er receive it. He moved almost like a man who
had been unexpectedly struck, then seemed to recover himself, and to
nerve himself for some ordeal. Leaning forward, and holding the edge of
the table with one hand, he said:

"How well do you know Mr. Harding?"

"Pretty well. Not intimately."

"You have seen him since he--altered?"

"I saw him only the other day when I was at a specialist's in Harley
Street."

"A specialist's?"

"For nervous dyspepsia."

Again the look of contempt flickered over Chichester's face.

"Do you think the alteration in Mr. Harding may be due to nervous
dyspepsia?"

"Probably. There are few maladies that so sap the self-confidence of a
man."

Chichester laughed.

For the first time since he had entered the little room the professor
felt a cold sensation of creeping uneasiness.

"Apparently you don't agree with me," he said.

"I am not a doctor, and I know very little about that matter."

"Then I'm bound to say I don't know what you find to laugh at."

"For a man who has spent so much time in psychical research you seem to
have a rather material outlook upon--"

"Mr. Harding?"

"And all that he represents."

"Suppose we stick to Mr. Harding," said the professor, grittily. "He is
typical enough, even if you are not."

"In what respect do you consider Mr. Harding typical?"

"I am speaking of the Harding before the fall into the abysses of nervous
dyspepsia."

"Very well. In what respects was Mr. Harding typical?"

"In the sublime self-confidence with which he proclaimed as facts, things
that have never been proved to be facts."

"Do men want facts?" said Chichester, almost as one speaking alone to
himself.

"I do. I want nothing else. Possibly Mr.
Harding had none to give me. I don't blame
him."

"Perhaps it is a greater thing to give men faith than to give them
facts."

"Give them the first by giving them the second, if you can! And that,
by the way, is the last thing the average clergyman is able to do."

Chichester sat silent for nearly a minute looking at the professor with a
strange expression, almost fiery, yet meditative, as if he were trying to
appraise him, were weighing him in a balance.

"Professor," he said at last, "I suppose your passion for facts has led
men to put a great deal of faith in you. Hasn't it?"

"I dare say my word carries some weight. I really don't know," responded
Stepton, with an odd hint of something like modesty.

"I had thou