"Leave my age alone, drat ye!" growled the amiable old lady, beginning to cut a fresh fill of tobacco with a clasp-knife. "As to Sabbaths, I don't believe in 'em, or I'd ha' gone long ago. There ain't any now, and I don't believe as there ever was. I don't go to Them, but They come to me." Theodore cast a bold look round the miserable room. "Are They here now?" Granny Lee chuckled in her turn. "Mine don't need to show when you're here, Mr. Dane. You've brought your lot along with you, and the biggest of them is looking over your shoulder at this blessed moment." The big man turned his head, but, of course, not being gifted with mediumistic powers, could see nothing. "I wish I could have a look at him," he said regretfully. "What is he?" "Just your thought grown big." Theodore nodded quite comprehendingly. "Of course, thoughts create beings on the astral plane out of the essence. What special thoughts----?" "There's lots of 'em, and none of 'em pleasant," interrupted Mrs. Lee, pointing with her pipe-stem. "Yon's Greed of what belongs to other folk, an' he's not a small one. Then there's Selfishness,--quite a giant--and Hatred, and Lust, and Ambition, and Murder----" "Why murder? I haven't murdered any one," said Dane quickly and coolly. "It's in your mind. That brother of yours----" Theodore ground his teeth. "I'd like to strangle him," he growled, "only I might be caught. Yes, I daresay the murder thought is there." Knowing what he did about occult matters, he had not the least doubt but what Mrs. Lee saw his thoughts made visible, since she possessed the astral vision--what the Celt calls "second sight" and could behold the Unseen. Ordinary matter-of-fact people would laugh at Mrs. Lee's pretensions, but Dane knew that they were only too truthful, and that she actually saw the hideous offspring of his brain with which his evil passions had surrounded him. However, he put the delight of conversing generally with this mistress of Black Magic aside for the moment, since at any moment Isa might finish writing her postscript and come out. It was time to get to business, and he did so without delay. "I feel there is some danger near me," he said abruptly, "and I want you to see what it is." Granny laid aside her pipe and stretched forth a skinny hand. "Give me the ring you are wearing. I must get your condition to see," she said. Dane pulled off his signet ring and passed it along, as he knew that otherwise she could not come into contact with his magnetism. Mrs. Lee put it to her wrinkled forehead and closed her beady eyes. After a few moments she began to speak slowly, listening at times as if some of the viewless Things around her were speaking. "It's danger from above," she muttered. "What danger?" "I can't tell. That shell of yours which holds your wicked soul is stretched out as flat as a pancake." "How does that happen?" "I can't tell, drat ye! But it won't happen if you don't let It come into the house." "What is It?"