rd,
Harris!" I said, warningly. "Please move farther away."
In the dusky light the faces of all the women looked suddenly blanched
and strange as the entranced woman seized upon the table with her hands,
shaking it hard from side to side. The table seemed to wake to diabolic
energy under her palms. This was an unexpected development, and I was
almost as much surprised as the others were.
"Sing again," I commanded, softly.
As they sang, Mrs. Harris withdrew her hands from the table and sat
rigidly erect, yet with a peaceful look upon her face. "She does it
well," I thought. "I didn't think it in the quiet little lady." At
length one hand lifted and dropped limply upon the table. "It wants to
write," said I. "Where is the pad? I have a pencil."
As I put a pencil under the hand, it was seized in a very singular way,
and almost instantly Mrs. Cameron gasped, "That's very strange!"
"Hush!" said I. "Wait!"
Holding the pencil clumsily as a crippled person might do, the hand
crept over the paper, and at last, after writing several lines, stopped
and lay laxly open. I passed the pad to Brierly. "Read it aloud," I
said.
He took it to the light and read:
"Sara, be not sceptical. Believe and you will be happier. Life is
only the minutest segment of the great circle.
MARTIN."
"My father!" exclaimed Mrs. Cameron. "Let me see the writing." Brierly
handed the pad to her. She stared upon it in awe and wonder. "It is his
exact signature--and Dolly held the pen just as he did--he was
paralyzed toward the last--and could only write by holding his pen that
way."
"Look! it's moving again," I exclaimed.
The hand caught up the pencil, and, holding it between the thumb and
forefinger in a peculiar way, began moving it in the air. Brierly, who
sat opposite, translated these movements. "She is drawing, free-hand, in
the air. She is sketching the outline of a boat. See how she measures
and plumbs her lines! Are you addressing me?" he asked of Mrs. Harris.
The sleeper nodded.
"Can't you write?" I asked. "Can't you speak?"
A low gurgle in the throat was the only answer at the moment, but after
a few trials a husky whisper began to be heard. "I will try," she said,
and suddenly began to chuckle, rolling upon one hip and throwing one
foot over the other like a man taking an easy attitude. She now held the
pencil as if it were a cigarette, laughing agai
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