edings. "Of
course, you took hold of the case."

"I tried to, but Mrs. Lambert and Clarke would not admit that the girl
was in need of my care. They invited me to join the circle as a
spectator, which I did. I am still the onlooker--merely."

"You don't mean to say they are still experimenting with her?"

"You may call it that. They sit regularly two or three nights each
week. Clarke is preparing to renounce his pulpit and startle the world
by a book on 'spiritism,' as he calls his faith. The girl is his
source of thunder."

Serviss sank back into his chair and darkly pondered. "That explains a
number of very strange words and actions on the girl's part. What is
her attitude? She seemed to me extremely discontented and unhappy."

"She _is_ unhappy. She understands her situation and has moments of
rebellion. She knows that she is cut off from her rightful share in
the world of young people, and feels accursed."

"I can understand that, and several things she said to me corroborate
your analysis of her feeling. But tell me--you have attended these
sittings--what takes place--what does the girl profess to do?"

"I don't know. I can't determine Clarke's share in the hocus-pocus. It
all takes place in the dark."

"It always does. It belongs there."

"Many of the good old 'stunts' of the professional medium are
reproduced. Lights dance about, guitars are played, chairs nose about
your knees, hands are laid on your cheek, and so on."

"You don't think she is wilfully tricking?" Serviss asked this with
manifest anxiety.

"There's every inducement--darkness, deeply anxious friends. It would
not be strange if she did 'help on' now and then."

"What a deplorable thing!"

"And yet I'm not so sure that she wilfully deceives, though I have
detected her in fraud. Probably the whole thing began in some childish
disorder which threw her system out of balance. There are hundreds of
such cases in medical literature. She was 'possessed,' as of old, with
a sort of devilish 'secondary personality.' She probably wrote
treatises left-handed and upside-down. They often begin that way. The
mother, lately bereaved, was convinced of her daughter's occult
powers. She nursed the delusion, formed a circle, sat in the darkness,
petting the girl when things happened, mourning when the walls were
silent--and there you are! 'Sludge the Medium' all over again, in a
small way. Probably the girl didn't intend to deceive anybody at
first, bu