This is a curious attitude of mind toward a subject of more importance to us than any other, yet thousands of presumably intelligent people think the same. They want the dead treated like dangerous criminals, although their nearest and dearest may be of them. They shut them away with relentless cruelty, doing their best to put them out of their very thoughts. In this way they slay them more effectually than Death himself has slain them. Resistlessly they move on to the same end themselves, yet zealously refuse to learn aught of what that end may be. Astonishing mental darkness and indolence, but alas! not uncommon. It was some time before Cartice recovered self-possession and induced her friend to go on with the experiment. But the chain was broken, Planchette refused to move again. Still, Mrs. Doring had enough to dwell upon. Late into the night she lay awake, thinking of it, marveling at it and rejoicing in the new light that had come to her. True, it was a little thing, perhaps, or might appear so to those who are ever ready to make havoc of whatever differs from the usual and accepted, but its possibilities might be limitless, and already it had expanded her world into infinity. Whatever the intelligence that acted through Planchette might be, it was subject to a law in its manifestations, of which as yet she knew next to nothing. For more light thereon she must study by experiment. Simple as this law appeared to be in its operations, it was mighty in its results, since it annihilated space and destroyed death, the last and greatest enemy whose destruction has long been foretold. But are not all nature’s laws astonishingly simple, when understood? So simple that the searcher after knowledge, filled with delusion that it was afar off on inaccessible heights, for ages passed them by, trod them under foot, touched them at every turn, yet found them not. A few evenings later the two friends were ready to begin the fascinating work of experimenting with Planchette, the Butterfly’s tiny hand resting on its heart-shaped back, inviting it to action. Was ever priestess of the occult so emphatically a creature of worldly attributes as she? Her pretty face, soft, fair hair, slight, graceful figure modishly attired, and gentle bearing conveyed no suggestion of power to reveal hidden mysteries. In silence they waited a little while, Planchette as still as could be. Then, unexpectedly it whirled away at a startling pace, with a force well-nigh resistless. When it reached the end of the paper, which completely covered the table, they picked it up and carried it back to the place of beginning, the hand of the pretty priestess was replaced, and it went on at tearing speed, until its message was finished. Then they looked and saw this in big, firm chirography: “_Love laughs at Death as well as at locksmiths--Pagan._” Cartice read it aloud with a whitening face and staring eyes.