attempted
your life and the fact that in the last two days your life has twice
been endangered by horses--my father was a great horseman--all this, I
say, causes the doubt to arise in my mind. What if there be something in
it? I am not so sure. Science may be too dogmatic in its denial of the
unseen. The forces of the unseen, of the spirit, may well be too
subtle, too sublimated, for science to lay hold of, and recognize, and
formulate. Don't you see, Chris, that there is rationality in the very
doubt? It may be a very small doubt--oh, so small; but I love you too
much to run even that slight risk. Besides, I am a woman, and
that should in itself fully account for my predisposition toward
superstition.

"Yes, yes, I know, call it unreality. But I've heard you paradoxing upon
the reality of the unreal--the reality of delusion to the mind that is
sick. And so with me, if you will; it is delusion and unreal, but to me,
constituted as I am, it is very real--is real as a nightmare is real, in
the throes of it, before one awakes."

"The most logical argument for illogic I have ever heard," Chris smiled.
"It is a good gaming proposition, at any rate. You manage to embrace
more chances in your philosophy than do I in mine. It reminds me of
Sam--the gardener you had a couple of years ago. I overheard him and
Martin arguing in the stable. You know what a bigoted atheist Martin is.
Well, Martin had deluged Sam with floods of logic. Sam pondered awhile,
and then he said, 'Foh a fack, Mis' Martin, you jis' tawk like a house
afire; but you ain't got de show I has.' 'How's that?' Martin asked.
'Well, you see, Mis' Martin, you has one chance to mah two.' 'I don't
see it,' Martin said. 'Mis' Martin, it's dis way. You has jis' de
chance, lak you say, to become worms foh de fruitification of de cabbage
garden. But I's got de chance to lif' mah voice to de glory of de Lawd
as I go paddin' dem golden streets--along 'ith de chance to be jis'
worms along 'ith you, Mis' Martin.'"

"You refuse to take me seriously," Lute said, when she had laughed her
appreciation.

"How can I take that Planchette rigmarole seriously?" he asked.

"You don't explain it--the handwriting of my father, which Uncle Robert
recognized--oh, the whole thing, you don't explain it."

"I don't know all the mysteries of mind," Chris answered. "But I believe
such phenomena will all yield to scientific explanation in the not
distant future."

"Just the same, I have