“Impossible!” cried the Doctor, “you let your imagination run away with you. You work so hard all day and permit this morbid fancy to occupy your tired brain by night, until it has become in a measure, diseased. I know you think you see and feel these things, but it is a species of delirium or mental intoxication, bred of your intense longing to accomplish what is unaccomplishable.” “Very good,” said Ricardo, quietly, “if you believe that, you must believe it! But what would convince you of the truth?” “Nothing but the evidence of my own senses, whilst they were in the calm condition they are at present.” “If that is so, my friend, stay here and sit with me to-night. Then your own senses shall convince you.” This proposition took Steinberg by surprise. He was not entirely free from the universal dread of anything like communication with the Unseen World, although he had expressed his disbelief in the possibility, but his fear was mingled with curiosity, and the result was that he assented to Ricardo’s proposal. “I will, Professor,” he said, “if only to try and show you that your supposed spirits are merely shadows cast upon the wall.” “A wall which has no light wherewith to cast shadows,” remarked Ricardo, sarcastically. “Well! well! that they are shadows thrown on the retina of your eye by reflections from your brain,” replied the young Doctor, somewhat testily, for he did not like to be refuted on his own ground, “any way that the spirits of the dead have nothing to do with anything that you may see, or hear, whilst shut up in this little room.” “We are not arguing on what I may see or hear, Steinberg, but on what may strike your senses. Neither did I affirm that the living things that visit me, are spirits of the dead. My studies have taught me that there is a class of secondary spirits called Elementals, that have had nothing to do with this earth, but who yet can and do come to the aid of those mortals who solicit their assistance. The vapoury forms that appear to me may be only Elementals, but they come, all the same.” “If they come, they must be worth the trouble of investigation, if only in the interests of Science,” remarked Steinberg, thoughtfully, “but after all, will it not resolve itself into the same old truth that we have been brought up to believe, _i.e._, that we are surrounded by evil spirits always ready to whisper bad thoughts into our ears, and stimulate our worst inclinations?” “But if evil spirits, then also good,” interposed the Professor eagerly, “you surely would not deny the same power to all those departed this earth. If devils, then also my Leonora, to speak with whom I have been promised over and over again, and feel I only want more power to accomplish.” “Well! at all events I will sit with you this evening, Professor, and try to see as you do. But I hear footsteps on the stairs. Had you not better close the door of your sanctum, and turn the conversation to some lighter subject?”