw the
+interview might be unpleasant. It was proving even more unpleasant than
+she had expected, but her duty seemed none the less obvious.
+
+"You should have thought of that," she said, "before you were found
+out."
+
+For an instant Vera stood motionless, staring, unconsciously holding the
+attitude of appeal. But when, by these last words, she recognized that
+her humiliation could go no further, with an inarticulate exclamation
+she turned away.
+
+"The public has the right to know," declared Miss Coates, "the sort of
+people you are. I have the record of each of you--"
+
+From the hall Winthrop had entered quickly, but, disregarding him, Vance
+broke in upon the speaker, savagely, defiantly.
+
+"Print em, then!" he shouted, "print em!"
+
+"I mean to," declared Miss Coates, "yours, and hers, she--"
+
+Winthrop placed himself in front of her, shutting her off from the
+others. He spoke in an earnest whisper.
+
+"Don't!" he begged. "She has asked for a chance. Give her a chance."
+
+Miss Coates scorned to speak in whispers.
+
+"She has had a chance," she protested loudly. "She's had a chance for
+nine years; and she's chosen to be a charlatan and a cheat, and--" The
+angry woman hesitated, and then flung the word--"and a thief!"
+
+In the silence that followed no one turned toward Vera; but as it
+continued unbroken each raised his eyes and looked at her.
+
+They saw her drawn to her full height; the color flown from her face,
+her deep, brooding eyes flashing. She was like one by some religious
+fervor lifted out of herself, exalted. When she spoke her voice was low,
+tense. It vibrated with tremendous, wondering indignation.
+
+"Do you know who I am?" she asked. She spoke like one in a trance. "Do
+you know who you are threatening with your police and your laws? I am a
+priestess! I am a medium between the souls of this world and the next.
+I am Vera--the Truth! And I mean," the girl cried suddenly, harshly,
+flinging out her arm, "that you shall hear the truth! Tonight I will
+bring your mother from the grave to speak it to you!"
+
+With a swift, sweeping gesture she pointed to the door. "Take those
+people away!" she cried.
+
+The eyes of Winthrop were filled with pity. "Vera!" he said, "Vera!"
+
+For an instant, against the tenderness and reproach in his voice the
+girl held herself motionless; and then, falling upon the shoulder of
+Mrs. Vance, burst into girlish, heart-broken tears.
+
+"Take them away," she sobbed, "take them away!"
+
+Mannie Day and Vance closed in upon the visitors, and motioning them
+before them, drove them from the room.
+
+
+
+
+Part III
+
+The departure of the District Attorney and Miss Coates left Vera free
+to consider how serious, if she carried out her threat, the consequences
+might be. But of this chance she did not avail herself. Instead, with
+nervous zeal she began to prepare for her masquerade. It was as though
+her promise to Winthrop to abandon her old friends had filled her
+with remorse, and that she now, by an extravagance of loyalty, was
+endeavoring to make amends.
+
+At nine o'clock, with the Vances, she arrived at the house of Mr.
+Hallowell. Already, to the same place, a wagon had carried the cabinet,
+a parlor organ, and a dozen of those camp chairs that are associated
+with house weddings and funerals; and while, in the library, Vance and
+Mannie arranged these to their liking, on the third floor Vera, with
+Mrs. Vance, waited for that moment to arrive when Vance considered her
+entrance would be the most effective.
+
+This entrance was to be made through the doorway that opened from the
+hall on the second story into the library. To the right of this door,
+in an angle of two walls, was the cabinet, and on the left, the first
+of the camp chairs. These had been placed in a semicircle that stretched
+across the room, and ended at the parlor organ. The door from Mr.
+Hallowell's bedroom opened directly upon the semicircle at the point
+most distant from the cabinet. In the centre of the semicircle Vance had
+placed the invalid's arm chair.
+
+Vance, in his manner as professional and undisturbed as a photographer
+focussing his camera and arranging his screens, was explaining to Judge
+Gaylor the setting of his stage. The judge was an unwilling audience.
+Unlike the showman, for him the occasion held only terrors. He was
+driven by misgivings, swept by sudden panics. He scowled at the cabinet,
+intruding upon the privacy of the room where for years, without the aid
+of accessories, by his brains alone, he had brought Mr. Hallowell almost
+to the point of abject submission to his wishes. He turned upon Vance
+with bitter self-disgust.
+
+"So, I've got down as low as this, have I?" he demanded.
+
+Vance heard him, undisturbed.
+
+"I must ask you," he said, briskly, "to help me keep the people just
+as I seat them. They will be in this half-circle facing the cabinet and
+holding hands. Those we know are against us," he explained, "will have
+one of my friends, Professor Strombergk, or Mrs. Marsh, or my wife, on
+each side of him. If there should be any attempt to rush the cabinet,
+we must get there first. I will be outside the cabinet working the
+rappings, the floating music, and the astral bodies." At the sight
+of the expression these words brought to the face of Gaylor, Vance
+permitted himself the shadow of a smile. "I can take care of myself,"
+he went on, "but remember--Vera must not be caught outside the cabinet!
+When the lights go up, she must be found with the ropes still tied."
+
+Gaylor turned from him with an exclamation of disgust.
+
+"Pah!" he muttered. "It's a hell of a business!"
+
+Vance continued unmoved. "And, another thing," he said, "about these
+lights; this switch throws them all off, doesn't it?" He pressed a
+button on the left of the door, and the electric lights in the walls and
+under a green shade on the library table faded and disappeared, leaving
+the room, save for the light from the hall, in darkness.
+
+"That's the way we want it," said the showman.
+
+From the hall Mannie appeared between the curtains that hung across the
+doorway. "What are you doing with the lights?" he demanded. "You want to
+break my neck? All our people are downstairs," he announced.
+
+Vance turned on the lights. At the same moment Rainey came from the
+bedroom into the library. It was evident that to sustain his courage
+he had been drinking. He made no effort to greet those in the room, but
+stood, glaring resentfully at the cabinet and the row of chairs.
+
+"Well," exclaimed Vance cheerfully, "if our folks are all here, we're
+all right."
+
+Glancing behind him, Mannie took Vance by the sleeve, and led him to the
+centre of the room.
+
+"No, we're not all right," said the boy, "that Miss Coates has brought
+a friend with her. She says Hallowell told her she could bring a friend.
+She says this young fellow is her friend. I think he's a Pink!"
+
+"What nonsense," exclaimed Gaylor in alarm. "No detective would force
+his way into this house."
+
+"She says," continued Mannie, disregarding Gaylor, and still addressing
+Vance, "he's a seeker after the Truth. I'll bet," declared the boy
+violently, "he's a seeker after the truth!"
+
+Garrett came hastily and noiselessly into the room. He nodded toward
+Mannie.
+
+"Has he told you?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," Gaylor answered, "who is he?"
+
+"The reporter who was here this morning," Garrett returned. "The one who
+threatened--"
+
+"That'll do," commanded Gaylor. In the face of this new complication he
+again became himself. Suavely and politely he turned to Vance. "Will you
+and your friend join Miss Vera," he asked, "and tell her that we begin
+in a few minutes?"
+
+For the first time, aggressively and offensively Rainey broke his
+silence.
+
+"No, we won't begin in a few minutes," he announced, "not by a damned
+sight!"
+
+The explosion was so unexpected that, for an instant, while the eyes
+of all were fixed in astonishment upon the speaker, there was complete
+silence. Gaylor, still suave, still polite, looked toward Vance, and
+motioned him to the door.
+
+"Will you kindly do as I ask?" he said. With Mannie at his side, Vance
+walked quickly from the room. Once in the hall, the boy laid a detaining
+hand upon the arm of the older man.
+
+"If you'll take my advice, which you won't," he said, "we'll all cut and
+run now, while we got the chance!"
+
+In the library, Gaylor turned savagely upon his fellow conspirator.
+
+"Well!" he demanded.
+
+Rainey frowned at him sulkily. "I wash my hands of the whole thing!" he
+cried.
+
+Gaylor dropped his voice to a whisper.
+
+"What are you afraid of now?" he demanded. "If you're not afraid of a
+district attorney, why are you afraid of a reporter?"
+
+"I'm not afraid of anybody," returned Rainey, thickly. "But, I
+don't mean to be a party to no murder!" He paused, shaking his head
+portentously. "That man in there," he whispered, nodding toward the
+bedroom, "is in no condition to go through this. After that shock this
+morning, and last night--it'll kill him. His heart's rotten, I tell you,
+rotten!"
+
+Garrett snarled contemptuously.
+
+"How do you know?" he demanded.
+
+"How do I know?" returned Rainey, fiercely. "I was four years in a
+medical college, when you were in jail, you--" "Stop that!" cried
+Gaylor. Glancing fearfully toward the open door, he interposed between
+them.
+
+"Don't take my advice, then," cried Rainey. "Go on! Kill him! And he
+won't sign your will. Only, don't say I didn't tell you."
+
+"Have you told him?" demanded Gaylor.
+
+"Yes," Rainey answered stoutly. "Told him if he didn't stop this, he
+wouldn't live till morning."
+
+"Are we forcing him to do this?" demanded Gaylor. "No! He's forcing it
+on us. My God!" he exclaimed, "do you think I want this farce? You say,
+yourself, you told him it would kill him, and he will go on with it.
+Then why do you blame us? Can we help ourselves?"
+
+The butler had distinguished the sounds of footsteps in the hall. He
+fell hastily to rearranging the camp chairs.
+
+"Hush!" he warned. "Look out!" Gaylor and Rainey had but time to move
+apart, when Winthrop entered. He regarded the three men with a smile of
+understanding.
+
+"I beg pardon," he exclaimed, "I am interrupting?"
+
+Gaylor greeted him with exaggerated heartiness.
+
+"Ah, it is Mr. Winthrop!" he cried. "Have you come to help us find out
+the truth this evening?"
+
+"I certainly hope not!" said Winthrop brusquely. "I know the truth about
+too many people already." He turned to Garrett, who, unobtrusively, was
+endeavoring to make his escape.
+
+"I want to see Miss Vera," he said.
+
+"Miss Vera," interposed Gaylor. "I'm afraid that's not possible. She
+especially asked not to be disturbed before the seance. I'm sorry."
+
+Winthrop's manner became suspiciously polite.
+
+"Yes?" he inquired. "Well, nevertheless I think I'll ask her. Tell Miss
+Vera, please," he said to Garrett, "that Mr. Winthrop would like a word
+with her here," with significance he added, "in private."
+
+In offended dignity, Judge Gaylor moved toward the door. "Dr. Rainey,"
+he said stiffly, "will you please inform Mr. Hallowell that his guests
+are now here, and that I have gone to bring them upstairs."
+
+"Yes, but you won't bring them upstairs, please," said Winthrop, "until
+you hear from me."
+
+Gaylor flushed with anger and for a moment appeared upon the point of
+mutiny. Then, as though refusing to consider himself responsible for the
+manners of the younger man, he shrugged his shoulders and left the room.
+
+With even less of consideration than he had shown to Judge Gaylor,
+Winthrop turned upon Rainey.
+
+"How's your patient?" he asked shortly. Rainey was sufficiently
+influenced by the liquor he had taken to dare to resent Winthrop's
+peremptory tone. His own in reply was designedly offensive.
+
+"My patient?" he inquired.
+
+"Mr. Hallowell," snapped Winthrop, "he's sick, isn't he?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," returned the Doctor.
+
+"You don't know?" demanded Winthrop. "Well, I know. I know if he goes
+through this thing tonight, he'll have another collapse. I saw one this
+morning. Why don't you forbid it? You're his medical adviser, aren't
+you?"
+
+Rainey remained sullenly silent.
+
+"Answer me!" insisted the District Attorney. "You are, aren't you?"
+
+"I am," at last declared Rainey.
+
+"Well, then," commanded Winthrop, "tell him to stop this. Tell him I
+advise it."
+
+Through his glasses Rainey blinked violently at the District Attorney,
+and laughed. "I didn't know," he said, "that you were a medical man."
+
+Winthrop looked at the Doctor so steadily, and for so long a time, that
+the eyes of the young man sought the floor and the ceiling; and his
+sneer changed to an expression of discomfort.
+
+"I am not," said Winthrop. "I am the District Attorney of New York." His
+tones were cold, precise; they fell upon the superheated brain of Dr.
+Rainey like drops from an icicle.
+
+"When I took over that office," continued Winthrop, "I found a complaint
+against two medical students, a failure to report the death of an old
+man in a private sanitarium."
+
+Winthrop lowered his eyes, and became deeply absorbed in the toe of his
+boot. "I haven't looked into the papers, yet," he said.
+
+Rainey, swaying slightly, jerked open the door of the bedroom. "I'll
+tell him," he panted thickly. "I'll tell him to do as you say."
+
+"Thank you, I wish you would," said Winthrop.
+
+At the same moment, from the hall, Garrett announced, "Mrs. Vance, sir."
+And Mabel Vance, tremulous and frightened, entered the room.
+
+Winthrop approached her eagerly.
+
+"Ah! Mrs. Vance," he exclaimed, "can I see Miss Vera?"
+
+Embarrassed and unhappy, Mrs. Vance moved restlessly from foot to foot,
+and shook her head.
+
+"Please, Mr. District Attorney," she begged. "I'm afraid not. This
+afternoon upset her so. And she's so nervous and queer that the
+Professor thinks she shouldn't see nobody."
+
+"The Professor?" he commented. His voice was considerate, conciliatory.
+"Now, Mrs. Vance," he said, "I've known Miss Vera ever since she was a
+little girl, known her longer than you have, and, I'm her friend, and
+you're her friend, and--"
+
+"I am," protested Mabel Vance tearfully. "Indeed I am!"
+
+"I know you are," Winthrop interrupted hastily. "You've been more than
+a friend to her, you've been a sister, mother, and you don't want any
+trouble to come to her, do you?"
+
+"I don't," cried the woman. "Oh!" she exclaimed miserably, "I told them
+there'd be trouble!"
+
+Winthrop laughed reassuringly.
+
+"Well, there won't be any trouble," he declared, "if I can help it. And
+if you want to help her, help me. Persuade her to let me talk to her.
+Don't mind what the Professor says."
+
+"I will," declared Mrs. Vance with determination, "I will." She started
+eagerly toward the hall, and then paused and returned. Her hands were
+clasped; her round, baby eyes, wet with tears, were fixed upon Winthrop
+appealingly.
+
+"Oh, please," she pleaded, "you're not going to hurt him, are you? Paul,
+my husband," she explained, "he's been such a good husband to me."
+
+Winthrop laughed uneasily.
+
+"Why, that'll be all right," he protested.
+
+"He doesn't mean any harm," insisted Mrs. Vance, "he's on the level;
+true, he is!"
+
+"Why, of course, of course," Winthrop assented.
+
+Unsatisfied, Mrs. Vance burst into tears. "It's this spirit business
+that makes the trouble!" she cried. "I tell them to cut it out. Now, the
+mind reading at the theatre," she sobbed, "there's no harm in that, is
+there? And there's twice the money in it. But this ghost raising"--she
+raised her eyes appealingly, as though begging to be contradicted--"it's
+sure to get him into trouble, isn't it?"
+
+Winthrop shook his head, and smiled.
+
+"It may," he said. Mrs. Vance broke into a fresh outburst of tears. "I
+knew it," she cried, "I knew it." Winthrop placed his hand upon her arm
+and turned her in the direction of the door.
+
+"Don't worry," he said soothingly. "Go send Miss Vera here. And," he
+called after her, "don't worry."
+
+As Mabel departed upon his errand, Rainey reentered from the bedroom.
+He carefully closed the door and halted with his hand upon the knob, and
+shook his head.
+
+"It's no use," he said, "he will go on with it. It's not my fault," he
+whined, "I told him it would kill him. I couldn't make it any stronger
+than that, could I?"
+
+Rainey was not looking at Winthrop, but, as though fearful of
+interruption, toward the door. His eyes were harassed, furtive, filled
+with miserable indecision. Many times before Winthrop had seen men in
+such a state. He knew that for the sufferer it foretold a physical break
+down, or that he would seek relief in full confession. To give the man
+confidence, he abandoned his attitude of suspicion.
+
+"That certainly would be strong enough for me," he said cheerfully. "Did
+you tell him what I advised?"
+
+"Yes, yes," muttered Rainey impatiently. "He said you were invited here
+to give advice to his niece, not to him." For the first time his eyes
+met those of Winthrop boldly. The District Attorney recognized that the
+man had taken his fears by the throat, and had arrived at his decision.
+
+"See here," exclaimed Rainey, "could I give you some information?"
+
+"I'm sure you could," returned Winthrop briskly. "Give it to me now."
+
+But Rainey, glancing toward the door, shrank back. Winthrop, following
+the direction of his eyes, saw Vera. Impatiently he waved Rainey away.
+
+"At the office, tomorrow morning," he commanded. With a sigh of relief
+at the reprieve, Rainey slipped back into the bedroom.
+
+Winthrop had persuaded himself that in seeking to speak with Vera,
+he was making only a natural choice between preventing the girl from
+perpetrating a fraud, or, later, for that fraud, holding her to account.
+But when she actually stood before him, he recognized how absurdly he
+had deceived himself. At the mere physical sight of her, there came
+to him a swift relief, a thrill of peace and deep content; and with
+delighted certainty he knew that what Vera might do or might not do
+concerned him not at all, that for him all that counted was the girl
+herself. With something of this showing in his face, he came eagerly
+toward her.
+
+"Vera!" he exclaimed. In the word there was delight, wonder, tenderness;
+but if the girl recognized this she concealed her knowledge. Instead,
+her eyes looked into his frankly; her manner was that of open
+friendliness.
+
+"Mabel tells me you want to talk to me," she said evenly "but I don't
+want you to. I have something I want to say to you. I could have written
+it, but this"--for an instant the girl paused with her lips pressed
+together; when she spoke, her voice carried the firmness and finality
+of one delivering a verdict--"but this," she repeated, "is the last time
+you shall hear from me, or see me again."
+
+Winthrop gave an exclamation of impatience, of indignation.
+
+"No," returned the girl, "it is quite final. Maybe you will not want to
+see me, but--"
+
+Winthrop again sharply interrupted her. His voice was filled with
+reproach. "Vera!" he protested.
+
+"Well," said the girl more gently, "I'm glad to think you do, but this
+is the last, and before I go, I--".
+
+"Go!" demanded Winthrop roughly. "Where?"
+
+"Before I go," continued the girl, "I want to tell you how much you have
+helped me--I want to thank you--".
+
+"You haven't let me thank you," broke in Winthrop, "and, now, you
+pretend this is our last meeting. It's absurd!".
+
+"It is our last meeting," replied the girl. Of the two, for the moment,
+she was the older, the more contained. "On the contrary," contradicted
+the man. He spoke sharply, in a tone he tried to make as determined as
+her own. "Our next meeting will be in ten minutes--at my sister's. I
+have told her about this afternoon, and about you; and she wants very
+much to meet you. She has sent her car for you. It's waiting in front of
+the house. Now," he commanded masterfully, "you come with me, and get in
+it, and leave all this"--he gave an angry, contemptuous wave of the hand
+toward the cabinet--"behind you, as," he added earnestly, "you promised
+me you would."
+
+As though closing from sight the possibility he suggested, the girl shut
+her eyes quickly, and then opened them again to meet his.
+
+"I can't leave these things behind me," she said quietly.
+
+"I told you so this afternoon. For a moment, you made me think I could,
+and I did promise. I didn't need to promise. It's what I've prayed for.
+Then, you saw what happened, you saw I was right. Within five minutes
+that woman came--"
+
+
+"That woman had a motive," protested Winthrop.
+
+"That woman," continued the girl patiently, "or some other woman. What
+does it matter? In five minutes, or five days, some one would have
+told." She leaned toward him anxiously. "I'm not complaining," she said;
+"it's my own fault. It's the life I've chosen." She hesitated and then
+as though determined to carry out a programme she had already laid down
+for herself, continued rapidly: "And what I want to tell you, is, that
+what's best in that life I owe to you."
+
+"Vera!" cried the man sharply.
+
+"Listen!" said the girl. Her eyes were alight, eager. She spoke frankly,
+proudly, without embarrassment, without fear of being misconstrued, as a
+man might speak to a man.
+
+"I'd be ungrateful, I'd be a coward," said the girl, "if I went away and
+didn't tell you. For ten years I've been counting on you. I made you a
+sort of standard. I said, as long as he keeps to his ideals, I'm going
+to keep to mine. Maybe you think my ideals have not been very high, but
+anyway you've made it easy for me. Because I'm in this business, because
+I'm good-looking enough, certain men"--the voice of the girl grew hard
+and cool--"have done me the honor to insult me, and it was knowing you,
+and that there are others like you, that helped me not to care." The
+girl paused. She raised her eyes to his frankly. The look in them was
+one of pride in him, of loyalty, of affection. "And now, since I've met
+you," she went on, "I find you're just as I imagined you'd be, just as
+I'd hoped you'd be." She reached out her hand warningly, appealingly.
+"And I don't want you to change, to let down, to grow discouraged. You
+can't tell how many more people are counting on you." She hesitated and,
+as though at last conscious of her own boldness, flushed deprecatingly,
+like one asking pardon. "You men in high places," she stammered, "you're
+like light houses showing the way. You don't know how many people you
+are helping. You can't see them. You can't tell how many boats are
+following your light, but if your light goes out, they are wrecked."
+She gave a sigh of relief. "That's what I wanted to tell you," she said,
+"and, so thank you." She held out her hand. "And, goodby."
+
+Winthrop's answer was to clasp her hand quickly in both of his, and draw
+her toward him.
+
+"Vera," he begged, "come with me now!"
+
+The girl withdrew her hand and moved away from him, frowning. "No," she
+said, "no, you do not want to understand. I have my work to do tonight."
+
+Winthrop gave an exclamation of anger.
+
+"You don't mean to tell me," he cried, "that you're going on with this?"
+
+"Yes," she said, And then in sudden alarm cried: "But not if you're
+here! I'll fail if you're here. Promise me, you will not be here."
+
+"Indeed," cried the man indignantly, "I will not! But I'll be downstairs
+when you need me. And," he added warningly, "you'll need me." "No," said
+the girl. "No matter what happens, I tell you, between us, this is the
+end."
+
+"Then," begged the man, "if this is the end, for God's sake, Vera, as my
+last request, do not do it!"
+
+The girl shook her head. "No," she repeated firmly. "I've tried to get
+away from it, and each time they've forced me back. Now, I'll go on with
+it. I've promised Paul, and the others. And you heard me promise that
+woman."
+
+"But you didn't mean that!" protested the man. "She insulted you; you
+were angry. You're angry now, piqued--"
+
+"Mr. Winthrop," interrupted the girl, "today you told me I was not
+playing the game. You told the truth. When you said this was a mean
+business, you were right. But"--for the first time since she had spoken
+her tones were shaken, uncertain--"I've been driven out of every other
+business." She waited until her voice was again under control, and then
+said slowly, definitely, "and, tonight, I am going to show Mr. Hallowell
+the spirit of his sister."
+
+In the eyes of Winthrop the look of pain, of disappointment, of
+reproach, was so keen, that the girl turned her own away.
+
+"No," said the man gently, "you will not do that."
+
+"You can stop my doing it tonight," returned the girl, "but at some
+other time, at some other place, I will do it."
+
+"You yourself will stop it," said Winthrop. "You are too honest, too
+fine, to act such a lie. Why not be yourself?" he begged. "Why not
+disappoint these other people who do not know you? Why disappoint the
+man who knows you best, who trusts you, who believes in you--".
+
+"You are the very one," interrupted the girl, "who doesn't know me. I am
+not fine; I am not honest. I am a charlatan and a cheat; I am all that
+woman called me. And that is why you can't know me. That's why. I told
+you, if you did, you would be sorry."
+
+"I am not sorry," said Winthrop.
+
+"You will be," returned the girl, "before the night is over."
+
+"On the contrary," answered the man quietly, "I shall wait here to
+congratulate you--on your failure."
+
+"I shall not fail," said the girl. Avoiding his eyes, she turned from
+him and, for a moment, stood gazing before her miserably. Her lips were
+trembling, her eyes moist with rising tears. Then she faced him, her
+head raised defiantly.
+
+"I have been hounded out of every decent way of living," she protested
+hysterically. "I can make thousands of dollars tonight," she cried, "out
+of this one."
+
+Winthrop looked straight into her eyes. His own were pleading, full of
+tenderness and pity; so eloquent with meaning that those of the girl
+fell before them.
+
+"That is no answer," said the man. "You know it's not. I tell you--you
+will fail."
+
+From the hall Judge Gaylor entered noisily. Instinctively the man
+and girl moved nearer together, and upon the intruder Winthrop turned
+angrily.
+
+"Well?" he demanded sharply. "I thought you had finished your talk,"
+protested the Judge. "Mr. Hallowell is anxious to begin."
+
+Winthrop turned and looked at Vera steadily. For an instant the eyes of
+the girl faltered, and then she returned his glance with one as resolute
+as his own. As though accepting her verdict as final, Winthrop walked
+quickly to the door. "I shall be downstairs," he said, "when this is
+over, let me know."
+
+Gaylor struggled to conceal his surprise and satisfaction. "You won't be
+here for the seance?" he exclaimed.
+
+"Certainly not," cried Winthrop. "I--" He broke off suddenly. Without
+again looking toward Vera, or trying to hide his displeasure, he left
+the room.
+
+Gaylor turned to the girl. He was smiling with relief.
+
+"Excellent!" he muttered. "Excellent! What was he saying to you," he
+asked eagerly, "as I came in--that you would fail?"
+
+The girl moved past him to the door. "Yes," she answered dully.
+
+"But you will not!" cried the man. "We're all counting on you, you know.
+Destroy the old will. Sign the new will," he quoted. He came close to
+her and whispered. "That means thousands of dollars to you and Vance,"
+he urged.
+
+The girl turned and regarded him with unhappy, angry eyes.
+
+"You need not be frightened," she answered. For the man before her and
+for herself, her voice was bitter with contempt and self-accusation.
+"Mr. Winthrop is mistaken. He does not know me," she said miserably. "I
+shall not fail."
+
+For a moment, after she had left him, Gaylor stood motionless, his eyes
+filled with concern, and then, with a shrug, as though accepting either
+good or evil fortune, he called from the bedroom Mr. Hallowell, and,
+from the floor below, the guests of Hallowell and of Vance.
+
+As Hallowell, supported by Rainey, sank into the invalid's chair in the
+centre of the semicircle, Gaylor made his final appeal.
+
+"Stephen," he begged, "are you sure you're feeling strong enough? Won't
+some other night--" The old man interrupted him querulously.
+
+"No, now! I want it over," he commanded. "Who knows," he complained,
+"how soon it may be before--"
+
+The sight of Mannie entering the room with Vance caused him to interrupt
+himself abruptly. He greeted the showman with a curt nod.
+
+"And who is this?" he demanded. Mannie, to whom a living millionaire
+was much more of a disturbing spectacle than the ghost of Alexander the
+Great, retreated hastily behind Vance.
+
+"He is my assistant," Vance explained. "He furnishes the music." He
+pushed Mannie toward the organ.
+
+"Music!" growled Hallowell. "Must there be music?"
+
+"It is indispensable," protested Vance. "Music, sir, is one of the
+strongest psychic influences. It--"
+
+"Nonsense!" cried Hallowell.
+
+"Tricks," he muttered, "tricks!"
+
+Vance shrugged his shoulders, and smiled in deprecation. "I am sorry to
+find you in a skeptical mood, Mr. Hallowell," he murmured reprovingly
+"It will hardly help to produce good results. Allow me," he begged, "to
+present two true believers."
+
+With a wave of the hand he beckoned forward a stout, gray-haired woman
+with bulging, near-sighted eyes that rolled meaninglessly behind heavy
+gold spectacles.
+
+"Mrs. Marsh of Lynn, Massachusetts," proclaimed Vance, "of whom you have
+heard. Mrs. Marsh," he added, "is probably the first medium in America.
+The results she has obtained are quite wonderful. She alone foretold the
+San Francisco earthquake, and the run on the Long Acre Square Bank."
+
+"I am glad to know you," said Mr. Hallowell. "Pardon my not rising."
+
+The old lady curtsied obsequiously.
+
+"Oh, certainly, Mr. Hallowell," she protested. "Mr. Hallowell," she went
+on, rolling the name delightedly on her tongue, "I need not tell you
+how greatly we spiritualists rejoice over your joining the ranks of the
+believers."
+
+Hallowell nodded. He was not altogether unimpressed. "Thanks," he
+commented dryly. "But I am not quite there yet, madam."
+
+"We hope," said Vance sententiously, "to convince Mr. Hallowell
+tonight."
+
+"And I am sure, Mr. Hallowell," cried the old lady, "if any one can do
+it, little Miss Vera can. Hers is a wonderful gift, sir, a wonderful
+gift!"
+
+"I am glad to hear you say so," returned Hallowell.
+
+He nodded to her in dismissal, and turned to the next visitor. "And this
+gentleman?" he asked.
+
+"Professor Strombergk," announced Vance, "the distinguished writer on
+psychic and occult subjects, editor of The World Beyond."
+
+A tall, full-bearded German, in a too-short frock coat, bowed awkwardly.
+Upon him, as upon Mannie, had fallen the spell of the Hallowell fortune.
+He, who chatted familiarly with departed popes and emperors, who daily
+was in communication with Goethe, Caesar, and Epictetus, thrilled with
+embarrassment before the man who had made millions from a coupling pin.
+
+"And Helen!" Mr. Hallowell cried, as Miss Coates followed the Professor.
+"That is all, is it not?" he asked.
+
+Miss Coates moved aside to disclose the person of the reporter from the
+Republic, Homer Lee.
+
+"I have taken you at your word, uncle," she said, "and have brought
+a friend with me." In some trepidation she added; "He is Mr. Lee, a
+reporter from the Republic."
+
+"A reporter!" exclaimed Mr. Hallowell. Disturbed and yet amused at the
+audacity of his niece, he shook his head reprovingly. "I don't think I
+meant reporters," he remonstrated.
+
+"You said in your note," returned his niece, "that as I had so much
+at stake, I could bring any one I pleased, and the less he believed in
+spiritualism, the better. Mr. Lee," she added dryly, "believes even less
+than I do."
+
+"Then it will be all the more of a triumph, if we convince him,"
+declared Hallowell. "Understand, young man," he proclaimed loudly, "I am
+not a spiritualist. I am merely conducting an investigation. I want the
+truth. If you, or my niece, detect any fraud tonight, I want to
+know it." Including in his speech the others in the room, he glared
+suspiciously in turn at each. "Keep your eyes open," he ordered, "you
+will be serving me quite as much as you will Miss Coates."
+
+Miss Coates and Lee thanked him and, recognizing themselves as the
+opposition and in the minority, withdrew for consultation into a corner
+of the bay window.
+
+Vance approached Mr. Hallowell.
+
+"If you are ready," he said, "we will examine the cabinet. Shall I wheel
+it over here, or will you look at it where it is?"
+
+"If it is to be in that corner during the seance," declared Mr.
+Hallowell, "I'll look at it where it is."
+
+As he struggled from his chair, he turned to Mrs. Marsh, and nodded
+his head knowingly. "You see, Mrs. Marsh," he said, "I am taking no
+chances."
+
+"That is quite right, Mr. Hallowell," purred the old lady. "If there
+be any doubt in your mind, you must get rid of it, or we will have no
+results."
+
+With a dramatic gesture, Vance swept aside from the opening in the
+cabinet the black velvet curtain. "It's a simple affair," he said
+indifferently. "As you see, it's open at the top and bottom. The medium
+sits inside on that chair, bound hand and foot."
+
+In turn, Mr. Hallowell, Mrs. Marsh, Gaylor, Rainey, Professor Strombergk
+entered the cabinet. With their knuckles they beat upon its sides. They
+moved it to and fro. They dropped to their knees, and with their fingers
+tugged at the carpet upon which it stood.
+
+Under cover of their questions, in the corner of the bay window, Miss
+Coates whispered to Lee; "Don't look now," she warned, "but later, you
+will see on the left of that door the switch that throws on the lights.
+When I am sure she is outside the cabinet, when she has told him not to
+give the money to me, I'll cry now! and whichever one of us is seated
+nearer the switch will turn on all the lights. I think," Miss Coates
+added with, in her voice, a thrill of triumph not altogether free from a
+touch of vindictiveness, "when my uncle sees her caught in the middle of
+the room, disguised as his sister--we will have cured him."
+
+"It may be," said the man.
+
+The possibility of success as Miss Coates pointed it out did not appear
+to stir in him any great delight. He glanced unwillingly over his
+shoulder. "I see the switch," he said.
+
+Leaning on the arm of Gaylor, Mr. Hallowell returned from the cabinet
+to his chair. What he had seen apparently strengthened his faith and, in
+like degree, inspired him to greater enthusiasm.
+
+"Well," he exclaimed, "there are no trapdoors or false bottoms about
+that! If they can project a spirit from that sentry box, it will be
+a miracle. For whom are we waiting?" he asked impatiently. "Where is
+Winthrop?"
+
+Judge Gaylor explained that Winthrop preferred to wait downstairs, and
+that he had said he would remain there until the seance was finished.
+
+"Afraid of compromising his position," commented the old man. "I'm
+sorry. I'd like to have him here." He motioned Gaylor to bend nearer.
+In a voice that trembled with eagerness and excitement, he whispered:
+"Henry, I have a feeling that we are going to witness a remarkable
+phenomenon."
+
+Gaylor's countenance grew preternaturally grave. He nodded heavily.
+
+"I have the same feeling, Stephen," he returned.
+
+Vance raised his hand to command silence.
+
+"Every one," he called, "except the committee, who are to bind and tie
+the medium, will take the place I give him, and remain in it. Mr. Day
+will please acquaint Miss Vera and Mrs. Vance with the fact that we are
+ready."
+
+Up to this point Vance had appeared only as a stage manager. He had
+been concerned with his groupings, his lights, in assigning to his
+confederates the parts they were to play. Now that the curtain was
+to rise, as an actor puts on a wig and grease paint, Vance assumed a
+certain voice and manner. On the stage the critics would have called him
+a convincing actor. He made his audience believe what he believed. He
+knew the eloquence of a pause, the value of a surprised, unintelligible
+exclamation. One moment he was as professionally solemn as a "funeral
+director;" the next, his voice, his whole frame, would shake with
+excitement, in an outburst of fanatic fervor. As it pleased him he
+could play Hamlet, tenderly shocked at the sight of his dead father, or
+Macbeth, retreating in horror before the ghost of Banquo. For the moment
+his manner was that of the undertaker.
+
+"Now, Mr. Hallowell," he said hoarsely, "please to name those you wish
+to serve on the committee."
+
+Mr. Hallowell waved his arm to include every one in the room.
+
+"Everybody will serve on the committee," he declared. "Everything is to
+be open and above-board. The whole city is welcome on the committee. I
+want this to be above suspicion."
+
+"That is my wish, also, sir," said Vance stiffly. "But a committee of
+more than three is unwieldy. Suppose you name two gentlemen and I one?
+Or," he shrugged his shoulders, "you can name all three."
+
+After a moment of consideration Mr. Hallowell pointed at Lee. "I choose
+Mr.--that young man," he announced, "and Judge Gaylor."
+
+"I would much rather not, Stephen," Judge Gaylor whispered.
+
+"I know, Henry," answered the other. "But I ask it of you. It will give
+me confidence." He turned to Vance. "You select some one," he commanded.
+
+With a bow, Vance designated the tall German.
+
+"Will Professor Strombergk be acceptable?" he asked. Mr. Hallowell
+nodded.
+
+"Then, the three gentlemen chosen will please come to the cabinet."
+
+Vance, his manner now that of a master of ceremonies, assigned to each
+person the seat he or she was to occupy. Miss Coates with satisfaction
+noted that only Mrs. Vance separated Lee from the electric switch.
+
+"I must ask you," said Vance, "to keep the sears I have assigned to you.
+With us tonight are both favorable and unfavorable influences. And
+what I have tried to do in placing you, is to obtain the best psychic
+results." He moved to the door and looked into the hall, then turned,
+and with uplifted arm silently demanded attention.
+
+"Miss Vera," he announced. Followed closely, like respectful courtiers,
+by Mannie and Mrs. Vance, Vera appeared in the doorway, walked a few
+feet into the room, and stood motionless. As though already in a trance,
+she moved slowly, without volition, like a somnambulist. Her head was
+held high, but her eyes were dull and unseeing. Her arms hung limply.
+She wore an evening gown of soft black stuff, that clung to her like
+a lace shawl, and which left her throat and arms bare. In spite of the
+clash of interests, of antagonism, of mutual distrust, there was no
+one present to whom the sight of the young girl did not bring an uneasy
+thrill. The nature of the thing she proposed to do, contrasted with
+the loveliness of her face, which seemed to mock at the possibility
+of deceit; something in her rapt, distant gaze, in the dignity of her
+uplifted head, in her air of complete detachment from her surroundings,
+caused even the most skeptical to question if she might not possess
+the power she claimed, to feel for a moment the approach of the
+supernatural.
+
+The voices of the committee, consulting together, dropped suddenly to a
+whisper; the others were instantly silent.
+
+In his arms Mannie carried silken scarfs, cords, and ropes. In each hand
+he held a teacup. One contained flour, the other shot. Vance took these
+from him, and Mannie hurriedly slipped into his chair in front of the
+organ.
+
+"Gentlemen," explained Vance, "you will use these ropes and scarfs
+to tie the medium. Also, as a further precaution against the least
+suspicion of fraud, we will subject her to the most severe test known.
+In one hand she will hold this flour; the other will be filled with
+shot. This will make it impossible for her to tamper with the ropes."
+
+He gave the two cups to Gaylor, and turned to Vera.
+
+"Are you ready?" he asked. After a pause, the girl slightly inclined
+her head. Lee, with one of the scarfs in his hand, approached her
+diffidently. He looked unhappily at the slight, girlish figure, at the
+fair white arms. In his embarrassment he appealed to Vance.
+
+"How would you suggest?" he asked.
+
+Vance, apparently shocked, hastily drew away. "That would be most
+irregular," he protested.
+
+Apologetically Lee turned to the girl.
+
+"Would you mind putting your arms behind you?" he asked. He laced the
+scarf around her arms, and drew it tightly to her wrists.
+
+"Tell me if I hurt you," he murmured, but the girl made no answer. To
+what was going forward she appeared as unmindful as though she were an
+artist's manikin.
+
+"Will you take these now?" asked Gaylor, and into her open palms he
+poured the flour and shot. "And, now," continued Lee, "will you go into
+the cabinet?" As she seated herself, he knelt in front of her and bound
+her ankles. From behind her Strombergk deftly wound the ropes about her
+body and through the rungs and back of the chair.
+
+"Would you mind seeing if you can withdraw your arms?" Lee asked. The
+girl raised her shoulders, struggled to free her hands, and tried to
+rise. But the efforts were futile.
+
+"Are the gentlemen satisfied?" demanded Vance. The three men, who
+had shown but little heart in the work, and who were now red and
+embarrassed, hastily answered in the affirmative.
+
+"If you are satisfied the ropes are securely fastened," Vance continued,
+"you will take your seats." Professor Strombergk, as he moved to his
+chair, announced in devout, solemn tones; "Nothing but spirit hands can
+move those ropes now."
+
+From the organ rose softly the prelude to a Moody and Sankey hymn, and,
+in keeping with the music, the voice of Vance sank to a low tone.
+
+"We will now," he said, "establish the magnetic chain. Each person will
+take with his right hand the left wrist of the person on his or her
+right." He paused while this order was being carried into effect.
+
+"Before I turn out the lights," he continued, "I wish to say a last word
+to any skeptic who may be present. I warn him that any attempt to lay
+violent hands upon the apparition, or spirit, may cost the medium her
+life. From the cabinet the medium projects the spirit into the circle.
+An attack upon the spirit, is an attack upon the medium. There are three
+or four well-authenticated cases where the disembodied spirit was cut
+off from the cabinet, and the medium died."
+
+He drew the velvet curtains across the cabinet, and shut Vera from
+view. "Are you ready, Mr. Hallowell?" he asked. Mr. Hallowell, his eyes
+staring, his lips parted, nodded his head. The music grew louder. Vance
+switched off the lights.
+
+For some minutes, except for the creaking of the pedals of the organ and
+the low throb of the music, there was no sound. Then, from his position
+at the open door, the voice of Vance commanded sternly: "No whispering,
+please. The medium is susceptible to the least sound." There was another
+longer pause, until in hushed expectant tones Vance spoke again. "The
+air is very heavily charged with electricity tonight," he said, "you,
+Mrs. Marsh, should feel that?"
+
+"I do, Professor," murmured the medium, "I do. We shall have some
+wonderful results!"
+
+Vance agreed with her solemnly. "I feel influences all about me," he
+murmured.
+
+There came suddenly from the cabinet three sharp raps. These were
+instantly answered by other quick rappings upon the library table.
+"They are beginning!" chanted the voice of Vance. The music of the organ
+ceased. It was at once followed by the notes of a guitar that seemed to
+float in space, the strings vibrating, not as though touched by human
+hands, but in fitful, meaningless chords like those of an Aeolian harp.
+
+"That is Kiowa, your control, Mrs. Marsh," announced Vance eagerly. "Do
+you desire to speak to him?"
+
+"Not tonight," Mrs. Marsh answered. She raised her voice. "Not tonight,
+Kiowa," she repeated. "Thank you for coming. Good night."
+
+In deep, guttural accents, a man's voice came from the ceiling. "Good
+night," it called. With a final, ringing wail, the music of the guitar
+suddenly ceased.
+
+Again rose the swelling low notes of the organ. Above it came the quick
+pattering of footsteps.
+
+The voice of Rainey, filled with alarm, cried, "some one touched me!"
+
+"Are you sure your hands are held?" demanded Vance reprovingly.
+
+"Yes," panted Rainey, "both of them. But something put its hand on my
+forehead. It was cold."
+
+In an excited whisper, a voice in the circle cried, "Look, look!" and
+before the eyes of all, a star rose in the darkness. For a moment it
+wavered over the cabinet and then fluttered swiftly across the room and
+remained stationary above the head of the German Professor.
+
+"There is your star, Professor," cried Vance. "When the Professor is in
+the circle," he announced proudly, "that star always appears."
+
+He was interrupted by a startled exclamation from Lee.
+
+"Something touched my face," explained the young man apologetically,
+"and spoke to me."
+
+The music sank to a murmur, and the room became alive with swift,
+rushing sounds and soft whisperings.
+
+The voice of Mrs. Marsh, low and eager, could be heard appealing to an
+invisible presence.
+
+"The results are marvelous," chanted Vance, "marvelous! The medium is
+showing wonderful power. If any one desires to ask a question, he should
+do so now. The conditions will never be better." He paused expectantly.
+"Mr. Hallowell," he prompted, "is it your wish to communicate with any
+one in the spirit world?"
+
+There was a long pause, and then the voice of Mr. Hallowell, harsh and
+shaken, answered, "Yes."
+
+"With whom?" demanded Vance.
+
+There was again another longer pause, and then, above the confusion of
+soft whisperings, the voice of the old man rose in sharp staccato; "My
+sister, Catherine Coates." His tone hardened, became obdurate, final.
+"But, I must see her, and hear her speak!"
+
+Not for an instant did Vance hesitate. In tense, sepulchral tones, he
+demanded of the darkness, "Is the spirit of Catherine Coates present?"
+
+The whisperings and murmurs ceased. The silence of the room was broken
+sharply by three quick raps. "Yes," intoned Vance, "she is present."
+
+The voice of Hallowell protested fiercely. "I won't have that! I want to
+see her!"
+
+In the tone of an incantation, Vance spoke again. "Will the spirit show
+herself to her brother?" The raps came quickly, firmly.
+
+"She answers she will appear before you."
+
+There was a moment that seemed to stretch interminably, and then, the
+eyes of all, straining in the darkness, saw against the black velvet
+curtain a splash of white.
+
+Above the sobbing of the organ, the voice of Mr. Hallowell rang out in
+a sharp exclamation of terror. "Who is that!" he demanded. He spoke as
+though he dreaded the answer. He threw himself forward in his chair,
+peering into the darkness.
+
+"Is that you, Kate?" he whispered. His voice was both incredulous and
+pleading.
+
+The answer came in feeble, trembling tones. "Yes."
+
+The voice of Hallowell shook with eagerness. "Do you know me, your
+brother, Stephen?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+With a cry the old man fell back, groping blindly. He found Gaylor's arm
+and clutched it with both hands.
+
+"My God! It's Kate!" he gasped. "I tell you, Henry, it is Kate!"
+
+The voice of Vance, deep and hollow like a bell, sounded a note of
+warning. "Speak quickly," he commanded. "Her time on earth is brief."
+Mr. Hallowell's hold upon the arm of his friend relaxed. Fearfully and
+slowly, he bent forward.
+
+"Kate!" he pleaded; "I must ask you a question. No one else can tell
+me." As though gathering courage, he paused, and, with a frightened
+sigh, again began. "I am an old man," he murmured, "a sick man. I will
+be joining you very soon, what am I to do with my money? I have made
+great plans to give it to the poor. Or, must I give it, as I have given
+it in my will, to Helen? Perhaps I did not act fairly to you and Helen.
+You know what I mean. She would be rich, but then the poor would be
+that much the poorer." The confidence of the speaker was increasing; as
+though to a living being, he argued and pleaded. "And I want to do some
+good before I go. What shall I do? Tell me."
+
+There was a pause that lasted so long that those who had held their
+breath to listen, again breathed deeply. When the answer came, it was
+strangely deprecatory, uncertain, unassured.
+
+"You," stammered the voice, "you must have courage to do what you know
+to be just!"
+
+For a brief moment, as though surprised, Mr. Hallowell apparently
+considered this, and then gave an exclamation of disappointment and
+distress.
+
+"But I don't know," he protested, "that is why I called on you. I want
+to go into the next world, Kate," he pleaded, "with clean hands!"
+
+"You cannot bribe your way into the next world," intoned the voice. "If
+you pity the poor, you must help the poor, not that you may cheat your
+way into heaven, but that they may suffer less. Search your conscience.
+Have the courage of your conscience."
+
+"I don't want to consult my conscience," cried the old man. "I want you
+to tell me." He paused, hesitating. Eager to press his question, his awe
+of the apparition still restrained him.
+
+"What do you mean, Kate?" he begged. "Am I to give the money where it
+will do the most good--to the Hallowell Institute, or am I to give it to
+Helen? Which am I to do?"
+
+There was another long silence, and then the voice stammered; "If--if
+you have wronged me, or my daughter, or the poor, you must make
+restitution."
+
+The hand of the old man was heard to fall heavily upon the arm of his
+chair. His voice rose unhappily.
+
+"That is no answer, Kate!" he cried. "Did you come from the dead to
+preach to me? Tell me--what am I to do--leave my money to Helen, or to
+the Institute?"
+
+The cry of the old man vibrated in the air. No voice rose to answer.
+"Kate!" he entreated. Still there was silence. "Speak to me!" he
+commanded. The silence became eloquent with momentous possibilities. So
+long did it endure, that the pain of the suspense was actual. The voice
+of Rainey, choked and hoarse with fear, broke it with an exclamation
+that held the sound of an oath. He muttered thickly, "What in the name
+of--"
+
+He was hushed by a swift chorus of hisses. The voice of Hallowell was
+again uplifted.
+
+"Why won't she answer me?" he begged hysterically of Vance. "Can't
+you--can't the medium make her speak?"
+
+During the last few moments the music from the organ had come brokenly.
+The hands upon the keys moved unsteadily, drunkenly. Now they halted
+altogether and in the middle of a chord the music sank and died. Upon
+the now absolute silence the voice of Vance, when he spoke, sounded
+strangely unfamiliar. It had lost the priest-like intonation. Its
+confidence had departed. It showed bewilderment and alarm.
+
+"I--I don't understand," stammered the showman. "Ask her again. Put your
+question differently."
+
+Carefully, slowly, giving each word its value, Mr. Hallowell raised his
+voice in entreaty.
+
+"Kate," he cried, "I have made a new will, leaving the money to the
+poor. The old will gives it to Helen. Shall I sign the new will or not?
+Shall I give the money to Helen, or the Institute? Answer me! Yes or
+no."
+
+Before the eyes of all, the apparition, as though retreating to the
+cabinet, swayed backward, then staggered forward. There was a sob,
+human, heart-broken, a cry, thrilling with distress; a tumult of
+weeping, fierce and uncontrollable.
+
+They saw the figure tear away the white kerchief and cap, and trample
+them upon the floor. They saw the figure hold itself erect. From it, the
+voice of Vera cried aloud, in despair.
+
+"I can't! I can't!" she sobbed. "It's a lie! I am not your sister! Turn
+on the lights," the girl cried. "Turn on the lights!"
+
+There was a crash of upturned chairs, the sound of men struggling, and
+the room was swept with light. In the doorway Winthrop was holding apart
+Vance and the reporter.
+
+In the centre of the room stood Vera, her head bent in shame, her body
+shaken and trembling, her hair streaming to her waist.
+
+As though to punish herself, by putting a climax to her humiliation, she
+held out her arms to Helen Coates. "You see," she cried, "I am a cheat.
+I am a fraud!" She sank suddenly to her knees in front of Mr. Hallowell.
+"Forgive me," she sobbed, "forgive me!"
+
+With a cry of angry protest, Winthrop ran to her and lifted her to her
+feet. His eyes were filled with pity. But in the eyes of Mr. Hallowell
+there was no promise of pardon. With sudden strength he struggled to his
+feet and stood swaying, challenging those before him. His face was white
+with anger, his jaw closed against mercy.
+
+"You've lied to me!" he cried. "You've tried to rob me!" He swept the
+room with his eyes. With a flash of intuition, he saw the trap they had
+laid for him. "All of you!" he screamed. "It's a plot!" He shook his
+fist at the weeping girl. "And you!" he shouted hysterically, "the law
+shall punish you!"
+
+Winthrop drew the girl to him and put his arm about her.
+
+"I'll do the punishing here," he said.
+
+With a glad, welcoming cry, the old man turned to him appealingly,
+wildly.
+
+"Yes, you!" he shouted, "you punish them! She plotted to get my money."
+
+The girl at Winthrop's side shivered, and shrank from him. He drew her
+back roughly and held her close. The sobs that shook her tore at his
+heart; the touch of the sinking, trembling body in his arms filled him
+with fierce, jubilant thoughts of keeping the girl there always, of
+giving battle for her, of sheltering her against the world. In what she
+had done he saw only a sacrifice. In her he beheld only a penitent, who
+was self-accused and self-convicted.
+
+He heard the voice of the old man screaming vindictively, "She plotted
+to get my money!"
+
+Winthrop turned upon him savagely.
+
+"How did she plot to get it?" he retorted fiercely. "You know, and I
+know. I know how your lawyer, your doctor, your servant plotted to get
+it!" His voice rose and rang with indignation. "You all plotted, and you
+all schemed--and to what end--what was the result?"--he held before them
+the fainting figure of the girl--"That one poor child could prove she
+was honest!"
+
+With his arms still about her, and her hands clinging to him, he moved
+with her quickly to the door. When they had reached the silence of the
+hall, he took her hands in his, and looked into her eyes. "Now," he
+commanded, "you shall come to my sisters!"
+
+The waiting car carried them swiftly up the avenue. Their way lay
+through the park, and the warm, mid-summer air was heavy with the odor
+of plants and shrubs. Above them the trees drooped deep with leaves.
+Vera, crouched in a corner, had not spoken. Her eyes were hidden in
+her hands. But when they had entered the silent reaches of the park she
+lowered them and the face she lifted to Winthrop was pale and wet with
+tears. The man thought never before had he seen it more lovely or more
+lovable. Vera shook her head dumbly and looked up at him with a troubled
+smile.
+
+"I told you," she murmured remorsefully, "you'd be sorry."
+
+"We don't know that yet," said Winthrop gently, "we'll have all the rest
+of our lives to find that out."
+
+Startled, the girl drew back. In her face was wonder, amazement, a
+dawning happiness.
+
+Without speaking, Winthrop looked at her, entreatingly, pitifully,
+beseeching her with his eyes.
+
+Slowly the girl bent forward and, as he threw out his arms, with a
+little sigh of rest and content she crept into them and pressed her face
+to his.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vera, by Richard Harding Davis
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