“I am a man in business for myself, in a small way, as the saying is. It might have been a larger way had not my intellectual activities been employed on subjects which I regard as of graver and deeper import than the purchase and sale of ephemeral commodities. For many years my mind has been more familiar with that region known briefly as the occult, than with the intricacies of terrestrial markets. I have striven earnestly to penetrate to those great secrets which throb behind this earthly veil--with what success I need not specify. Suffice it that a small society of fellow-seekers after the Truth chose me as their president, a position I still hold. “However small your acquaintance with this difficult subject, sir, you are probably aware--from hearsay, at least--that it has two great aspects, good and evil. The pure in heart may achieve a certain mastery over forces hidden from the multitude and use them for innocent or praiseworthy ends, such, for example, as establishing communication between our loved ones who have crossed the threshold and those who remain here. This is known vulgarly as white magic. But there is a black magic. It is known to every adept that it is possible--difficult, perhaps, but possible--for self-seeking men who have, perchance before they became perverted, had the key to these vast mysteries put in their hands, to control the mighty forces of which I have spoken and turn them, regardless of the suffering they inflict, to their personal advantage. “It is possible, I say, though exceedingly rare. Few men, good or evil, are so fortunately endowed as to acquire a mastery over those forces for any purpose, and of those who have acquired it the majority are good. In any case they are rare. For myself, despite years of study and anxious striving, I have utterly failed to grasp those forces save in one or two trifling instances. This, by the way. For some time past I have been conscious--I cannot now tell you by what agency I became aware of it--that a group of men, greater adepts than any I have known, had in fact subjected forces terrible in their power and were using them to the danger of the world.” The stranger turned his bulbous bright eyes to Mr. Gilchrist, who sat silent, gripped in a spell which was partly fear. In the moment or two of silence he heard that infernal clock ticking along with insistent industry. The stranger waited a brief space for some comment, and, receiving none, proceeded.