Yet as a scientist did not shrink from experiment
for fear of risk, neither must the spiritualist.

As he picked his way to his lodgings on the north of the park, he was
thinking about Laurie Baxter. That this boy possessed in an unusual
degree what he would have called "occult powers" was very evident to
him. That these powers involved a certain risk was evident too. He
proposed, therefore, to take all reasonable precautions. All the
catastrophes he had witnessed in the past were due, he thought, to a
too rapid development of those powers, or to inexperience. He
determined, therefore, to go slowly.

First, the boy must be convinced; next, he must be attached to the
cause; thirdly, his religion must be knocked out of him; fourthly, he
must be trained and developed. But for the present he must not be
allowed to go into trance if it could be prevented. It was plain, he
thought, that Laurie had a very strong "affinity," as he would have
said, with the disembodied spirit of a certain "Amy Nugent." His
communication with her had been of a very startling nature in its
rapidity and perfection. Real progress might be made, then, through
this channel.

* * * * *

Yes; I am aware that this sounds grotesque nonsense.

II

Laurie came back to town in a condition of interior quietness that
rather astonished him. He had said to Maggie that he was not
convinced; and that was true so far as he knew. Intellectually, the
spiritualistic theory was at present only the hypothesis that seemed
the most reasonable; yet morally he was as convinced of its truth as
of anything in the world. And this showed itself by the quietness in
which he found his soul plunged.

Moral conviction--that conviction on which a man acts--does not always
coincide with the intellectual process. Occasionally it outruns it;
occasionally lags behind; and the first sign of its arrival is the
cessation of strain. The intellect may still be busy, arranging,
sorting, and classifying; but the thing itself is done, and the soul
leans back.

A certain amount of excitement made itself felt when he found Mr.
Vincent's letter waiting for his arrival to congratulate him on his
decision, and to beg him to be at Queen's Gate not later than
half-past eight o'clock on the following Sunday; but it was not more
than momentary. He knew the thing to be inevitably true now; the time
and place at which it manifested itself was not supremely impor