“My imagination and my soul have nothing to do with my insight into the spirit of that message,” she said calmly. “My heart cries out for help and my intellect has pondered at leisure upon what you call a fortuitous series of coincidences, a chance string of meaningless words. I see no incoherence, rather convincing coherence, in the sequence of your reading of horoscopes, my dreaming of dreams, leading up to the imperative behest given me from your slate.” “Madame,” he cried, “this is heart-rending. I told you I dreaded the effect upon you of any sort of mummery. You forced me to it. I should have had strength to refuse you. I yielded. Now my cowardice will ruin you.” “Was not your trance genuine?” she queried. “Entirely genuine, entirely too genuine.” “Did not the writing appear upon the slate independent of your will or of mine?” she demanded. “It did,” he admitted. “Can you explain how it came there?” she wound up. “Alas, no,” he confessed, shaking his head. “You can scarcely reproach me for accepting it as a message,” she concluded triumphantly. “I do not reproach you,” he said, “I reproach myself as culpable.” “I rather thank you for what you have done for me,” she almost smiled at him. “It gives me hope. I have meditated carefully upon the message and I am convinced that I comprehend its meaning.” “That is the worst possible state of mind you could get into,” he groaned. “Can I not make you realize the truth? It is not as you think you see it.” “I do not think,” she said. “I know. I am convinced, and I mean to act on my convictions.” “This is terrible,” he muttered. Then he controlled himself, shifted his position in his chair and asked: “And what are your convictions? What do you mean to do?” “My conviction,” she said, “is that David’s love for Marian is in some way bound up with whatever he had buried in that coffin. I mean to have the coffin disinterred.” “Madame,” he said, “this thing gets worse the more you tell me of it. You are in danger of coming under the domination of a fixed idea, even if you are not already under its sway. Fight against it. Shake it off.” “There is no use in your talking that way to me,” she said. “I mean to do it. I shall do it.” “Has your husband consented?” Vargas asked. “He has,” she replied. “Do you mean to tell me that he has agreed to your opening his wife’s grave?” “He has agreed,” she asserted. “But did he make no demur?” the clairvoyant inquired. “He said he did not care what I did, I could do anything I pleased.” “Was that all he said?” Vargas persisted.