Madam Sharpe was greatly elated by all this, and to her fancy new, brilliant, and profitable successes seemed opening before her. Alas, in this very increase of popularity, and with it of public attention, lay her undoing, as it drew to her _séances_ not only the easily credulous, and the sincere believers, but the doubting skeptics whose purpose was investigation. So it came one evening that several young men of the latter class, including a newspaper reporter, were present, and after the lights had been turned low and dim, and the thrill of hushed expectancy had settled over the waiting circle, and out of the slowly opening door of the cabinet a white, shadowy little figure had lightly floated, and as the “spirit” passed near the newspaper reporter he adroitly threw a pinch of snuff in its face. A sneeze followed, a most decidedly human sneeze. Quick as thought he seized it in a strong grasp, while another of the “investigators” as quickly turned the gas high and bright, and then and there was revealed to that astounded circle a plump, round-faced, very flesh-and-blood little girl, with the white powder partly rubbed off her rosy face, her wig of long, floating, yellow hair awry, and her white gauze dress crumpled and torn; frightened, angry, and stoutly struggling to escape. As soon as she saw that exposure had come Madam Sharpe hastily made her escape, and a moment later Posey managed to free herself from the hand of her captor and darted from the room. [Illustration: OUT OF THE DOOR OF THE CABINET A WHITE, SHADOWY LITTLE FIGURE HAD LIGHTLY FLOATED.—_Page 32._] But evidence enough remained: the cabinet, that through a sliding panel opened into an adjoining room, the guitar, the wigs, the costumes of the different “materializations.” A storm of indignation naturally followed these discoveries, a storm so loud as to arouse the attention of all in the vicinity, and to bring a policeman to the scene. An angry but fruitless search was made for the clairvoyant, who was near enough to hear the threats expressed as she cowered in her place of retreat. A much duller comprehension than hers would have realized that her career in that city was ended. Reporters, as she well knew, would catch it up, and the morning papers spread the news of her exposure far and wide, even should she escape the arrest she had heard threatened on the ugly charge of obtaining money under false pretenses. While the crowd was still surging through her rooms, she had decided that the sooner she was away the better; and as soon as the neighborhood regaining quiet had sunk into slumber, she secured, as hastily and secretly as possible, the removal of her few personal effects, and, thanks to the express speed of the railroad, was many miles distant when morning dawned.