decided upon finally--and yet it was almost as
difficult for Clarke or Mrs. Lambert to have performed all the tricks,
"Unless Kate"--he brought himself up short--"in the end, my own
sister, is involved in the imposture," he exclaimed, with a sense of
bewilderment.

When he dwelt on Viola's delight in her own vindication, and
remembered her serene, sweet, trustful glance, a shiver of awe went
over him, and the work of saving her, of healing her, seemed greater
than the discovery of any new principle; but whenever his keen,
definite, analytic mind took up the hit-or-miss absurd caperings of
"the spirits" he paced the floor in revolt of their childish
chicanery. That the soul survived death he could not for an instant
entertain. Every principle of biology, every fibre woven into his
system of philosophy repelled the thought. To grant one single claim
of the spiritists was disaster. "No, the mother and Clarke are in
league, and when the bonds are on one the other acts. I see no other
explanation. I distrust Clarke utterly--but the mother is apparently
very gentle and candid, and yet--Weissmann may be right. Maternal love
is a very powerful emotion. That second voice was like hers. And yet,
and yet, to suspect that gentle soul of deliberate deception is a
terrible thing. What a world of vulgarity and disease and suspicion it
all is! An accursed world, and the history of every medium is filled
with these same insane, foolish, absurd doings."

And so he trod in weary circles, returning always to the same point,
with an almost audible groan. "Why, _why_ was that charming girl
involved in all this uncanny, hellish, destructive business? Clarke
claims her. On him her fate depends. Perhaps at this moment her name
and hideous reproductions of her face are being printed in all the
sensational papers of the city. Oh, that crazy preacher! It may be
that he has already made her rescue impossible." And always the dark,
disturbing thought came at the end to trouble him. "Can she ever
regain a normal relation with the world--even if I should interfere?
She should have been freed from this traffic long ago. Can the science
of suggestion reach her? Am I already too late?"

The conception that sank deepest and remained most abhorrent in his
musings was that conveyed in her own tragic words: "_It seems to me I
am becoming more and more like a public piano, an instrument on which
any one can strum--and the other world is so crowded, you kno