at pitiful
tomfoolery! She is in the lion's mouth now--and yet how eagerly she
seemed to desire it. Weissmann has made anything but the simplest
ventriloquistic performance impossible--she cannot lift a hand. To
save her from herself, as well as from Clarke, it is necessary to
expose her weakness as well as his trickery."

She was saying, in answer to a question: "No, Dr. Weissmann, I have no
control over the manifestations; in fact, the more anxious I am, the
longer we have to wait. I cannot promise anything to-night--"

Morton, hearing this, inwardly commented; "These obscure forms of
hysteria often possess the cunning, the dissimulation of madness. Poor
girl! She is beginning to realize her predicament, and is preparing us
for disappointment," and a return of his doubt kept him silent.

Weissmann spoke. "Shall we not sing something--'We Shall Meet Beyond
the River,' or some ditty like that?"

Thereat Kate said: "Doctor, you betray astonishing familiarity with
the ways of 'spooks.'"

"Oh, I know everything."

"I begin to believe it," she retorted. "I begin to suspect that you
are a secret adherent. Morton, you would better tie Dr. Weissmann,
otherwise he may speak from the cone himself."

As if to counteract this banter Clarke began a discourse on the
leadings of the most recent discoveries:

"The X-ray is a mode of motion, as light is a mode of motion, but the
waves of light move in such a way as to clash with and weaken those of
the X-ray; so we argue that the mode of motion, through which
disembodied souls manifest themselves, being far subtler than the
X-ray, is neutralized--though by no means destroyed--by the motion
called light. Furthermore, there seems to be a reluctance on the part
of the invisible ones to have the actual processes scrutinized. I once
laid a pencil on the table and asked for a visible action of writing,
vainly, so long as it was completely exposed, but upon being covered
with a silk handkerchief it plainly rose and wrote. It could be
distinctly seen moving beneath the cloth. Sir William Crookes had a
similar experience, except in his case he saw the pencil move, prop
itself against a ruler, and try three times to write--all in the
light. I have seen letters form on an exposed surface of a slate, I
have had hands appear through a curtain and write in the light, but
the power must always be generated in shadow."

Kate shuddered. "Woo! It gives me the shivers to think of such things.