ne
threads, drawn sufficiently taut to snap with any movement.

He finished by placing her feet on the sheet of paper, and outlining
their position there with a pencil line.

The proceedings were saved from absurdity by what we all felt was the
extreme gravity of the situation. There were present in the room Mrs.
Dane, the Robinsons, Sperry, my wife and myself. Clara, Mrs. Dane's
secretary, had begged off on the plea of nervousness from the earlier
and physical portion of the seance, and was to remain outside in the
hall until the trance commenced.

Sperry objected to this, as movement in the circle during the trance
had, in the first seance, induced fretful uneasiness in the medium. But
Clara, appealed to, begged to be allowed to remain outside until she
was required, and showed such unmistakable nervousness that we finally
agreed.

"Would a slight noise disturb her?" Mrs. Dane asked.

Miss Jeremy thought not, if the circle remained unbroken, and Mrs. Dane
considered.

"Bring me my stick from the hall, Horace," she said. "And tell Clara
I'll rap on the floor with it when I want her."

I found a stick in the rack outside and brought it in. The lights were
still on in the chandelier overhead, and as I gave the stick to Mrs.
Dane I heard Sperry speaking sharply behind me.

"Where did you get that stick?" he demanded.

"In the hall. I--"

"I never saw it before," said Mrs. Dane. "Perhaps it is Herbert's."

But I caught Sperry's eye. We had both recognized it. It was Arthur
Wells's, the one which Sperry had taken from his room, and which, in
turn, had been taken from Sperry's library.

Sperry was watching me with a sort of cynical amusement.

"You're an absent-minded beggar, Horace," he said.

"You didn't, by any chance, stop here on your way back from my place the
other night, did you?"

"I did. But I didn't bring that thing."

"Look here, Horace," he said, more gently, "you come in and see me some
day soon. You're not as fit as you ought to be."

I confess to a sort of helpless indignation that was far from the
composure the occasion required. But the others, I believe, were fully
convinced that no human agency had operated to bring the stick into Mrs.
Dane's house, a belief that prepared them for anything that might occur.

A number of things occurred almost as soon as the lights were out,
interrupting a train of thought in which I saw myself in the first
stages of mental decay, and carrying about