him. Then, without speaking, she turned and looked past him at
Galusha Bangs. She looked so long and so steadily that Cabot also turned
and looked. What he saw caused him to utter an exclamation.

"For heaven's sakes, Loosh!" he exclaimed.

His cousin, as white as the proverbial sheet, which means much whiter
than some sheets, Elmer Rogers', for example, was slowly rising from his
chair. One hand was pressed against his forehead and he looked as if he
were dazed, stunned, suffering from a stroke. As a matter of fact, he
was suffering from all three. The spark had at last reached the powder
and the barrel was in the very act of disintegrating.

"Galusha," demanded Cousin Gussie, "are you sick? What is it?"

Galusha did not answer. Before the alarmed banker could repeat his
question there came a knock at the door.

"Miss Martha," called Primmie, in tremulous excitement. "Miss Martha,
Zach he's come and he says the seance is just a-goin' to begin and Cap'n
Jeth says to hurry right straight over. Zach says the old man is as
tittered up and nervous as ever he see him and 'twon't do to keep him
waitin' a minute. My savin' soul, no! Zach says for all hands to heave
right straight ahead and come."

CHAPTER XX

In the melodramas, the sort which most people laugh at as
"old-fashioned" and enjoy thoroughly, there is usually a scene in
which the hero, or the heroine, or both, are about to be drowned in
the sinking ship or roasted in the loft of the burning building, or
butchered by the attacking savages, or executed by the villain and his
agents. The audience enjoys some delightful thrills while watching
this situation--whichever it may be--develop, but is spared any acute
anxiety, knowing from experience that just at the last moment the
rescuing boat, or the heroic firemen, or the troops, or a reprieve from
the Governor, will arrive and save the leading man or woman and the play
from a premature end and for another act.

It does not happen as often in real life, at least one cannot count
upon it with the certainty of the theater. But when Miss Primrose Cash
knocked upon the door of the Phipps' sitting room and delivered her
call to the seance, she was as opportune and nick-of-timey as was ever
a dramatic Governor's messenger. Certainly that summons of hers was to
Galusha Bangs a reprieve which saved him from instant destruction.

Cousin Gussie, who had been on the point of repeating his demand to know
if his relati