Laurie looked at her without moving.

"I shall be very much obliged," he said. "You will remember that I am
not yet in the least convinced? I only want to know."

"That is exactly the right attitude. That is all we have any right to
ask. We do not ask for blind faith, Mr. Baxter--only for believing
after having seen."

Laurie nodded slowly.

"That seems to me reasonable," he said.

There was silence for a moment. Then she determined on a bold stroke.

"There is someone in particular--Mr. Baxter--forgive me for
asking--someone who has passed over--?"

She sank her voice to what she had been informed was a sympathetic
tone, and was scarcely prepared for the sudden tightening of that
face.

"That is my affair, Mrs. Stapleton."

Ah well, she had been premature. She would fetch Lady Laura, she said;
she thought she might venture for such a purpose. No, she would not be
away three minutes. Then she rustled out.

Laurie went to the fire to wait, and stood there, mechanically warming
his hands and staring down at that sleeping core of red coal.

He had taken his courage in both hands in coming at all. In spite of
his brave words to Maggie, he had been conscious of a curious
repulsion with regard to the whole matter--a repulsion not only of
contempt towards the elaborate affectations of the woman he had
determined to consult. Yet he had come.

What he had said just now had been perfectly true. He was not yet in
the least convinced, but he was anxious, intensely and passionately
anxious, goaded too by desire.

Ah! surely it was absurd and fantastic--here in London, in this
century. He turned and faced the lamp-lit room, letting his eyes
wander round the picture-hung walls, the blue stamped paper, the
Empire furniture, the general appearance of beautiful comfort and sane
modern life. It was absurd and fantastic; he would be disappointed
again, as he had been disappointed in everything else. These things
did not happen--the dead did not return. Step by step those things
that for centuries had been deemed evidence of the supernatural, one
by one had been explained and discounted. Hypnotism, water divining,
witchcraft, and the rest. All these had once been believed to be
indisputable proofs of a life beyond the grave, of strange supernormal
personalities, and these, one by one, had been either accounted for or
discredited. It was mad of him to be alarmed or excited. No, he would
go through with it, expecting nothing