nd, besides, she wouldn't have hurt a hair
of his head.

"Now for Mr. Cathcart."

There was a long pause. A small cat stepped out suddenly from the
hazel tangle behind and eyed the two girls. Then, quite noiselessly,
as it caught Maggie's eye, it opened its mouth in a pathetic curve
intended to represent, an appeal.

"You darling!" cried Maggie suddenly; seized a saucer, filled it with
milk, and set it on the ground. The small cat stepped daintily down,
and set to work.

"Yes?" said the other girl tentatively.

"Oh! Mr. Cathcart.... Well, I must say that his theory fits in with
what Father Mahon says. But, you know, theology doesn't say that this
or that particular thing is the devil, or has actually happened in any
given instance--only that, if it really does happen, it is the devil.
Well, this is Mr. Cathcart's idea. It's a long story: you mustn't
mind.

"First, he believes in the devil in quite an extraordinary way.... Oh!
yes, I know we do too; but it's so very real indeed with him. He
believes that the air is simply thick with them, all doing their very
utmost to get hold of human beings. Yes, I suppose we do believe that
too; but I expect that since there are such a quantity of things--like
bad dreams--that we used to think were the devil, and now only turn
out to be indigestion, that we're rather too skeptical. Well, Mr.
Cathcart believes both in indigestion, so to speak, _and_ the devil.
He believes that those evil spirits are at us all the time, trying to
get in at any crack they can find--that in one person they produce
lunacy--I must say it seems to me rather odd the way in which lunatics
so very often become horribly blasphemous and things like that--and in
another just shattered nerves, and so on. They take advantage, he
says, of any weak spot anywhere.

"Now one of the easiest ways of all is through spiritualism.
Spiritualism is wrong--we know that well enough; it is wrong because
it's trying to live a life and find out things that are beyond us at
present. It's 'wrong' on the very lowest estimate, because it's
outraging our human nature. Yes, Mabel, that's his phrase. Good
intentions, therefore, don't protect us in the least. To go to
_seances_ with good intentions is like ... like ... holding a
smoking-concert in a powder-magazine on behalf of an orphan asylum.
It's not the least protection--I'm not being profane, my dear--it's
not the least protection to open the concert with prayer. We've got