afterwards. She lives in Geneva."

Mme. Dauvray was silent for a moment or two. Then she turned
impulsively and spoke in a voice of appeal.

"Celie, we talked of things"; and the girl moved impatiently. She
understood very well what were the things of which Mme. Dauvray and her
new friend had talked. "And she laughed. ... I could not bear it."

Celia was silent, and Mme. Dauvray went on in a voice of awe:

"I told her of the wonderful things which happened when I sat with
Helene in the dark--how the room filled with strange sounds, how
ghostly fingers touched my forehead and my eyes. She laughed--Adele
Rossignol laughed, Celie. I told her of the spirits with whom we held
converse. She would not believe. Do you remember the evening, Celie,
when Mme. de Castiglione came back an old, old woman, and told us how,
when she had grown old and had lost her beauty and was very lonely, she
would no longer live in the great house which was so full of torturing
memories, but took a small appartement near by, where no one knew her;
and how she used to walk out late at night, and watch, with her eyes
full of tears, the dark windows which had been once so bright with
light? Adele Rossignol would not believe. I told her that I had found
the story afterwards in a volume of memoirs. Adele Rossignol laughed
and said no doubt you had read that volume yourself before the seance."

Celia stirred guiltily.

"She had no faith in you, Celie. It made me angry, dear. She said that
you invented your own tests. She sneered at them. A string across a
cupboard! A child, she said, could manage that; much more, then, a
clever young lady. Oh, she admitted that you were clever! Indeed, she
urged that you were far too clever to submit to the tests of some one
you did not know. I replied that you would. I was right, Celie, was I
not?"

And again the appeal sounded rather piteously in Mme. Dauvray's voice.

"Tests!" said Celia, with a contemptuous laugh. And, in truth, she was
not afraid of them. Mme. Dauvray's voice at once took courage.

"There!" she cried triumphantly. "I was sure. I told her so. Celie, I
arranged with her that next Tuesday--"

And Celia interrupted quickly.

"No! Oh, no!"

Again there was silence; and then Mme. Dauvray said gently, but very
seriously:

"Celie, you are not kind."

Celia was moved by the reproach.

"Oh, madame!" she cried eagerly. "Please don't think that. How could I
be anything else to you who are so k