It rolled and wreathed and undulated in dim glimmering folds,
turning and swirling like clouds of smoke. I could see the white,
square-ended hands of the French medium in this baleful light. “What a fun!” he cried. “It is splendid!”

“Shall we call the alphabet?” asked Moir. “But no—for we can do much better,” said our visitor. “It is but a
clumsy thing to tilt the table for every letter of the alphabet, and
with such a medium as madame we should do better than that.”

“Yes, you will do better,” said a voice. “Who was that? Who spoke? Was that you, Markham?”

“No, I did not speak.”

“It was madame who spoke.”

“But it was not her voice.”

“Is that you, Mrs. Delamere?”

“It is not the medium, but it is the power which uses the organs of the
medium,” said the strange, deep voice. “Where is Mrs. Delamere? It will not hurt her, I trust.”

“The medium is happy in another plane of existence. She has taken my
place, as I have taken hers.”

“Who are you?”

“It cannot matter to you who I am. I am one who has lived as you are
living, and who has died as you will die.”

We heard the creak and grate of a cab pulling up next door. There was an
argument about the fare, and the cabman grumbled hoarsely down the
street. The green-yellow cloud still swirled faintly over the table,
dull elsewhere, but glowing into a dim luminosity in the direction of
the medium. It seemed to be piling itself up in front of her. A sense of
fear and cold struck into my heart. It seemed to me that lightly and
flippantly we had approached the most real and august of sacraments,
that communion with the dead of which the fathers of the Church had
spoken. “Don’t you think we are going too far? Should we not break up this
séance?” I cried. But the others were all earnest to see the end of it. They laughed at my
scruples. “All the powers are made for use,” said Harvey Deacon. “If we _can_ do
this, we _should_ do this. Every new departure of knowledge has been
called unlawful in its inception. It is right and proper that we should
inquire into the nature of death.”

“It is right and proper,” said the voice. “There, what more could you ask?” cried Moir, who was much excited. “Let
us have a test. Will you give us a test that you are really there?”

“What test do you demand?”

“Well, now—I have some coins in my pocket. Will you tell me how many?”

“We come back in the hope of teaching and of elevating, and not to guess
childish riddles.”

“Ha, ha, Meester Moir, you catch it that time,” cried the Frenchman. “But surely this is very good sense what the Control is saying.”

“It is a religion, not a game,” said the cold, hard voice. “Exactly—the very view I take of it,” cried Moir. “I am sure I am very
sorry if I have asked a foolish question. You will not tell me who you
are?”

“What does it matter?”

“Have you been a spirit long?”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“We cannot reckon time as you do. Our conditions are different.”

“Are you happy?”

“Yes.”

“You would not wish to come back to life?”

“No—certainly not.”

“Are you busy?”

“We could not be happy if we were not busy.”

“What do you do?”

“I have said that the conditions are entirely different.”

“Can you give us no idea of your work?”

“We labour for our own improvement and for the advancement of others.”

“Do you like coming here to-night?”

“I am glad to come if I can do any good by coming.”

“Then to do good is your object?”

“It is the object of all life on every plane.”

“You see, Markham, that should answer your scruples.”

It did, for my doubts had passed and only interest remained. “Have you pain in your life?” I asked. “No; pain is a thing of the body.”

“Have you mental pain?”

“Yes; one may always be sad or anxious.”

“Do you meet the friends whom you have known on earth?”

“Some of them.”

“Why only some of them?”

“Only those who are sympathetic.”

“Do husbands meet wives?”

“Those who have truly loved.”

“And the others?”

“They are nothing to each other.”

“There must be a spiritual connection?”

“Of course.”

“Is what we are doing right?”

“If done in the right spirit.”

“What is the wrong spirit?”

“Curiosity and levity.”

“May harm come of that?”

“Very serious harm.”

“What sort of harm?”

“You may call up forces over which you have no control.”

“Evil forces?”

“Undeveloped forces.”

“You say they are dangerous. Dangerous to body or mind?”

“Sometimes to both.”

There was a pause, and the blackness seemed to grow blacker still, while
the yellow-green fog swirled and smoked upon the table. “Any questions you would like to ask, Moir?” said Harvey Deacon. “Only this—do you pray in your world?”

“One should pray in every world.”

“Why?”

“Because it is the acknowledgment of forces outside ourselves.”

“What religion do you hold over there?”

“We differ exactly as you do.”

“You have no certain knowledge?”

“We have only faith.”

“These questions of religion,” said the Frenchman, “they are of interest
to you serious English people, but they are not so much fun. It seems to
me that with this power here we might be able to have some great
experience—_hein_? Something of which we could talk.”

“But nothing could be more interesting than this,” said Moir. “Well, if you think so, that is very well,” the Frenchman answered,
peevishly. “For my part, it seems to me that I have heard all this
before, and that to-night I should weesh to try some experiment with all
this force which is given to us. But if you have other questions, then
ask them, and when you are finish we can try something more.”

But the spell was broken. We asked and asked, but the medium sat silent
in her chair. Only her deep, regular breathing showed that she was
there. The mist still swirled upon the table. “You have disturbed the harmony. She will not answer.”

“But we have learned already all that she can tell—_hein_? For my part I
wish to see something that I have never seen before.”

“What then?”

“You will let me try?”

“What would you do?”

“I have said to you that thoughts are things. Now I wish to _prove_ it
to you, and to show you that which is only a thought. Yes, yes, I can do
it and you will see. Now I ask you only to sit still and say nothing,
and keep ever your hands quiet upon the table.”

The room was blacker and more silent than ever. The same feeling of
apprehension which had lain heavily upon me at the beginning of the
séance was back at my heart once more. The roots of my hair were
tingling. “It is working! It is working!” cried the Frenchman, and there was a
crack in his voice as he spoke which told me that he also was strung to
his tightest. The luminous fog drifted slowly off the table, and wavered and flickered
across the room. There in the farther and darkest corner it gathered and
glowed, hardening down into a shining core—a strange, shifty, luminous,
and yet non-illuminating patch of radiance, bright itself, but throwing
no rays into the darkness. It had changed from a greenish-yellow to a
dusky sullen red.