The psychic, leaning forward slightly, fixed her wide, deep-blue eyes upon him. "The maid conducted me to the room which had been your wife"s, but I could not stay there. This lady who stands beside you took me by the hand and led me away to another room. She is nodding at me now."
"Do you mean the maid led you from the room?"
"No, I mean the spirit now standing behind you led me here. She says her name is Margaret Bartol. She said: "_Comfort my dear husband. Restore his faith._" She is smiling at me. She wants me to go on."
Bartol"s face remained inscrutably calm. "Where does the form seem to be?"
"At your right shoulder. She says, "_Tell him Walter and Hattie are both with me._" She listened a moment. She says, "_Tell him Walter"s mind is perfectly clear now._""
Victor thought he saw the lawyer start in surprise, but his voice was cold as he said, "Go on."
"She says: "_Tell him the way is open. I am here. Ask him to speak to me._""
Bartol then spoke, but his tone plainly showed that he was testing his client"s hallucination and not addressing himself to the imaginary ghost. "Are you there, Margaret?"
"_Yes_," came the answer, clearly though faintly.
The renowned lawyer gazed at the medium with eyes that burned deep, and presently he asked, "What have you to say to me?"
Again came the clear, silvery whisper: "_Much. Trust the medium. She will comfort you._"
Victor thrilled to the importance of this moment, and much as he feared for his mother"s success, he could not but admire the courage which blazed in her steady eyes. She was no longer afraid of this mighty man of the law, to whom heaven and h.e.l.l were obsolete words. She was panoplied with the magic and mystery of death, and waited calmly for him to continue.
At last he said: "Go on. I am listening."
Again through the flower-scented, silent room the sibilant voice stole its way. "_Father._"
"Who is speaking?"
"_Margaret._"
"Margaret? What Margaret?"
"_Your "rascal" Peggy._"
Bartol certainly started at this reply, which conveyed an expression of mirth, but his questions continued formal.
"What is your will with me?"
"_Mamma is here--and Walter._"
"Can they speak?"
"_They will try._"
Again silence fell upon the room--a silence so profound that every insect"s stir was a rude interruption. At length another whisper, clearer, louder, made itself heard: "_Alexander, be happy. I live._"
"Who are you?"
"_Your wife._"
"You say so. Can you prove your ident.i.ty?"
The whisper grew fainter. "_I will try. It is hard. Good-by._"
Bartol raised his hand to his head with a gesture of surprise. "I thought I felt a touch on my hair."
"The lady touched you as she pa.s.sed away," Mrs. Ollnee explained. "She has gone. They are all gone now."
"I am sorry," he said, in polite disappointment. "I wanted to pursue the interrogation. Is this the usual method of your communications?"
"This is one way. They write sometimes, and sometimes they speak through a megaphone; sometimes they materialize a face or a hand."
He remained in profound thought for a few moments, then starting up, spoke with decision: "You are tired. Go to bed. We"ll have plenty of time to take up these matters to-morrow. Please feel at home here and stay as long as you wish."
A little later he took Victor to his room, and as they stood there he remarked, "Of course, all this may be and probably is mind-reading and ventriloquism--subconscious, of course."
"But the writing," said Victor. "You must see that. That is the weirdest thing she does. It is baffling."
"My boy, the whole universe is baffling to me," his host replied, and into his voice came that tone of tragic weariness which affected the youth like a strain of solemn music. "The older I grow the more senseless, hopelessly senseless, human life appears; but I must not say such things to you. Good-night."
"Good-night," responded Victor, with swelling throat. "We owe you a great deal."
"Don"t speak of it!" the lawyer commanded, and closed the door behind him.
Victor dropped into a chair. What a day this had been! Within twenty-four hours he had seen and loved the dream-face of Altair and had been blown upon by the winds from the vast chill and empty regions of s.p.a.ce. He had resented Leo"s voice in the night, but had returned to her in the light of the morning. On the dreamy lagoon he had been her lover again, pulling at the oar with savage joy, and on the gra.s.s in the sunlight he had been the man unafraid and victorious. Then came the hurried return, the visit to the court, the rescue of his mother--and here now he lay in the charity bed of his mother"s lawyer! "Truly I am being hurried," he said; and recalling Miss Aiken"s final menacing remark, he added: "And if that girl and her brother can do it mother will be sent to prison." Much as he feared these accusing witnesses, he acknowledged a kind of fierce beauty in Florence Aiken"s face.
As he lay thus, thinking deeply yet drowsily upon his problems, he heard a faint ticking sound beneath his head. It was too regular and persistent to be a chance creaking of the cloth, and he rose and shook the pillow to dislodge the insect which he imagined might have flown in at the window.
The ticking continued. "I wonder if that _is_ a fly?"
The ticking seemed to reply, "No," by means of one decided rap. To test it, he asked, "Are you a spirit?"
The tick counted one, two, three--"_Yes._"
"Some one to speak to me?"
_Tick, tick, tick_--"Yes."
The answer was so plainly intelligent that the boy, silent with amazement, not unmixed with fear, lay for a few minutes in puzzled inaction. At length he asked, "Who is it--Father?"
"Tick"--No.
"_Grandfather?_"
"_No._"
He hesitated before asking the next question. "Is it Altair?"