Chapter V: Part 5

"I like nothing better than to see you eat, and I've just had a couple of eggs myself. I was hoping all the time you would come down and join me, but you didn't."

"I didn't get to sleep as usual last night," she confessed, with a change of tone. "Altair came to me and kept me stirred up till nearly two o'clock."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean she hung about my bed, tapping and sighing incessantly for what seemed like hours."

"Could you see her?"

"Part of the time. Finally I turned up the light and got rid of her."

He sat in silence for a few moments, then burst out wildly: "Are we all going crazy together? When I hear you talk like that it makes me angry, and it makes me sad. I never met such people before. What does it all mean? Seems like everybody around my mother is bitten by this ghost-bug."

"You, too," she accused. "You caught a little of the madness last night."

"I did, I admit it; but I'm going to throw it off. I won't have any more of it."

"Is your curiosity satisfied?"

"No, it is not; but I'm not going to desert the good old sunny world I know for the kind of windy graveyard we faced last night. Even the eyes of Altair were sad. Did you notice it?"

"Yes, I did," she admitted. "And that's one of the things I can't understand. The spirits all _say_ they are happy, but they _look_ wistful, and their voices indicate that they are filled with longing to return."

"I'm going to break out of this circle of my mother's converts," he passionately declared. "I've got to do it, or 'll get all twisted out of shape like the rest of you. I'm going to try again to-day to reach some man who has never heard of a psychic. I'm going to some big mill and apply for manual labor. There's something uncanny in the way I'm kept circling around mother's cranky patrons. I'll get batty in the steeple if I don't get help. Let's go out for a walk in the park. Let's forget we're immortal souls for an hour or two. I want to see a tree. Let's go to the ball game--and to the theater to-night--that'll take all the money I have left, and leave me just square with the world, so I can jump into the lake to-morrow without anybody else's money in my pocket. Come, what do you say?"

She perceived something more than humor in his noisy declamation, and accepted his challenge. "I'll go you," she slangily replied; "just wait till I get my walking-togs on."

"You've got to hurry," he warned. "I'm going to get out of this house before anything crazy happens to me. Meet me down at the corner of the boulevard."

He left the room with intent to avoid both his mother and Mrs. Joyce. At the moment he wished to remove himself from any further argument, and his longing for the trees and the park was a genuine reaction from his long stress of the supernatural. "My search for a job can go over till to-morrow," he decided.

He was sufficiently recovered from his bewilderment, his pain of the night before, to glow with pleasure as he saw Leonora swinging along toward him. "She carries herself well," he said.

She was dressed in a light-gray skirt and jacket, and her white hat had a long, gray quill which waved back over the rim, giving her the jaunty air of a yacht under reefed sail. Her face was brilliant with color, and her eyes were alight with humor. "Aunt Louise wanted to know where we were going, and I said 'St. Joe, Michigan.'"

He pretended not to see the joke. "St. Joe; why St. Joe?"

As she caught his stride she demurely answered, "If you don't know, it's not for me to explain."

"I suppose people _do_ go to St. Joe for other purposes than marriage?"

"It is possible, but they never get into the newspapers. We only hear of the young things who beat their angry parents by just one boat." She changed her tone. "Where _shall_ we go?"

"I don't object to St. Joe."

She pretended to be shocked. "How sudden you are! We've only known each other two days."

"Three. However, we might make it a trial marriage. You could put me on probation."

"After your display of inconstancy last night I wouldn't trust you even for a probationary engagement."

He harked back to the vision of Altair. "She _was_ beautiful, wasn't she? Did she really exist, or was it merely some sort of hallucination?"

"I thought you weren't going to discuss these subjects?"

He assented instantly. "Quite right. Give me a crack on the ear every time I break out. I wish I were a robin. See that chap on the lawn! His clothes grow of themselves, and as for food, all he has to do is to tap on the ground, and out pops a worm."

"I prefer roast beef and asparagus tips; and as for wearing the same feathers all the time--horrible!"

In such wise they talked, touching lightly on a hundred trivial subjects, yet carrying the remembrance of Altair as an undertone to every word. They walked up the boulevard to the Midway, then through the park to the lagoon, and the sight of the water cheered Victor. "A boat!" he cried. "Us for a boat-ride."

He was a skilled and powerful oarsman (she had never seen his equal), and his bared arms, the roll of his splendid muscles, were a delight to her eyes.

He exulted as the water cried out under the keel. "This is what I needed. I've been without a chance to kill something, or beat somebody, for three or four days. I am cracking for lack of exercise. Walking isn't exercise."

The heavy boat, under his sweeping strokes, cut through the water like a canoe, and the girl on the stern seat watched him with dreaming eyes, her air of patronization lost in contemplation of his skill, her hands on the tiller-rope, her attitude of ease and irresponsibility typifying the American woman, just as his intense and driving action represented the American man.

He traversed the entire length of the lagoon before his need of muscular activity was met; then they drifted, exclaiming with pleasure over the charming vistas which every turn of their boat afforded. The catbirds were singing in the willows, and the banks were white and yellow with flowering shrubs, and over all the clear sunlight fell in cascades of gold. The wind was from the lake, cool but not chill; and every leaf glistened as if newly burnished. The day was perfect spring, and under its influence the two beings, young and ardent, inclined irresistibly toward each other.

The girl, who, up to this moment, had been indifferent, not so say scornful, of the advances of men, gave herself up to the pleasure which the companionship of this young giant afforded her. Altair and all that she represented were very far and faint, dimmed, burned away into nothingness by the vivid sun of this entrancing day.

For hours they explored the lagoons, talking nonsense, the divine nonsense of youth, or sitting idly and gazing at each other with the new-born frankness of lovers. At last she said, "I'm hungry, aren't you?"

"As a wolf," he responded.

"Shall we go home?"

"Home? I have no home. No, let's camp right here in the park. There must be a lunch counter somewhere."

"There's something better than a lunch counter. There's the German Building."

"I'll stand you for a beer and sandwich," he shouted. "Show it to me."

Returning the boat to the landing, he paid his fee with a satisfied smile. "I never gave up forty-five cents with better grace in my life," he said to her.

She led the way to the cafe in the German Building, and there they ate and drank in modest fashion, while he expressed his gratitude for her guidance. "I owe you all I've got," he declared, displaying his little handful of money. "You've shown me another side of the city's life. It isn't so bad, this wild life of Chicago. We'll come again. _Will_ you come again?" He bent a frankly pleading gaze upon her.

"Indeed I will. I love it here; but Aunt Louise prefers to ride about in the car. However, you haven't seen all the park yet. You must see the prairies at the south end, and the Spanish caravels, the convent--all the marine side of it. Let's walk down the beach."

He was glad to accept her guidance in this matter also, and they set off down the curving walk, slowly, as if they found each new rood of ground more enjoyable than that already traversed. He had a feeling that nothing so sweet, so perfect as this day's companionship could ever again come to him, and he lingered over each view as if determined to extract its every possible phase of enjoyment, and when two paths presented themselves, he shamelessly advised taking the longer one. So they came to The Old Convent, to The Caravels in The South Lagoon, and at last to The Sand Hills. This was the climax of their walk. These dunes were so different from anything he had ever seen, so remote, so suggestive, and so flooded with the light of his own growing romance, that they seemed of another and strangely beautiful land.

Taking seats upon the grass in the sunlight, which was just warm enough to be delightful, they absorbed the scene in silence, entranced by the sails, the far water-line, the sun, the wind, and the fluting of the birds. The few people who drifted by were unimportant as shadows; and Leo took no thought of time till a cloud crossed the sun and the wind felt suddenly chill; then she rose. "We must go home, or they'll certainly think we've gone to St. Joe."

He returned to his jocular mood. "If I had ten dollars I'd ask you 'why not?'"

"I wouldn't consent if you had a million."

He pretended to be astonished. "You would not? Why?"

"Because I believe in the pomp and circumstance of matrimony. No runaway marriages for me! When I marry, it shall be in a vast cathedral, with a mighty organ thundering and a long procession of awed and shivering brides-maids."

"I'm sorry your tastes run in that way. I don't, at this time, feel able to gratify them."

"Nobody asked you, sir," she said; then looking about her, she sighed deeply. "I hate to leave this place. It seems as though it could never be so beautiful again. Haven't we had a heavenly day?"

"I dread going back to the town, for then my needs and all my life problems will swarm."

"I wish I could help you," she said, sincerely.

"You can," he earnestly assured her. "If you will only come out here with me now and again I shall be able to stand a whole lot of 'grief.'"

They were walking westward at the moment, past the golf-course, and a sense of uneasiness filled the girl's heart. She looked up at him with a grave face. "I don't know why, but I feel an impulse to hurry. I feel as though we ought to get home as quickly as possible. They may be worried about us."

He did not share her apprehension. "I don't think they'll suffer."

"Something urges me to run," she repeated. "We must go directly home."

He quickened his step with hers, responding to the anxiety which had come into her tone, but experiencing nothing of it in his heart. What he did feel was the certainty that his day of careless ease was over. The sky seemed suddenly to have lost its brightness. The birds had fallen silent. The crowds of people seemed less festive. The world of work-worn men rolled back upon them in a noisy flood as they caught a car and went speeding down the squalid avenue. Leo's anxiety seemed to increase rather than to lessen as they neared her home. "There's been some accident!" she insisted. "I can't tell what it is, but I think your mother has been hurt."

He could not believe that anything serious had happened to his mother; but when they alighted to walk across the boulevard he was quite as eager to reach the house as she.

The man at the door wore an expression of well-governed concern, which led Leo to sharply ask: "What is it, Ferguson? What has happened?"

"They have taken her, Miss."

"Taken? Who? What? Who have taken her?"

"The bailiff, Miss."

"The bailiff?"

"Yes, Miss, the officers came with a warrant just as Mrs. Ollnee was sitting down to luncheon, and it was ever as much as she could do to get them to wait till she had finished. Mrs. Joyce has gone with her."

Leo confronted Victor with large eyes. "That was the precise moment when I had my sensation of alarm."

Victor was white and rigid with indignation. "Where did they take her?"

"To the Bond Street Station, sir. You are to come at once."

"How do I get there?"

"I'll show you," volunteered Leo. "Is the electric out, Ferguson?"

"I don't think so, Miss."

"Order it around at once." She turned to Victor. "Don't worry. Aunt Louise is not easily rattled. She is able to command all the help that is necessary. She will have her own lawyer and will see that everything is done to shield your mother from harm."

He was aching with remorseful fear. "Oh, if we had not stayed so long," he groaned, all the beauty and charm of the morning swept away by a wave of guilt. "Only think! I left the house without a word of greeting to her! Doesn't it show that there is no peace or security for either of us so long as we remain here? I have tried twice to get away from this, and now--"

The electric carriage came smoothly to the door, and Leo, dismissing the driver, motioned Victor to enter. "I'll drive," she said; and they swept out of the gate and down the boulevard as if, by a wafture of the hand, this young girl had invoked the aid of an Oriental magician.

The run was easy and swift, till they reached the crowded cross-street which led westward into the city deeps; and as the carts thickened and coarse and vicious humanity began to swarm Victor was moved to assert the man's prerogative. He resented the admiring glances which the loafers addressed to his companion, and a feeling of awkward helplessness came upon him. "I wish you'd let me run this car," he said, morosely.

Slowly they felt their way to the west, straight on toward a great railway depot, with Leo deftly winding her way amid trucks and express wagons, darting past clanging street-cars, and plowing through swarms of nondescript men and slattern women, till at last she halted on a crossing, and, leaning from the window, inquired of the police officer the way to the Bond Street Station.

"Right around the corner, Miss," he replied, with a smile, pointing the way with his club.

She turned up a narrow alley which ran parallel with the great domed shed of the railway, and drew up before an ugly doorway in a grimy brick building of depressing architecture.

Victor alighted with a full realization of having left heaven for a filthy, squalid hell. The clang and hiss of engines in the shed, the jar of heavy trucks, the cries of venders, the grind and howl of cars, the sodden stream of humankind, deafened and appalled him. Nevertheless, he took the lead into the gloomy anteroom of the station, which was half filled with officers in uniform escorting or placidly watching dull-hued, depressed, and unkempt men and women in arrest.

On inquiry of another officer, they were directed to the door of a long hall, which was in effect a tunnel. "You'll find your party in the court-room," the officer said.

Victor led the way through this battered hallway, and at the end of it came into a large, bare room lighted with dusty windows on the north. It was in effect a hall divided in halves by an open railing. In the eastern end of the chamber the judge was seated surrounded by his clerks examining a little group of silent men. In the western half of the room, outside the railing, sat a somber and motley assemblage of negroes, Italians, and Greeks, mostly young, each presenting a savage and sullen face. In the midst of such a throng of miscreated beings Leo seemed of angelic loveliness and purity.

Before the crowd became aware of her, the keen-eyed girl had discovered the objects of their search. "There they are," she whispered, pointing to the corner at the judge's right, where Mrs. Joyce and Mrs. Ollnee were seated, in close conversation with a dark, smoothly-shaven man of middle age. "Oh, I'm so glad," she added, "Mr. Bartol is with them."

She led the way, quite fearlessly, through the aisle and directly up to the gate, where she was met by the bailiff, or warden of the room, a sullen-faced, sloppy Irishman. He was too keen-eyed not to be immediately impressed by her beauty and something strong and clear and fine in her glance, but before he had time to ask her what she wanted the gentleman whom she called Bartol came forward, and at his touch the officer gave way respectfully, and the two young people entered the inclosure.

Mrs. Ollnee rose upon seeing Victor, and lifted her arms to his neck. "Oh, I'm so glad you've come," she murmured, in deep relief.

A rustle of profound interest passed over the court-room, and such shuffling of feet and murmur of voices arose that the bailiff rapped querulously on the railing with the handle of his mallet and glared, in a vain effort to restore silence. Even the judge, accustomed as he was to every phase of the human comedy, turned a sympathetic gaze upon the girl. He was a middle-aged man, with a pale and sensitive careworn face, and as he resumed his address to the men before him his gentle voice could be heard above the roar of the street in grave reprimand. The sodden convicts who stood unshaved and spiritless before him excited his pity not his wrath.

Victor sat down beside his mother, whispering, "What is it all about?"

Mr. Bartol answered: "Pettus, the president of the People's Bank, has absconded; the bank is closed, and your mother has been arrested for complicity in his frauds."

Victor understood almost instantly, for this was exactly what Carew had warned him about on the night of his first dinner in Mrs. Joyce's house. "What can we do?" he asked.

"Leave that to me," replied Bartol. "I will see that your mother is protected."

As they sat thus, waiting, while the judge disposed of a wife-beating case, Victor thought of Altair and the mournful and exquisite smile with which she had greeted him. What a frightful gulf gaped between these savage and bestial men--these sullen, pinched, grimy, and malodorous street-walkers, these sottish, half-human creatures, torn and bloody with one another's claws--and the celestial vision which his mother, by some inexplicable necromancy, had been able to create from the sunless world of her magic! What a measureless stretch lay between this clamorous, automatic, pitiless court (with its weary judge) and the sunny bank beside the lagoon, whereon the birds were singing and where he and Leo had so lately lain to gaze on the far horizon land of wedded happiness and love!

Upon his musing the sounding voice of the clerk broke. "_Thomas Aiken_ vs. _Lucile Ollnee._"

Led by Mr. Bartol, Mrs. Ollnee and Mrs. Joyce moved through the gate and stood before the judge, while from the right the complainant and his witnesses and his lawyer came to oppose them. Victor followed his mother and stood at the extreme left, with Leo by his side. He had no care of what the miserable spectators in the seats would think of them. He was only concerned with the judge and the opposing counsel.

Upon the motion of the clerk, the bailiff called out, "Hold up your hands, everybody," and so they all, including even Leo, held up their right hands and took the oath that what they were about to say would be the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them God.

The judge, worn by the ceaseless stream of diseased, ineffectual, and halting humanity passing daily before his eyes, gazed in surprise and growing interest upon this group of handsome and well-dressed people while the prosecuting attorney presented the claims of the complaining witness, charging the defendant with conspiring to rob or defraud one, Mary Aiken.

"Where is Mrs. Aiken?" asked the judge.

"She is too ill to appear, your honor," replied the prosecuting attorney, "but her granddaughter is here prepared to give in detail the story of how the defendant, who professes to be a medium, induced her aged and infirm grandmother to withdraw her money from certain investments in her native town and put them into the hands of another--namely, the absconding president of the People's Bank, thereby impoverishing her. Thomas Aiken, the complainant, charges that the said defendant, Lucile Ollnee, has by her uncanny powers obtained large sums of money, and that she should be punished as a swindler."

The judge studied the faces of the witnesses before him, then asked, "What have you to say to this, Mrs. Ollnee?"

"It is false," she replied.

The prosecution put in a word. "You will not deny that you advised these investments?"

"I advised nothing," she retorted. "What my controls advised I only know in a general way."

"What do you mean by 'controls'?" inquired the judge.

"I am a spirit medium, and sometimes a trance medium," she replied, facing him steadily. "Those whom men call the dead speak through me."

"In what way?"

"Partly by writing, partly by means of voices."

"Do you mean to say that the dead speak in voices audible to others than yourself?"

"Yes, your honor, they often speak so loud that any one may hear them. For the most part they whisper."

The prosecution again struck in. "These voices are a part of the trick, a part of her method of luring her victims on to do her will."

The judge turned to the complainant, Thomas Aiken, a dark-faced, sullen young man. "Have you heard these voices, Mr. Aiken?"

"No, sir; I never had a seance; but my sister has had a number of interviews with this woman. I know that in spite of the advice of her friends my grandmother has been induced to give away her money to this woman and to that scoundrel, Pettus. We have been robbed by her. It amounts to that, and we intend to stop it."

The judge turned back to Mrs. Ollnee. "Do you wish to be tried here and now on this charge?"

Mr. Bartol interposed. "No, your honor, we do not. This case is a very peculiar one. My client is a lady, as you may see, and should never have been brought into this court in this fashion. That she is a medium is probably true; but there is no evidence of deceit on her part. She assures me of her absolute faith in these Voices, and her manner carries conviction. Her friends believe in her also. She claims to be nothing more than the means of communication between this world and the world of the dead."

The judge smiled faintly. "That is claiming a good deal--from my point of view. What have you to say to that?" he demanded, turning again to the complainants.

A clear, low, musical voice, the voice of a young woman, answered, "The case is not uncommon, your honor."

Victor, craning his head forward, found himself looking directly into the big, intense black eyes of the girl he had rebuffed on the stairway the first day of his stay. She was vivid, intense, and very indignant as she said: "The woman pretends to be possessed of the power of communication with the dead, and by her arts she convinced my grandmother that her dead husband wished the withdrawal of her money from a bank in Moline, and that he recommended its investment in this traction company. She played remorselessly upon the most sacred emotions of my poor old grandmother, and I have evidence to prove that this advice has been a part of a general scheme whereby this traction company, a fake concern, has been able to delude other credulous souls."

As she paused her lawyer said, wearily: "It is a plain case of swindling, your honor, and we desire to press the case to its limit at once, for Pettus cannot be found, and we fear the flight of the defendant."

Mr. Bartol spoke suavely. "Your honor, it is not 'a plain case of swindling.' Mrs. Ollnee is the personal friend of Mrs. John H. Joyce, whose name you know very well. It is true that messages were given advising the investment of funds in the traction company, but not only has this advice been followed by Mrs. Joyce, but by the defendant herself, who has kept all her own small savings in the same bank."

The judge turned to Mrs. Ollnee. "Is this true?"

"It is, your honor."

The judge spoke to Mrs. Joyce. "You believe in this woman's Voices?"

"I do."

"Yet they have advised you to put your money into the hands of a swindler."

"Her Voices seem to have done this, yes, sir; but she herself has never advised in any way."

"You distinguish between the Voices of your friend and her own personality, do you?"

"I do, yes, sir."

The prosecuting attorney inserted a sneering word. "Your honor, Mrs. Joyce is known to be credulous and under the influence of this trickster. She is not a competent witness. She has permitted herself to be deluded to the point where she will not believe anything ill of her medium. Thomas Aiken is not the only one ready to press this charge against the defendant. Four others to my knowledge stand ready to testify to this woman's uncanny power for deluding and defrauding. My client finds herself stripped of her little fortune and helpless in her declining years. The acting of this medium is criminal, and we demand that she be punished."

The judge turned his musing eyes upon Mrs. Ollnee's pale face. "Have you anything further to say, Mrs. Ollnee?"

"I have never been guilty of any deception, your honor. I claim no wisdom for myself. If it is true that the traction company is a fraud, then it must be that lying spirits have spoken impersonating my husband and my father."

"That is a subterfuge," interposed the young woman, Miss Aiken. "She is responsible for her Voices."

"You accept money for your services, do you not?" the judge asked of Mrs. Ollnee.

"Not now, no sir."

"Did you formerly?"

"Yes, sir, after my husband died, I was forced to do so in order to educate my son."

"Is this your son?"

"Yes, sir."

The judge addressed himself to Victor. "What do you know of your mother's power as a medium? Do you share her faith?"

Victor felt the burning eyes of the angry girl upon him as he replied: "I know very little about it, your honor. I have been away to school ever since I was ten years old."

"Mrs. Joyce, you are a believer in Mrs. Ollnee's powers?"

"I am, a firm believer."

"You've had no reason to doubt the genuineness of these messages?"

"Up to the present time I have not."

"You will lose heavily in this traction swindle, if it is a swindle, will you not?"

"If it has failed, yes, sir."

"Does that shake your faith in the medium?"

"Not in the slightest, your honor. It is a well-known fact that lying spirits sometimes interpose."

During this interrogation, which had proceeded in conversational tone, they had all remained standing before the judge, whose speculative eyes wandered from face to face with growing interest. At last he said to the prosecuting attorney: "From your own statement of it, this case is not to be tried here. I do not feel myself competent at this time to pass upon the questions involved."

"She shall not escape," said Miss Aiken, with bitter menace.

Mr. Bartol interposed. "We demand a trial by jury, your honor."

"You shall have it," responded the judge.

The Aikens withdrew sullenly, and the bailiff indicated that the defendant and her party might retire to an inner office while papers were being prepared; and this they did. This room proved to be a bare, bleak place, with benches and yellow wooden chairs, as ugly as a country railway station, wherein a few officers were carelessly lounging about. They all gazed curiously at Mrs. Ollnee and Leo, and one of them muttered to the other, "It's not often that a classy bunch like that comes into court."

The indignity of it all caused Leo to forget her own share in the traction company's failure. "It is shameful that you should be dragged here," she said, when the door closed behind them.

"Leo!" cried Mrs. Ollnee, in agonized voice. "Do you realize that this failure means almost as much of a loss to you as it does to Louise?"

This affected the girl only for an instant. Then she loyally said: "Yes, I know. But I do not blame you for it."

Mrs. Ollnee turned to her son. "If all they say is true, Victor, we are the victims of some lying devils--"

Leo soothingly laid her hand on her arm. "Let us not think about that just now. Let us wait until we are safely out of this dreadful place."

Victor perceived that his mother was shaken to the very deeps of her faith. She was trembling with excitement and weakness, and his anxiety deepened into a fear that she might faint. "There are devils here," she whispered. "I feel them all about me--bestial, horrible--take me away!"

"Can't we go now?" he asked of the officer, who seemed to have an eye on them. "My mother is not well."

"Wait till the bail is fixed up," the officer replied, pleasantly but inexorably.

They remained in silence till Mrs. Joyce and Mr. Bartol appeared. Then Victor hurried his mother out into the street, eager to escape the desolating air of this moral charnel-house. It was by no means a perfectly pure atmosphere without, but it was fresher than within, and Mrs. Ollnee revived almost instantly. "Oh, the swarms of unclean spirits in there!" she said, looking back with a face of horror.

Mrs. Joyce put her into the car with Leo and told them to go directly home, while she, with Victor, took Mr. Bartol to his office. Victor, stunned by the new and crushing blow which had fallen upon him, turned to the great lawyer with a boy's trust and admiration. "What can we do?" he asked, as soon as they had taken their seats in the car.

Mr. Bartol did not attempt to make light of the case. His dark, strong face was very grave as he answered: "For the present we can do very little beyond getting our bearings. It seems to me at the moment as though the whole question hinged upon the possibility of dual personality, and so far as I am concerned, I have no mind upon that matter. I must give it attention before I can reply. Our immediate concern is to keep your mother from further trouble and assault. If, as the prosecution stated, there are others in this fight, they and the press can make it very unpleasant for you all. Miss Florence Aiken has a powerful and vindictive pen. She will not cease her persecution--for she is at the bottom of the case."

Mrs. Joyce turned to him with eager face. "I wish you would invite Mrs. Ollnee and her son up to your farm for a few days."

"I do so with pleasure. I am going up to-night on the eight-o'clock train, and I shall be very glad to have them go with me, if they care to do so. We can then talk the whole case over at our leisure and in quiet. Perhaps you can run up and stay over Sunday with us."

"That is the very thing," she responded; "and I'm very grateful to you."

Again Victor felt himself helpless, whirling along in a stream of alien purpose like a leaf in a mountain torrent, and again he abandoned himself to its sweep. "I will do anything to get away from here," he replied.

Mr. Bartol went on: "Your mother's case will not come up for some days, and the rest and quiet of the farm will do you both good." To Mrs. Joyce he added, privately: "The whole matter interests me vastly. I don't at all mind giving some time to it, and, besides, I like the young man."

Mrs. Joyce dropped the lawyer at his office door and sped homeward swiftly, with intent to overtake Leo. She did not attempt to conceal her anxiety. "The truth is, Victor, Pettus and his friends called into our circle a throng of wicked, deceiving spirits. They were not what they claimed to be. They were cheats, and they have almost ruined us. Your poor, sweet mother is not to blame, and I can't blame the Aikens. What I cannot understand is this--Why did your father and his band permit these treacherous personalities to intervene? Why did they not defend her from these demons?"

Victor listened to her with a complete reversal to disbelief as regards his mother's mediumship. He forgot the marvels of the direct writing, the mighty murmuring wind, the dream-face of Altair; all these insubstantial and evanescent perceptions were lost, submerged by the returning sea of his doubt. He saw, too, that Leo's faith was shaken. He felt it beneath her brave-spoken words. The whole question of the process, as well as the content of the messages, was reopened for her. His situation grew ever darker. His way was again blocked. He could not leave his mother to her fate, and yet he could not see his way to earning a cent of money while this horrible accusation was hanging over her. He acknowledged, too, a very definite feeling of sympathy with those who had been defrauded. There was moral indignation in Miss Aiken's tremulous eagerness to punish. "She's not to blame," he said. "I'd do exactly as she is doing if I were in her place."

X

A VISIT TO HAZEL GROVE

Bartol, attended by porters and greeted by conductors and brakemen, led the way to the parlor-car in a stern abstraction, which was his habit. Victor studied him closely and with growing admiration. He was not tall, but his head was nobly formed and his broad mask of face lion-like in its somber dreaming. In repose it was sad, almost bitter, and in profile clear-cut and resolute. His dress was singularly tasteful and orderly, with nothing of the careless celebrity in its color or cut, and yet no one would accuse him of being the dandy. He was naturally of this method, and gave little direct thought to toilet or dress.

Mrs. Ollnee looked upon him as her rescuer, one who had snatched her from loathsome captivity; but his manner did not invite repeated and profuse thanks. With a few words of polite explanation, he took a seat behind his wards, unfolded his newspaper, and forgot them till the conductor came through the car; then he remembered them and paid their fares.

Mrs. Ollnee was not merely awed by his powerful visage and searching eyes; she was profoundly stirred by some psychic influence which emanated from him. She whispered to Victor: "He is very sad. He is all alone. He has lost his wife and both his children. He has no hope, and often feels like leaving this life."

Victor did not take this communication as a "psychometric reading," for he had been able to discern almost as much with his own eyes, and, besides, all of its definite information Mrs. Joyce might have furnished; but his mother added something that startled him. She said: "The Voices say, '_Obey this man; study him. He will raise you high!_'"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I don't know," she replied. "That is the way I hear it. I hear other Voices--they say to me, '_Comfort him._'"

Victor was not in a mood for "voices," and cut her short by asking in detail about her arrest. "Who came for you? A policeman?"

"Yes, but not in uniform. They were very nice about it. At first I was terribly frightened. I was afraid I should have to go in the patrol-wagon, but we were allowed to ride in the car, the policeman sitting with the driver--"

Victor groaned. "Oh, mother, why did you give out _business_ advice!"

"I gave what was given to me," she responded.

"Think of the disgrace of being in that court-room!"

"I didn't mind the disgrace," she replied; "but it swarmed with horrible spirits. Each one of those poor criminals had a cloud of other base, distorted, half-formed creatures hovering about him. It was like being in a cage with a host of obscene bats fluttering about." She shuddered. "It was horrible! It was a sweet relief when you and Leo came, for a new and happy band came with you. You helped my band drive away the cloud of low beings that oppressed me; and now there is something calming and serenely helpful all about me. It comes from Mr. Bartol. I am no longer afraid; I am perfectly serene."

Victor made no attempt at elucidating her exact meaning; there was something depressing to him in this continued dependence upon spirit guidance, a guidance that had led them into so much trouble and discredit. He sat by the window, watching the faintly-outlined moonlit landscape flowing past, feeling himself to be a very small insect riding on the chariot of the king of tempests, with no power to check the speed or direct the course of his inflexible driver. His own future was but a flutter of vague shadows, his boyhood a serene, sun-warm meadow, now swiftly receding into the darkness of night. Would anything so beautiful ever come again?

His mother, sitting as if entranced, was looking down at her folded hands, her brow unlined; but a plaintive droop in the lines of her sensitive mouth told that she was wearied and secretly disheartened.

"Poor little mother!" he said, laying a hand on her arm, "you are tired."

The tears came to her eyes, but she smiled back radiantly. "I don't care what comes, if only you believe in me," she said, simply; and he took her hand in both of his and pressed it like a lover.

At last Mr. Bartol folded his paper and put away his glasses. "Well, we are nearing Hazel Grove," he announced, smilingly. "It's only a little village, a meeting of cross-roads, but I think you'll like the country; it's the fine old rolling prairie of which you've heard."

The moon was riding high as they alighted from the coach upon the platform of a low, wooden station in the midst of green fields. A clump of trees, and the lights in dimly discerned houses, gave only a faint suggestion of a town; but an open carriage was waiting for them, and entering this, they were driven away into the most delicious and fragrant silence.

Instantly the last trace of Victor's anger and unrest fell away from him. Of this simple quality had been the scenes of his life at school. In such peace and serenity his earlier years had been spent; indeed, all his life, save for the few tumultuous days in the city--and he was immediately restored and comforted by the sounds, sights, and odors of the superb spring night.

"Isn't it glorious!" he cried. "I feel as if I were reaching God's country again."

The swiftly stepping horses whirled them up the street through a bunch of squat buildings and out along a gently rising lane to the south. Ten minutes later the driver turned into a large, tree-shaded drive, and over a curving graveled drive approached a spreading white house, whose porticos shone pleasantly in the moonlight. A row of lighted windows glowed with hospitable intent, and tall vases of flowers showed dimly.

"Here we are!" called Mr. Bartol, with genial cordiality. "Welcome to Hazeldean."

To dismount before this wide porch in the midst of the small innumerable voices of the night was like living out some delicious romance. To come to it from the reek and threat of the court-room made its serene expanse a heavenly refuge, and the beleaguered mother paused for a moment at the door to look back upon the lawn, where opulent elms and maples dreamed in the odorless gloom. "I have never seen anything so peaceful," she breathed. "Only heavenly souls inhabit here."

The interior was equally restful and reassuring. Large rooms with simple and substantial furnishings led away from a short entrance hall. The ceilings were low and dark, and the lamps shaded. Books were everywhere to be seen, many of them piled carelessly convenient to lights and chairs, as if it were both library and living-room.

The first word Victor spoke related to the books, and Mr. Bartol replied with a smile.

"They are not especially well chosen. I fear you'll find them a mixed lot. I read nothing but law in the city--here I indulge my fancy. You'll wonder what my principle of selection is, and, if you ask me, I must answer--I haven't any. I buy whatever commends itself to me at the moment. One thing leads to another--romance to history, history to poetry, poetry to the drama, and so on." He greeted a very tidy maid who entered the room. "Good-evening, Marie. This is Mrs. Ollnee, and this is her son, Mr. Victor Ollnee. Please see that they are made comfortable." Then again to his guests. "You must be tired."

"I am so, Mr. Bartol," replied Mrs. Ollnee, "and if you'll pardon me I'll go to my room."

"Certainly--and you may go, too, if you feel like it," he said to Victor.

"I am not sleepy," replied Victor.

"Very well," replied his host. "Be seated and we'll discuss the situation for a few minutes."

He led the way to a corner where two wide windows opening on the lawn made delicious mingling of night air and study light, and offering his guest a cigar, took a seat, saying: "I run out here whenever the city becomes a burden. I find I need just such a corrective to the intense life of the city. It is my rule to give no thought to legal troubles while I am here; hence the absence of codes and all legal literature. You are a college man, Mrs. Joyce tells me."

"I was at Winona last Saturday, and expected to stay there till June, when I was due to graduate. Then the devil broke loose, and here I am. When will my mother's case come up?"

"Not for some weeks, I fear. If you wish to return to your studies we can arrange that."

"No. I'm done with school. I'm only worried about my mother. What do you think of her case, Mr. Bartol?"

"I'm not informed sufficiently to say," he replied, slowly. "The whole subject of hypnotic control seems to be involved. I must know more of your mother before I can even hazard an opinion. The theories of suggestion are all rather vague to me. I have only what might be called a newspaper knowledge of them; but I have some information as to your mother's profession I gained from my friend Mrs. Joyce, so that I am not entirely uninformed. Besides, it is a lawyer's business to know everything, and I shall at once proceed to bore into the subject."

Mrs. Ollnee returning brought him to his feet in graceful acknowledgment of her sex, and placing a chair for her, he said, "I hope you don't mind tobacco."

"Not at all," she replied, quite as graciously.

He placed a chair for her so that the light fell upon her face, and she knew that he intended to study her as if she were a page of strange text.

"I'm glad you like it here," he said, in answer to her repeated admiration of his home, "for I suspect you'll have to stay here for the present. The city is passing through one of those moral paroxysms which come once in a year or two. Last year it was the social evil; just now it concerns itself with what the reformers are pleased to call 'the occult fakers.' The feeling of a jury would be against you at present, and as I have promised Mrs. Joyce to take charge of your defense, I think it well for you to go into retirement here while I take time to inform myself of the case."

"I do not like to trouble you."

"It is no trouble, my dear madam. Here is this big home, empty and completely manned. A couple of guests, especially a hearty young man, will be a godsend to my cook. She complains of not having men to feed. Don't let any question of expense to me trouble you."

"Thank you most deeply."

"Don't thank me; thank Louise Joyce, who is both client and friend, and the one to whom I owe this pleasure." He bowed. "I never before had the opportunity of entertaining a 'psychic,' and I welcome the opportunity."

She did not quite know how to take him, and neither did Victor; and perceiving that doubt, Bartol added: "I am quite sincere in all this. I hear a good deal, obscurely, of this curious phase of human life, but never before have I been confronted by one who claims the power of divination."

"Pardon me, sir, I do not claim such power."

"Do you not! I thought that was precisely your claim."

"No, sir, I am a medium. I report what is given to me. I divine nothing of myself. I am an instrument through which those whom men call 'the dead' speak."

"I see," he mused. "I will not deceive you," he began again, very gravely. "This charge against you is likely to prove serious, and you must be quite frank with me. I may require a test of your powers."

"I am at your service, sir. Make any test of me you please--this moment if you like."

"I will not require anything of you to-night. Writers tell me that 'mediums' are a dark, elusive, and uncanny set, Mrs. Ollnee, and I must confess that you upset my preconceptions."

"There are all kinds of mediums, as there are all kinds of lawyers, Mr. Bartol. I am human, like the others."

"If you will permit me, I will take up your defense along the lines of hypnotic control on the part of this man Pettus."

"I cannot presume to advise you, sir, but you must know that to me these Voices come from the spirit world. I am the transmitter merely--for instance, at this moment I hear a Voice and I see behind you the form of a lady, a lovely young woman--"

"Mother!" called Victor, warningly. "Don't start in on that!"

"Proceed," said Bartol; "I am interested."

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 hell 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 identity?"

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 passed 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 space. 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 grass 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."