light,
and sank down again into the sheets. He need not get up just yet.

Then he remembered.

When an event of an entirely new order comes into experience, it takes
a little time to be assimilated. It is as when a large piece of
furniture is brought into a room; all the rest of the furniture takes
upon itself a different value. A picture that did very well up to then
over the fire-place must perhaps be moved. Values, relations, and
balance all require readjustment.

Now up to last night Laurie had indeed been convinced, in one sense,
of spiritualistic phenomena; but they had not yet for him reached the
point of significance when they affected everything else. The new
sideboard, so to speak, had been brought into the room, but it had
been put temporarily against the wall in a vacant space to be looked
at; the owner of the room had not yet realized the necessity of
rearranging the whole. But last night something had happened that
changed all this. He was now beginning to perceive the need of a
complete review of everything.

As he lay there, quiet indeed, but startlingly alert, he first
reviewed the single fact.

* * * * *

About an hour or so had passed away before anything particular
happened. They had sat there, those four, in complete silence, their
hands upon the table, occasionally shifting a little, hearing the
sound of one another's breathing or the faint rustle of one of the
ladies' dresses, in sufficient light from the screened fire and the
single heavily shaded electric burner to recognize faces, and even,
after the first few minutes, to distinguish small objects, or to read
large print.

For the most part Laurie had kept his eyes upon the medium in the
cabinet. There the man had leaned back, plainly visible for the most
part, with even the paleness of his face and the dark blot of his
beard clearly discernible in the twilight. Now and then the boy's eyes
had wandered to the other faces, to the young clergyman's opposite
downcast and motionless, with a sort of apprehensive look and a
determination not to give way--to the three-quarter profiles of the
two women, and the gleam of the pince-nez below Lady Laura's frizzed
hair.

So he had sat, the thoughts at first racing through his brain, then,
as time went on, moving more and more slowly, with his own brain
becoming ever more passive, until at last he had been compelled to
make a little effort against the drowsiness th