made none. Her friends came often to beg her to give them a session.
Her fame spread until it began to annoy her.

Gilbert Blair talked to her about it.

"You know, Carly," he said, "it's not really a message from a spirit you
get, it's----"

"It's what, Gilbert?" she asked, smiling. "Don't you tell me it's fraud
on my part, because it isn't."

"No, I don't think it's conscious fraud, but----"

"But you don't know what it is, do you?" the girl smiled at him, and
Blair, looking deep in her eyes, said: "No, I don't know what it is, and
I don't care. But I care about you. Carly, dear, can't you learn to love
me? I'm not as good a chap as Peter--dear old Peter. But I love you--oh,
girl, how I love you!"

"The Ouija Board said that Peter wanted me to turn my affections toward
Kit Shelby."

"It didn't! did it? Then that proves that it was no real message from
Peter! He would rather you'd turn toward me."

"How do you know?"

"Oh, we used to talk about you up in the snows of Labrador. And Peter
loved you lots, but he knew I did, too, and we agreed that the best man
should win. I don't mean the best man, but the one who stood best in
your heart. And now--oh, Carly, if you only would----"

"Not yet, Gilbert--don't let's talk about it yet."

"But Peter's been dead nearly six months, and you weren't actually
engaged, you know----"

"How do you know that?"

"Peter told me, oh, we were confidential up there. And, now, Peter's
gone, and try, won't you, Carly, try to love me. Shelby isn't in my way,
is he?"

"I don't know--he wants to be."

"Of course he does! But I won't give up to him! Peter was different. He
was a wonder, that chap!"

"Indeed, he was. And I care too much for his memory to think about any
one else--yet."

"But some day, Carly--dear, some day?"

"Some day we'll see about it. Gilbert, what do you think of that medium
the Cranes go to all the time?"

"Absolute rubbish."

"I think that, too. But she's doing queer stunts. She's begun
materializing things."

"What sort of things?"

"I don't know exactly. Flowers, I believe, and hands and faces."

"You know all the legerdemain people do that."

"That's no argument, Gilbert, and you know it. The charlatans can do all
the things that the real mediums do. The question is not whether the
fakers can do them, but whether the real mediums can."

"Meaning whether the real mediums are real or not?"

"Yes, that's what I mean. If ever there was a r