espect and regard for your daughter, Captain Hallett. I should
be the last, the very last, to wish to exert any such influence."

"Nonsense!" The amazed captain shouted the word. "What are you talkin'
about? 'Twan't you she said. 'Twas that Howard swab. He's been hangin'
around Lulie for more 'n a year."

"Ah--pardon me, Captain Hallett, but really I must make my point. It
could not have been Mr. Howard to whom the--ah--control referred. Mr.
Howard is somewhat dark, perhaps, but he is not small. I am both dark
and small. And I am here, whereas Mr. Howard apparently is not. And I
am, beyond question, an outsider. Therefore--"

"Nonsense, I tell you! She said Nelson Howard was in this house."

"Pardon me, pardon me, Captain Hallett. She said a small, dark man, an
outsider, was in this house. She mentioned no names. You mentioned no
names, did you, Miss--ah--Hoag?"

Marietta, thus unexpectedly appealed to, gasped, swallowed, turned red
and stammered that she didn't know's she did; adding hastily that she
never remembered nothin' of what she said in the trance state. After
this she swallowed again and observed that she didn't see WHY she
couldn't have that drink of water.

"So you see, Captain Hallett," went on Mr. Bangs, with the same gentle
persistence, "being the only person present answering the description
given by the medium I feel somewhat--ah--distressed. I must insist that
I am unjustly accused. I must ask Miss Phipps here and your daughter
herself to say whether or not my conduct toward Miss Lulie has not been
quite--ah--harmless and without--ah--malevolence. I shall be glad to
leave it to them."

Of the pair to whom this appeal for judgment was made Martha Phipps
alone heeded it. Lulie, still white and trembling, was intent only
upon her father. But Martha rose to the occasion with characteristic
promptness.

"Of course, Mr. Bangs," she declared, "you've behaved just as nice as
any one could be in this world. I could hardly believe my ears when
Marietta said you were an evil influence towards Lulie. You ought to be
careful about sayin' such things, Marietta. Why, you never met Mr. Bangs
before this evenin'. How could you know he was an evil influence?"

Miss Hoag, thus attacked from an unexpected quarter, was thrown still
more out of mental poise. "I never said he was one," she declared,
wildly. "I only just said there was a--a--I don't know what I said.
Anyhow _I_ never said it, 'twas my control talkin