ive an inspection," replied Dr. Hull.
"We are grateful for the confidence shown, but, in justice to ourselves,
as well as for their own more absolute assurance, we always insist upon
it. Otherwise, suspicions of fraud not entertained, perhaps, at the time,
might afterwards occur to the mind, or be suggested by others, to which
they would have no conclusive answer."

Upon this Miss Ludington and Paul permitted themselves to be conducted
upon the same tour of inspection that they had made the former evening.
They found everything precisely as it had been on that occasion. There
was no possibility of concealing any person in the cabinet or the back
parlour, and no apparent or conceivable means by which any person could
reach those apartments, except through the front parlour.

On their return to the latter apartment the proceedings followed the
order observed at the previous seance. Mrs. Legrand rose from her chair
and walked feebly through the back parlour into the cabinet. Dr. Hull
then locked and braced a chair against the door opening into the hall,
giving the key to Paul. Then, having arranged the three chairs as before,
across the double door between the parlours, he seated Miss Ludington and
Paul, and, having turned the gas down, took the third chair.

All being ready, Alta, who was at the piano, struck the opening chords of
the same soft, low music that she had played at the previous seance.

It seemed to Miss Ludington that she played much longer than before, and
she began to think that either there was to be some failure in the
seance, or that something had happened to Mrs. Legrand.

Perhaps she was dead. This horrible thought, added to the strain of
expectancy, affected her nerves so that in another moment she must have
screamed out, when, as before, she felt a faint, cool air fan her
forehead, and a few seconds later Ida appeared at the door of the cabinet
and glided into the room.

She was dressed as at her former appearance, in white, with her shoulders
bare, and the wealth of her golden hair falling to her waist behind.

From the moment that she emerged from the shadows of the cabinet Paul's
eyes were glued to her face with an intensity quite beyond any ordinary
terms of description.

Fancy having not over a minute in which to photograph upon the mind a
form the recollection of which is to furnish the consolation of a
lifetime. The difficulties of securing this second seance, and the doubt
that invol