Mr. Malone. We don't mind. But you will see the turn some day. These articles may rise up in judgement."
"I will treat it fairly, I assure you."
"Well, we ask no more." The medium was leaning with her elbow on the mantel piece, austere and aloof.
"I am afraid you are tired," said Enid.
"No, young lady, I am never tired in doing the work of the spirit people. They see to that."
"May I ask," Malone ventured, "whether you ever knew Professor Summerlee?"
The medium shook her head. "No, sir, no. They always think I know them. I know none of them. They come and I describe them."
"How do you get the message?"
"Clairaudient. I hear it. I hear them all the time. The poor things all want to come through and they pluck at me and pull me and pester me on the platform. 'Me next—me—me'! That's what I hear. I do my best, but I can't handle them all."
"Can you tell me anything of that prophetic person?" asked Malone of the chairman. Mr. Bolsover shrugged his shoulders with a deprecating smile.
"He is an Independent. We see him now and again as a sort of comet passing across us. By the way, it comes back to me that he prophesied the war. I'm a practical man myself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. We get plenty in ready cash without any bills for the future. Well, good night! Treat us as well as you can."
"Good night," said Enid.
"Good night," said Mrs. Debbs. "By the way, young lady, you are a medium yourself. Good night!"
And so they found themselves in the street once more inhaling long draughts of the night air. It was sweet after that crowded hall. A minute later they were in the rush of the Edgware Road and Malone had hailed a cab to carry them back to Victoria West Gardens.
III.
IN WHICH PROFESSOR CHALLENGER GIVES HIS OPINION
ENID had stepped into the cab and Malone was following when his name was called and a man came running down the street. He was tall, middle-aged, handsome and well-dressed, with the clean-shaven, self-confident face of the successful surgeon.
"Hullo, Malone! Stop!"
"Why, it's Atkinson! Enid, let me introduce you. This is Mr. Atkinson of St. Mary's about whom I spoke to your father. Can we give you a lift? We are going towards Victoria."
"Capital!" The surgeon followed them into the cab. "I was amazed to see you at a Spiritualist meeting."
"We were only there professionally. Miss Challenger and I are both on the Press."
"Oh, really! The Daily Gazette, I suppose, as before. Well, you will have one more subscriber, for I shall want to see what you made of to-night's show."
"You'll have to wait till next Sunday. It is one of a series."
"Oh, I say, I can't wait as long as that. What did you make of it?"
"I really don't know. I shall have to read my notes carefully to-morrow and think it over, and compare impressions with my colleague here. She has the intuition, you see, which goes for so much in religious matters."
"And what is your intuition, Miss Challenger?"
"Good—oh yes, good! But, dear me, what an extraordinary mixture!"
"Yes, indeed. I have been several times and it always leaves the same mixed impression upon my own mind. Some of it is ludicrous, and some of it might be dishonest, and yet again some of it is clearly wonderful."
"But you are not on the Press. Why were you there?"
"Because I am deeply interested. You see, I am a student of psychic matters and have been for some years am not a convinced one but I am sympathetic, and I have sufficient sense of proportion to realize that while I seem to be sitting in judgment upon the subject it may in truth be the subject which is sitting in judgment upon me."
Malone nodded appreciation.
"It is enormous. You will realize that as you get to close grips with it. It is half a dozen great subjects in one. And it is all in the hands of these good humble folk who, in the face of every discouragement and personal loss, have carried it on for more than seventy years. It is really very like the rise of Christianity. It was run by slaves and underlings until it gradually extended upwards. There were three hundred years
