lly none. But I'm eager to learn, and most
interested in what you tell me."

"I'm a frank unbeliever," declared Pennington Wise. He had considered
the matter and concluded it was better to state this fact and thereby
rouse the others to defense.

"You wouldn't be, Mr. Wise," Benjamin Crane said, "if you'd had the
experiences we're continually enjoying. You've read my book?"

"Yes, Mr. Crane, and an able, well written work it is. But you must
number some among your friends who find difficulty in accepting it in
just the way you do."

"Certainly, and though I do what I can to convince them, I think none
the less of them for their honest unbelief. But with you right here in
the house, Mr. Wise, it will, I'm sure, be an easy matter to make a
convert of you."

"We'll see; at any rate, I'm ready to be converted if you can do it.
Now, let's begin with that note your daughter received from--ah, shall I
say from your son?"

"Of course, it was from my son. You may compare the writing with Peter's
own--we've lots of his letters, and I think you'll be convinced it's no
forgery."

"And it doesn't seem illogical to you," Wise went on, as he took the
papers Crane handed to him, "that your son should materialize this
paper, this note, and leave it for you, when, if he can do such things,
he doesn't write a letter to his mother or to you?"

"From the average mortal's point of view there is much that seems
illogical in spiritism," Crane said, easily, as if quite accustomed to
answering such arguments; "we who believe, never question why or why
not. We merely accept."

"Yes," said Mrs. Crane, "and when we are granted such wonderful boons as
we are, it seems ungrateful and ungracious to ask for anything we do not
get. When I hear my son's voice----"

"Do you recognize his voice?" asked Zizi.

"I can hardly say that, my dear, but we have heard Peter talk so often,
through the medium, that it almost _seems_ like his voice."

"And he told you that Mr. Thorpe was responsible for Mr. Blair's death?"
Zizi went on, wanting a plain statement.

"Yes, he told us that."

"Then how can you have any doubt of it?"

"Spirits do not know everything. It is quite as likely for them to be
misinformed as for earthly people to be. It may be that my boy doesn't
know who killed Gilbert Blair, but has some reason to think it was Mr.
Thorpe."

"Do you think it was?"

"I can't say that," Mrs. Crane looked very serious, "nor can I deny it.
We