unusually feverish outburst
from the boy; and she, he had learnt later, had written to Mr.
Cathcart. The rest had been of the other's devising.

Well, it had failed so far. Perhaps next week things would be better.

He paid his bill, left two pence for the waiter, and went out. He had
a case that afternoon.

III

Laurie left chambers as it was growing dark that afternoon, and went
back to his rooms for tea. He had passed, as was usual now, an
extremely distracted couple of hours, sitting over his books with
spasmodic efforts only to attend to them. He was beginning, in fact,
to be not quite sure whether Law after all was his vocation....

His kettle was singing pleasantly on the hob, and a tray glimmered in
the firelight on the little table, as the woman had left it; and it
was not until he had poured himself out a cup of tea that he saw on
the white cloth an envelope, directed to him, inscribed "By hand," in
the usual handwriting of persons engaged in business. Even then he did
not open it at once; it was probably only some note connected with his
chief's affairs.

For half an hour more he sat on, smoking after tea, pondering that
which was always in his mind now, and dwelling with a vague pleasant
expectancy on what Sunday night should bring forth. Mr. Vincent, he
knew, was returning to town that afternoon. Perhaps, even, he might
look in for a few minutes, if there were any last instructions to be
given.

The effect of the medium on the young man's mind had increased
enormously during these past weeks. That air of virile masterfulness,
all the more impressive because of its extreme quiet assurance, had
proved even more deep than had at first appeared.

It is very hard to analyze the elements of a boy's adoration for a
solid middle-aged gentleman with a "personality"; yet the thing is an
enormously potent fact, and plays at least as big a part in the
sub-currents that run about the world as any more normal human
emotions. Psychologists of the materialistic school would probably say
that it was a survival of the tribe-and-war instinct. At any rate,
there it is.

Added to all this was the peculiar relation in which the medium stood
to the boy; it was he who had first opened the door towards that
strange other world that so persistently haunts the imaginations of
certain temperaments; it was through him that Laurie had had brought
before the evidence of his senses, as he thought, the actuality of the
thin