e a rather commonplace person except that her deeply
sunken eyes seemed to carry a far away expression as if she saw things
that were invisible to others. Now her eyes were fixed on Penelope.

"Oh, the beautiful scarlet light!" she murmured. "There! Don't you
see--moving down her arm? And another one--on her shoulder! Scarlet
lights! My poor child! My poor child!"

Ordinarily we would have laughed at this, for, of course, we saw no
scarlet lights, but somehow now we did not laugh. On the contrary we
fell into hushed and wondering attention, and, turning to Roberta, we
learned that this was Seraphine, a trance medium who had given seances
for years to scientists and occult investigators, and was now assisting
Dr. W----, of the American Occult Society.

"A seance! Magnificent! Let us have a seance!" whispered the poet. "Tell
us, madam, can you really lift the veil of the future?"

But already Seraphine had settled back on the divan and I saw that her
eyes had closed and her breathing was quieter, although her body was
shaken from time to time by little tremors as if she were recovering
from some great agitation. We watched her wonderingly, and presently she
began to speak, at first slowly and painfully, then in her natural tone.
Her message was so brief, so startling in its purport that there can be
no question of any error in this record.

"Penelope will--cross the ocean," Seraphine began dreamily. "Her husband
will die--very soon. There will be war--soon. She will go to the war and
will have honors conferred upon her--on the battlefield. She will--she
will,"--the medium's face changed startlingly to a mask of anguish and
her bosom heaved. "Oh, my poor child! I see you--I see you going down
to--_to horror--to terror_--Ah!"

She cried out in fright and stopped speaking; then, after a moment of
dazed effort, she came back to reality and looked at us as before out of
her sunken eyes, a plump little kindly faced woman resting against a
blue pillow.

* * * * *

_Now, whatever one may think of mediums, the facts are that Penelope's
husband died suddenly in an automobile accident within a month of this
memorable evening. And within two months the great war burst upon the
world. And within a year Penelope did cross the ocean as a Red Cross
Nurse, and it is a matter of record that she was decorated for valor
under fire of the enemy._

_This story has to do with the remainder of Seraphine's