influenced
by any disclosures. When this thing is over, and you have come to
a conclusion--I'll not put it that way: you may not come to a
conclusion--but when it is over, I want you to tell me the whole story.
Will you?"

I promised that I would.

Miss Jeremy did not come to dinner. She never ate before a seance. And
although we tried to keep the conversational ball floating airily, there
was not the usual effervescence of the Neighborhood Club dinners. One
and all, we were waiting, we knew not for what.

I am sorry to record that there were no physical phenomena of any sort
at this second seance. The room was arranged as it had been at the first
sitting, except that a table with a candle and a chair had been placed
behind a screen for Mrs. Dane's secretary.

There was one other change. Sperry had brought the walking-stick he had
taken from Arthur Wells's room, and after the medium was in trance he
placed it on the table before her.

The first questions were disappointing in results. Asked about the
stick, there was only silence. When, however, Sperry went back to the
sitting of the week before, and referred to questions and answers at
that time, the medium seemed uneasy. Her hand, held under mine, made an
effort to free itself and, released, touched the cane. She lifted it,
and struck the table a hard blow with it.

"Do you know to whom that stick belongs?"

A silence. Then: "Yes."

"Will you tell us what you know about it?"

"It is writing."

"Writing?"

"It was writing, but the water washed it away."

Then, instantly and with great rapidity, followed a wild torrent of
words and incomplete sentences. It is inarticulate, and the secretary
made no record of it. As I recall, however, it was about water,
children, and the words "ten o'clock" repeated several times.

"Do you mean that something happened at ten o'clock?"

"No. Certainly not. No, indeed. The water washed it away. All of it. Not
a trace."

"Where did all this happen?"

She named, without hesitation, a seaside resort about fifty miles from
our city. There was not one of us, I dare say, who did not know that the
Wellses had spent the preceding summer there and that Charlie Ellingham
had been there, also.

"Do you know that Arthur Wells is dead?"

"Yes. He is dead."

"Did he kill himself?"

"You can't catch me on that. I don't know."

Here the medium laughed. It was horrible. And the laughter made the
whole thing absurd. But it di