CONJURER. It began by giving me headaches. And I found that every morning after a Spiritualist _seance_ I had a queer feeling of lowness and degradation, of having been soiled; much like the feeling, I suppose, that people have the morning after they have been drunk. But I happen to have what people call a strong head; and I have never been really drunk. PATRICIA. I am glad of that. CONJURER. It hasn't been for want of trying. But it wasn't long before the spirits with whom I had been playing at table-turning, did what I think they generally do at the end of all such table-turning. PATRICIA. What did they do? CONJURER. They turned the tables. They turned the tables upon me. I don't wonder at your believing in fairies. As long as these things were my servants they seemed to me like fairies. When they tried to be my masters.... I found they were not fairies. I found the spirits with whom I at least had come in contact were evil ... awfully, unnaturally evil. PATRICIA. Did they say so? CONJURER. Don't talk of what they said. I was a loose fellow, but I had not fallen so low as such things. I resisted them; and after a pretty bad time, psychologically speaking, I cut the connexion. But they were always tempting me to use the supernatural power I had got from them. It was not very great, but it was enough to move things about, to alter lights, and so on. I don't know whether you realize that it's rather a strain on a man to drink bad coffee at a coffee-stall when he knows he has just enough magic in him to make a bottle of champagne walk out of an empty shop. PATRICIA. I think you behaved very well. CONJURER. [_Bitterly._] And when I fell at last it was for nothing half so clean and Christian as champagne. In black blind pride and anger and all kinds of heathenry, because of the impudence of a schoolboy, I called on the fiends and they obeyed. PATRICIA. [_Touches his arm._] Poor fellow! CONJURER. Your goodness is the only goodness that never goes wrong. PATRICIA. And what _are_ we to do with Morris? I--I believe you now, my dear. But he--he will never believe. CONJURER. There is no bigot like the atheist. I must think. [_Walks towards the garden windows. The other men reappear to arrest his movement._ DOCTOR. Where are you going? CONJURER. I am going to ask the God whose enemies I have served if I am still worthy to save a child. [_Exit into garden. He paces up and down exactly as_ MORRIS _has done. As he does so_, PATRICIA _slowly goes out; and a long silence follows, during which the remaining men stir and stamp very restlessly. The darkness increases. It is long before anyone speaks._ DOCTOR. [_Abruptly._] Remarkable man that Conjurer. Clever man. Curious man. Very curious man. A kind of man, you know.... Lord bless us! What's that? DUKE. What's what, eh? What's what? DOCTOR. I swear I heard a footstep. _Enter_ HASTINGS _with papers._