"'No, never when I was alone. The Kaltarderns came back after Christmas, and there was another _séance_, for the benefit of the Infirmary, and I went again; and Madame told me my father was speaking to me. He rapped out a strange message about the organ. I was to bid good-bye to the organ of which I was so fond; for I had a gift that was greater than music; and I was to go with those who could cultivate that gift. So the next day, when Madame Kaltardern asked me to go away with them, and promised to develop my mediumistic power, I consented to go. I was to be like their adopted daughter. They were to clothe me and feed me, but they were to give me no money. A gift like mine could not be paid for with money. If I tried to make money by my power, I should lose it. I did not want money from them. I wanted to be brought into communion with the spirit world, with my father whom I loved so dearly, and with my mother, who died when I was eight years old, and with my little sister Lucy, who died soon after mother--the little sister I used to nurse. My only world was the world of the dead. And, oh, was it all trickery--all? Those messages from father and mother--those baby kisses, so soft, so quick, so light; the hand upon my forehead--the hand of the dead--touching me and blessing me! Was it all false, all trickery?' "She rocked herself to and fro sobbing, unconsolable at the thought of her vanished dream-world. "'I'm afraid so, my dear,' said Ravenshaw, kindly. 'I'm afraid it was all humbug. You have been duped yourself, while you have helped to dupe others. It was uncommonly clever of them to get an unconscious accomplice. And now what is to be done with this poor thing? That is the question,' he concluded, appealing to his wife and me. "'Yes, that's the question with a vengeance,' said Gerald. 'We can't leave her in this house in the care of a deaf old woman, to bear the brunt of the landlord's anger when he comes home and finds the birds flown and his arrears of rent the baddest of bad debts. Poor child! we must get her away somehow. Have you no friends in the country who would give you a home?' he asked the girl.