tions as
regards her--I cannot do that after your final statement--but I think
you underestimate your opposing force."

"We expect battle, but nothing can really harm us. What do we care for
the puerile dispraise of the press? We are doing God's work in the
world, and as for the scientists, they are as moles in the dark."

Weissmann's voice became reflective. "Do the parents of the girl not
object?"

"Quite the contrary. Her mother trained her for this great work."

"That is very strange--this mother _seems_ nice and sensible."

Clarke sneered. "You physicists think nothing is natural or sensible
but your own grubbing. You nose in the mire studying parasites of
decaying flesh, while we are lifting wing into the world of spirit
where neither pain nor death is known. You are blinded by your
bigotry, or you would see the leading of every new discovery in the
modes of motion. Heat, light, the X-ray, the emanation of radium--do
they not all point to new subtleties of the physical universe? The
power which the spirits use to communicate with us, the world which
they inhabit, is only a higher evolution, a more potent condition--"

Weissmann arrested him in full flight and began to question him about
Viola's powers, drawing from him rapidly, and with the precision of a
great lawyer, all that he would say of her case, while Serviss,
smoking quietly, listened in deep amazement, so candid, so sincere did
Clarke seem to be in his answers. He was more--he became eloquent,
almost convincing; and the young scientist was forced to acknowledge
once more that appearances were deceitful. "Can this man be the fakir
I have thought him? He is a bigot, a crazy fool, but he does not fit
the role of villain; and yet--"

He could not put the alternative into words, so deeply did it involve
Viola herself.

The preacher was in full flow--turgid, studiedly ornate, egotistical,
and bombastic, but the final effect, even upon Weissmann, was that of
one deluded, rather than of one carrying on a deep and far-reaching
system of deception. He bodied forth the emotional moralist seeking
escape from the ferocity of the creed in which his youth had been
nurtured, rather than the self-seeking, coldly calculating
fortune-hunter. With lofty courage he concluded:

"Now to you, gentlemen of science, we say: We respect your methods,
but not your subjects of study. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than
a perusal of your books. The patient way in which y