When the appointed time came, a slender form, draped in gauze, emerged from the mediumistic cabinet into the darkened séance room, and saluted him with a joyful cry of "Husband!" There was not light enough to see the "spirit's" face, but he did not for an instant doubt that he was really gazing at his wife, and rose to embrace her. At once the figure vanished, and after the lights were turned up the medium explained that there would have to be a good many "materializations" before the spirit form would be solid enough for him to touch it. This meant, of course, numerous séances, for which the deluded husband paid handsomely. It also helped to blind him to the true state of affairs, and increased his infatuation to such an extent that when at length the "spirit" submitted to his caresses, it did not seem at all incongruous to find that he was pressing to his breast a flesh-and-blood woman. The medium now resolved on a bold stroke. Acting under her instruction, the "spirit" bitterly complained one evening that she did not possess any jewelry. "What!" her "husband" exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that they wear jewelry in the other world?" "Oh, yes. But nothing to compare with what I had while on earth. What have you done with mine?" "I have it all--every piece--put away in a little box." "Good. Then if you will bring it to-morrow night, I can take it with me when I leave you. The medium, you know, can dematerialize it for us." "I will bring it. Rest assured of that." Alas for husbandly devotion! The séance at which he turned over the jewelry to the affectionate "spirit" of his wife was the last at which he held communion with her. When he next called, he was told that the medium had been unexpectedly summoned out of town. She never came back. These two episodes are typical rather than exceptional instances of the sort of thing that has been going on for years in connection with the physical phenomena of spiritism. Its continuance has been made possible largely by a widespread belief, entertained not by the ignorant and superstitious merely, but by men of distinction in the intellectual and scientific world, that, notwithstanding the prevalence of fraud, there are at least some physical phenomena which must be accounted genuine. Men like the Italian savants already named, the English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace; the great chemist, Sir William Crookes; the French astronomer, Camille Flammarion, and many others who might be mentioned, are satisfied that they have witnessed in the séance room occurrences out of all accord with natural laws, and not to be attributed to fraud. In support of this view, emphasis is laid on the fact that, leaving out of consideration all mediums who employ their powers as a means of livelihood, physical phenomena of the most bizarre sort have been manifested through men and women in private life, who cannot possibly have a pecuniary motive for deception, and whose character is beyond reproach.