Another period of heavy silence. "I cannot see her nor hear her speak. Martha, my control, is speaking for her. But Martha shows me the picture of a child--a little girl in an old-fashioned dress. And I think she is saying that name--Lallie." The silence again, so that when Norcross moistened his dry lips with his tongue the slight smack seemed like the crackle of a fire. "I see it more clearly now and I understand. The child gave her that name, but someone else used it for a love name. It was just between those two." The rest came in scattered sentences, with long pauses between--"I hear that song again--it was her favorite--I understand now why it comes--she was singing it when--Yes, you are the man--when you told her--She calls you Bobbert--and now I cannot see." A bead of perspiration had appeared so suddenly on the forehead of Norcross that it had the effect of bursting from a pore. He was on his feet, was pacing the floor in his jerky little walk. When, after one course of the drawing-room, he turned back, Mrs. Markham had taken her hand from her eyes, and was facing him. "Oh, why did you do that?" she asked. "It has its effect on me--you do not know how much!" Her manner spoke a smothered irritation. "I shall not see Lallie to-night. And she was very near." As though something had clicked and fallen into place within him, Norcross straightened and stiffened, controlled the relaxed muscles of his face, flashed his eyes on Mrs. Markham. "Might I ask some questions?" he said. "You must sit quietly," she answered, "and though I can never see so well after the first contact breaks, Martha may speak for you. Sit as you did, and wait for me." Norcross walked at his nervous, hurried little pace back to his seat on the sofa. His face was quite controlled now, and his sharp eyes held all their native cunning. That grip on himself grew, as he waited for the inert seeress to speak again. "Martha says, 'I will try,'" she gave out finally. "Quick--with your question--with your lips, not your mind--I am not strong enough now." "What was Lallie's real name?" "Helen." "Her other name?" A pause, then: "Martha is silent. You are testing me. Tell something you want to know--even advice." "Was there ever anyone else?" A pause again, then: "Never. She loved you wholly. She was angry over a little thing, just jealousy, during that last quarrel. She had already forgiven. It was only a girl's whim. Do you want advice?" Norcross thrusted obliquely from the corner of his eye at Mrs. Markham and looked down at the floor. "Ask her if I shall sell," he said. The answer came so suddenly that it overlapped the last words of his sentence. "Martha says that she is going away." No more for two silent minutes; no more until Mrs. Markham dropped her hand from her eyes, turned to Norcross, and said in a normal, sprightly tone: