ich were cold
meat, and bread and butter, and crackers, and Rochefort cheese, and a
bottle of Macon Vieux.

"You evidently know what a hungry newspaper man wants in the middle of
the night," said I.

"I know what a hungry lawyer wants," and he drew the cork.

"Now," said he, after we had taken the edge off our appetites and were
enjoying the Burgundy, "we must know the rest of that story."

"Easier said than done."

"Why so? Does it seem more difficult to get a message directly from
Arthur Hartley than to get that journal from the bottom of the ocean? I
do not think so. This night's experience has given me a confidence in
the power of will over nature that nothing can shake. There is but one
obstacle that stands in the way of our success. The woman whom you call
the medium was thoroughly prostrated, as you saw. She seemed badly
frightened, too. She said that she had never had such an experience:
that she felt that she could not live through another. As she expressed
it, she felt that she had been the battle ground where two great forces
had met and contended. I soothed her as best I could and sent her home.
I did not tell her that I thought that she was right. She was. She was
the unconscious medium through which will overcame the forces of nature.
This evening she must be the medium through which, in obedience to our
will, the Spirit of Arthur Hartley shall speak with us."

"Suppose she refuses."

"She will obey me, or rather my will," said Judson quietly. "It's merely
a question of whether it is safe to subject her to the ordeal. But as it
will be nothing compared with that she has just been through I shall
attempt it, if she is at all able to bear it. I must have that mystery
solved."

I slept very late that morning and joined the family at the Sunday
afternoon dinner; and then went with Judson to the library to smoke.

"It's all right," he said, as soon as we were seated. "She will come
this evening."

"Will all those other persons be here?" I asked.

"Oh, no. You and I and the woman only."

It was ten o'clock that evening when Judson entered the library, where I
sat reading before the glowing grate, and said:

"She's here. Come into the parlor."

It was with more than ordinary emotions that I followed him. The medium
was the only person in the room. The cabinet still stood where it had
stood twenty-four hours before. She looked the picture of ill health.
Great hollows were beneath the tired eyes,