ced--no
actress could have done it better.

Clarke spoke gently, solemnly: "Professor Serviss, will you now take a
seat beside the psychic. Her 'controls' wish to make some special
demonstration for you."

With reluctance and loathing, the young scientist moved forward,
guided by the mother, and placed his seat at the right side of Viola,
whose daintily robed, graceful figure he could still detect. Her
wrists appeared to be lying on the broad arms of her reclining-chair
and her head was turned away from him. She seemed very feminine, very
lovely, and very helpless, and he had a definite and powerful desire
to take her in his arms, to wake her, to snatch her from this most
revolting drama of the dark.

He was now seated directly between the sibyl and Clarke, her manager,
and every sense was keenly awake. A tapping, metallic sound at once
arose either upon his chair or Viola's, and the horn, or whatever it
was, floated dimly into view, then vanished, and a moment later the
voice of the chief "control" entered his right ear: "Man of science,
do not shirk your duty. Here now we offer you a chance to solve the
great mystery. Will you accept?"

To this he made no answer, for his widely opened eyes were strained in
the effort to locate Viola's hands, eager to determine her part in the
phenomena, and as the moving megaphone again touched his right temple
he laid a quick hand lightly on her white wrist.

She leaped convulsively with a gasping cry, the horn tumbled to the
floor with prodigious clatter, and the women all shrieked and rose to
their feet.

"Fool! What have you done?" cried Clarke, in a terrible voice.

Serviss's tone expressed only contempt as he answered, "No great harm,
I think."

The clergyman pushed him aside rudely, and knelt beside the girl, who
was writhing and moaning in her chair, as though contorted with pain.

Words of indignation arose from the circle, and one or two shouted,
"Run him out! He has no business here." But Clarke cried out, in a
commanding voice: "Remain where you are, friends! Be quiet for a few
minutes." They obeyed, and Serviss was about to withdraw when Pratt
confronted him. "What do you mean? Do you want to kill the psychic?"

The mother was bending above her daughter with soothing words. "There,
there, dearie! It will soon pass. You may turn on the light, Anthony."

Clarke turned the cock of the burner till a faint glow revealed the
girl, white, suffering, her left side c