n
friend of mine, who had never seen anything of the kind before, came
with much the same prejudices as I had felt at the Boston _seance_, and
disturbed the conditions very much by his attitude of determined
antagonism; whilst his comparative ignorance of English, and my feeble
Italian, made explanations, under the circumstances, rather hopeless.
The whole circle was put out of harmony, and a dead weight lay upon us
all. The materialisations continued, it is true; but personally it was a
great relief to me when my excitable friend left, declaring that
everything he had seen was "_physiquement impossible mon ange_."

He departed so abruptly as to bring down much abuse upon his absent head
for having "broken the battery" and almost "killed the medium" by his
sudden disappearance from the circle.

This awful threat had so much power over the rest of the party that we
sat out to the bitter end, leaving the medium at last still in her
trance, with husband and son hovering over her in an anxiety which, if
acted, showed first-class dramatic power.

Meanwhile I had made the acquaintance of a very beautiful and charming
woman in New York, to whom I had brought a letter of introduction.

She has had a tragic and remarkable history; is a woman of great mental
powers, in addition to very remarkable beauty; and is of the highest
rank, being an Austrian princess, I believe, in her own right, and
having spent her youth in foreign courts.

Apart from these facts, which had been told me by a mutual friend before
we met, I knew nothing whatever of her family history, nor whether she
had brothers or sisters, alive or dead.

I had spoken to her of my curious experiences, and she had discussed the
matter with me from the standpoint of a thorough woman of the world, of
strong mental power, who had seen too much of life to be dogmatic or
narrow in her views, but too much also to believe in what is called the
"supernatural," before every possible _natural_ hypothesis had been
admitted and dismissed as untenable.

Sitting in her pretty room the day before I left New York, we had talked
for some two hours on various subjects connected with life and
literature, and before the final "adieux" she said laughingly: "Well,
have you been to any more _seances_?"

I said "No," and that we did not intend to do so, as our time was now so
short. A few moments of careless talk on the subject ensued, and picking
up a newspaper, I cast my eye over the