u have had tea?"

"Yes, thanks."

"I hope she will be down before you go. I don't think she'll be very
long this evening. Can I give her any message, Mr. Baxter, in case you
don't see her?"

Laurie put his hat and stick down carefully, and crossed his legs.

"No; I don't think so, thanks," he said. "The fact is, I came partly
to find out your address, if I might."

Mrs. Stapleton rustled and rearranged herself.

"Oh! but that's charming of you," she said. "Is there anything
particular?"

"Yes," said Laurie slowly; "at least it seems rather particular to me.
It's what you were talking about the other day."

"Now how nice of you to say that! Do you know, I was wondering as we
talked. Now do tell me exactly what is in your mind, Mr. Baxter."

Mrs. Stapleton was conscious of a considerable sense of pleasure.
Usually she found this kind of man very imperceptive and gross. Laurie
seemed perfectly at his ease, dressed quite in the proper way, and had
an air of presentableness that usually only went with Philistinism.
She determined to do her best.

"May I speak quite freely, please?" he asked, looking straight at her.

"Please, please," she said, with that touch of childish intensity that
her friends thought so innocent and beautiful.

"Well, it's like this," said Laurie. "I've always rather disliked all
that kind of thing, more than I can say. It did seem to me
so--well--so feeble, don't you know; and then I'm a Catholic, you see,
and so--"

"Yes; yes?"

"Well, I've been reading Mr. Stainton Moses, and one or two other
books; and I must say that an awful lot of it seems to me still great
rubbish; and then there are any amount of frauds, aren't there, Mrs.
Stapleton, in that line?"

"Alas! Ah, yes!"

"But then I don't know what to make of some of the evidence that
remains. It seems to me that if evidence is worth anything at all,
there must be something real at the back of it all. And then, if that
is so, if it really is true that it is possible to get into actual
touch with people who are dead--I mean really and truly, so that
there's no kind of doubt about it--well, that does seem to me about
the most important thing in the world. Do you see?"

She kept her eyes on his face for an instant or two. Plainly he was
really moved; his face had gone a little white in the lamplight and
his hands were clasped tightly enough over his knee to whiten the
knuckles. She remembered Lady Laura's remarks about the vill