A day or so later I received a note from him requesting my immediate presence at his apartments. I hastened there. He opened the door himself in response to my knock and I followed him into his room. I could see he was laboring under some great excitement. His first words were evidently intended to explain matters. “He will be here in a moment.” He spoke hurriedly and in a low voice as though he feared a listener. “The reason I sent for you is because of all my friends I think you are the least likely to be imposed on. I have the uneasy feeling that many of my investigations were not conducted with absolute fairness,—an uncomfortable sensation of having been tricked. Understand me, my faith in the great principle remains unaltered, but the methods used in its demonstration have been unworthy.” I made a gesture of ridicule and dissent, and he added: “Your unbelief and doubt are my mainstay. I trust to you to see that what is to follow is carried out in the spirit of truth that prompts the undertaking.” I was about to make a reply when some one said in a voice of marvelous sweetness and culture: “If you are ready, gentlemen.” I turned hastily. Standing beside the door that gave access to my friend's dressing-room was a man in a loose robe of dark and curious fabric. Not the habit, but the man, riveted my attention. I saw a colorless face devoid of beard or mustache, a face incontestably perfect as to feature and outline, but the very antithesis of handsome. The mouth was fine and cruel, the forehead serene and broad, with wonderful eyes that burned and glowed with a peculiar lusterless fire as they met mine. The whole effect was distinctly unpleasant. The man was of the kind that one might imagine murdered from love of crime as an art, to whom profit was secondary to pleasure. I instinctively knew that the quality of his mind, though incomparably acute, was debased and diseased far beyond the limits of the rational, yet nothing could be further removed from insanity nor madness. Rearton said, “This is my friend,” placing his hand on my arm as he spoke. The man, having advanced to the center of the room, and acknowledged the introduction by an inclination of the head, said, “Let us begin.” I observed the same quality in his speech that had arrested my attention in his face. Soft and sweet as the tones of his voice were, they were entirely divorced from feeling. It was a soulless perfection. In the center of the room was a table with three chairs drawn about it. Rearton took the one at the head, and in response to his bidding I seated myself at the foot. The man—medium or whatever he might be—dividing the space between us.