esitated. If
what I had heard should not be true--and this, my first doubt or
suspicion impressed upon me how impossible to me had been doubt or
suspicion during the presence of my visitor--it would be wrong to
uselessly excite her mind. On the other hand, if I had heard nothing but
the truth, what would happen should she sympathize as deeply with Amos
Kilbright as I did, and then should that worthy man suddenly become
dematerialized, perhaps before her very eyes? No, I would not tell
her--at least not yet. But I must see the spiritualists. And that
afternoon I went to them.

The leader and principal worker of the men who were about to give a
series of spiritual manifestations in our town was Mr. Corbridge, a man
of middle-age with a large head and earnest visage. When I spoke to him
of Amos Kilbright he was very much annoyed.

"So he has been talking to you," he said, "and after all the warnings I
gave him! Well, he does that sort of thing at his own risk!"

"We all do things at our own risk," I said, "and he has as much right to
choose his line of conduct as anybody else."

"No, he hasn't," said Mr. Corbridge, "he belongs to us, and it is for us
to choose his line of conduct for him."

"That is nonsense," said I. "You have no more right over him than I
have."

"Now then," said Mr. Corbridge, his eyes beginning to sparkle, "I may as
well talk plainly to you. My associates and myself have considered this
matter very carefully. At first we thought that if this fellow should
tell his story we would simply pooh-pooh the whole of it, and let people
think he was a little touched in his mind, which would be so natural a
conclusion that everybody might be expected to come to it. But as we
have determined to dematerialize him, his disappearance would bring
suspicion upon us, and we might get into trouble if he should be
considered a mere commonplace person. So we decided to speak out
plainly, say what we had done, and what we were going to do, and thus
put ourselves at the head of the spirit operators of the world. But we
are not yet ready to do anything or to make our announcements, and if he
had held his tongue we might have given him a pretty long string."

"And do you mean," I said, "that you and your associates positively
intend to dematerialize Mr. Kilbright?"

"Certainly," he answered.

"Then, I declare such an act would be inhuman; a horrible crime."

"No," said Mr. Corbridge, "it would be neither. In the fi