Now, Cameron, you may turn on
the gas, but do so very slowly. Mrs. Smiley seems in deep sleep, and we
are warned not to startle her."

When the light became strong enough to see a form, we found our psychic
sitting limply, her head drooping sidewise, her eyes closed, her face
white and calm. The cone was lying not far from her chair, separated
into two parts. The threads that bound her to her seat were to all
appearance precisely as at the beginning of the sitting, except that
they were deeply sunk into the flesh of her wrists. Her chair had not
moved a hair's-breadth from the chalk-marks on the floor.

A moment later she opened her eyes, and, smiling rather wanly, asked of
me: "Did anything happen?"

"Oh yes, a great deal. 'Wilbur' came, and 'Maud,' and 'Mr. Mitchell.'"

"I am very glad," she answered, with a faint, happy smile.

Mrs. Cameron bent to her pityingly. "How do you feel?"

"Very numb, but I'll be all right in a very short time. My wrists hurt;
your thread is very tight. My arms always swell. Please give me a drink
of water."

As I held the glass to her lips I was conscience-smitten to think that
for five hours she had been sitting in this constrained position--a
martyr to science; but I deferred the moment of her release till Miller
had examined every bond. I used a small pair of scissors to cut the
thread out of the deep furrows in her wrist, and it took a quarter of an
hour of chafing to restore her arms to their normal condition, all of
which had a convincing effect upon the doubters.

Miss Brush was indignant. "I think it is a shame the way you have
treated your psychic."

"Oh, this is nothing," responded Mrs. Smiley. "I'd be unhappy and uneasy
if you didn't tie me. I'm like the old man's chickens (you've heard the
story?): he had moved so much that the chickens, whenever they saw him
put a cover on his wagon, would lie down and cross their feet to be
tied."

After Mrs. Cameron had taken Mrs. Smiley to the dining-room for a cup of
tea, the rest of us remained staring at one another.

"Now, which of us did that?" I asked.

"So far as the psychic was concerned, I don't see how she could have had
any hand in it," said Miller. "But, then, it was all in the dark."

I had to admit that this diminished the value of the experiment. "But
now listen," I said: "as we all seem to be suspicious of one another, I
propose that we resort to a process of elimination. I shall take
'Mitchell's' advice and