“Am I to believe meaningless,” she demanded, “the voices in my dreams that sent me to that advertisement and to you and told me expect an answer from the slates, a true answer?” “Madame,” he reasoned, “the series of coincidences is startling, but it is nothing but a series of coincidences. Try to rise superior to it.” “And you won’t help me,” she wailed. “You won’t tell me what this message means?” “I have told you my belief as to how it originated,” he said, “I have told you that I do not attach any other significance to it.” “Oh,” she groaned, “I must go home.” “Your carriage is at the door,” he said. “My carriage!” she exclaimed. “How did it get there?” “Not your own carriage,” he explained, “but one for you. I telephoned for it.” “You have not left me an instant,” she asserted incredulously. “When I brought you a glass of water I told the maid to telephone for a carriage and tell it to wait. It will be there.” “I thank you,” she said, “and now, what do I owe you? What is your fee?” Vargas flushed all over his face and neck, a deep brownish-red. “Mrs. Llewellyn,” he said with great dignity, “I take pay from my dupes for my fripperies of deception. But no money, not all the money on earth could pay me to do what I have done for you to-day, no sum could induce me to go through it again for anyone else. For you I would do anything. But what I have done was not done for payment, nor will anything I may do be done except for you, for whom I would do any service in my power.” “I ask your pardon,” she said. “Where is the carriage? I shall faint if I stay here.” Some weeks later, in the same room, the clairvoyant and the lady again faced each other. “I had hoped never to see you again,” he said. “Did you imagine that I could escape from the compulsion of all that series of manifestations?” she asked. “I tried to believe that you might,” he answered. “Have you been able to shake off its hold on you?” she demanded. “Not entirely,” he confessed. “But dazing as the coincidences were, the effect on my emotions will wear off, like the smart of a burn; and, as one forgets the fury of past sufferings, I shall forget the turmoil of my feelings. There was no clear intelligibility, no definite significance in it at all.” “Not in that message!” she exclaimed. “Certainly not,” he asseverated. “Yes there was,” she contradicted. “Madame,” he said earnestly, “if you fancy you perceive any genuine coherence in those fortuitous words you have put the meaning there yourself, your imagination is riveting upon your soul fetters of your own forging.”