one or two were
children's. Clarke couldn't do the children's voices."

"I can't believe it of her! Clarke must have done them. He's capable
of anything, but I don't, I won't believe such baseness of that girl."

"It hurts me to admit it, Kate, but I am forced to believe that she
not only sang through that horn to-night, but that she lied to me. She
told me once that she had no voice, and yet 'by request' she sang into
that horn, and very sweetly, too, the very song to which she played an
accompaniment when Clarke and I met for the first time. The effrontery
of it was confounding."

"Maybe there was a confederate."

"That doesn't sweeten the mess very much."

"No, and yet it wouldn't be quite so bad. But go on--what else?"

"Then I was invited by the 'controls'--so Clarke said--to come up and
sit beside the medium, which I did, very loathly. It gave me a keen
pang to look down on that lovely creature pretending to sleep, knowing
perfectly well that she was planning some deep deception."

"You _are_ bitter. What next?"

"I took a seat beside her, determined to see if she really had a hand
in the deception. I thought I could prevent anything happening."

"Did you?"

"No. Everything went on quite as briskly as before, and all the while
I thought I could see her arms lying limp along her chair--lovely arms
they were, too. She isn't poor, you must understand that, Kate; and
that really makes the crime worse, for she has not the usual
excuse--she is not doing it for her daily bread."

Kate sat like a judge, "Go on. You seized her, of course?"

"Yes; just when the cone was emitting an old man's pompous harangue I
laid my hand on her arm. The horn dropped, the circle rose in
confusion, and I came away."

"I expected you'd do that. All sceptics do, I believe. But I want to
know _all_ that took place. You're so concise. You say the cone
emitted a man's voice. Now, how could--"

"It produced the _impression_ of a man's voice. It is easy to deceive
under such conditions. The cone was passed from her hand to Clarke's
at the proper moments, and, as you say, there might have been a
child--"

"You must not infer, Mort--my faith in that girl is at stake. Was
there nothing in her favor? Nothing that justified her claim?"

He hesitated and Kate leaned forward in excess of interest. "Go on,
Morton, be honest."

"Well, now, as I think of it there was one little thing which was
rather curious. I don't know how she or Cl