on.

Just as I laid my pen aside the door opened, and Castleman introduced a
stranger.

"If you will wait here, sir, I will find her ladyship."

The new-comer was young and slight, with an erect carriage and a firm
step. He had the finely-cut features and dull colouring which I
associate with the high-pressure life of a busy town, so that I guessed
who he was before his first words told me.

"No, thank you, I will not sit down; I expect to be called to my patient
immediately."

The thought of this said patient made me smile, and in explanation I
told him from what she was supposed to be suffering.

"Well; it is less common than other forms of feverishness, but will
probably yield to the same remedies," was his only comment.

"You do not believe in ghosts?"

"Pardon me, I do, just as I believe in all symptoms. When my patient
tells me he hears bells ringing in his ear, or feels the ground swaying
under his feet, I believe him implicitly, though I know nothing of the
kind is actually taking place. The ghost, so far, belongs to the same
class as the other experiences, that it is a symptom--it may be of a
very trifling, it may be of a very serious, disorder."

The voice, the keen flash of the eye, impressed me. I recognised one of
those alert intelligences, beside whose vivid flame the mental life of
most men seems to smoulder. I wished to hear him speak again.

"Is this your view of all supernatural manifestations?"

"Of all so-called supernatural manifestations; I don't understand the
word or the distinction. No event which has actually taken place can be
supernatural. Since it belongs to the actual it must be governed by, it
must be the outcome of, laws which everywhere govern the actual--everywhere
and at all times. In fact, it must be natural, whatever we
may think of it."

"Then if a miracle could be proven, it would be no miracle to you?"

"Certainly not."

"And it could convince you of nothing?"

"Neither me nor any one else who has outgrown his childhood, I should
think. I have never been able to understand the outcry of the orthodox
over their lost miracles. It makes their position neither better nor
worse. The miracles could never prove their creeds. How am I to
recognise a divine messenger? He makes the furniture float about the
room; he changes that coal into gold; he projects himself or his image
here when he is a thousand miles away. Why, an emissary from the devil
might do as much! It only