r confusion.

"It is a meeting," she said, "for this evening. I am sorry--"

"Just so," he said. "It is about that that I have come."

"I beg your pardon...?"

"Please sit down, Lady Laura.... May I say in a sentence what I have
come to say?"

This seemed a very odd old man.

"Why, yes--" she said.

"I have come to beg you not to allow Mr. Baxter to enter the
house.... No, I have no authority from anyone, least of all from Mr.
Baxter. He has no idea that I have come. He would think it an
unwarrantable piece of impertinence."

"Mr. Cathcart ... I--I cannot--"

"Allow me," he said, with a little compelling gesture that silenced
her. "I have been asked to interfere by a couple of people very much
interested in Mr. Baxter; one of them, if not both, completely
disbelieves in spiritualism."

"Then you know--"

He waved his hand towards the cabinet.

"Of course I know," he said. "Why, I was a spiritualist for ten years
myself. No, not a medium; not a professional, that is to say. I know
all about Mr. Vincent; all about Mrs. Stapleton and yourself, Lady
Laura. I still follow the news closely; I know perfectly well--"

"And you have given it up?"

"I have given it up for a long while," he said quietly. "And I have
come to ask you to forbid Mr. Baxter to be present this evening,
for--for the same reason for which I have given it up myself."

"Yes? And that--"

"I don't think we need go into that," he said. "It is enough, is it
not, for me to say that Mr. Baxter's work, and, in fact, his whole
nervous system, is suffering considerably from the excitement; that
one of the persons who have asked me to do what I can is Mr. Baxter's
own law-coach: and that even if he had not asked me, Mr. Baxter's own
appearance--"

"You know him?"

"Practically, no. I lunched at the same table with him on Friday; the
symptoms are quite unmistakable."

"I don't understand. Symptoms?"

"Well, we will say symptoms of nervous excitement. You are aware, no
doubt, that he is exceptionally sensitive. Probably you have seen for
yourself--"

"Wait a moment," said Lady Laura, her own heart beating furiously.
"Why do you not go to Mr. Baxter himself?"

"I have done so. I arranged to meet him at lunch, and somehow I took a
wrong turn with him: I have no tact whatever, as you perceive. But I
wrote to him on Friday night, offering to call upon him, and just
giving him a hint. Well, it was useless. He refused to see me."

"I don't s