"You wonder at my fear of my grandfather, but that's because you don't realize his power. Let me tell you what happened to me once, when I tried to run away from him. I became desperate one summer vacation and determined to get away from it all. Without telling mother, I took the train one morning--" She paused abruptly and pressed both hands to her burning cheeks. "Oh, it was horrible! My grandfather threw me into a trance on the train, and the conductor thought I was drunk--" She shuddered with the memory of it, and could not finish. "Since then I have never dared to really oppose him." He pondered her blush, the quiver of her lips, and the timid look of her eyes, and gravely answered: "I share your horror of an experience like that. But it does not endear your malevolent grandfather to me. He must be a kind of male witch--" "You mustn't feel that way towards him," she cried out in some alarm. "He is firm because he feels that I should be doing my work--" "I'd like to talk this matter over with him, but I don't like to have you entranced. Is that necessary?" "Yes, to get the voices. The writing we can have any time." "What do you do to induce this coma--this sleep?" "Just fold my hands and give myself up." "It seems a desecration of you; but if there is no other way we will grant 'the powers' audience." At his word her face cleared, her fingers relaxed, and she smiled. "Thank you. He has taken away his hand." As she rose and stood before him she seemed again the buoyant, care-free girl, and he could only weakly say, "It seems so ungracious, so inhospitable in us," as they walked side by side across the room to Kate. Clarke was sitting in silence, without pretence of listening to his hostess, watching Serviss with gloomy, uneasy eyes--a fierce flame of jealousy burning in his brain. He recalled the change in Viola which had followed this man's visit to Colorow, and associated her first persistent revolt with him; and now, seeing her beside him, in his own house, looking up into his face, absorbed, fascinated, utterly forgetful of her duty, oblivious to every one else, was maddening. Her gown angered him. "Why did she wear that dress?" he fiercely asked himself. "She does not do that for me. She is in love with him--that is why. She shall not come here again. These people are destructive to her higher aims." In this mood he changed his mind, opposed the sitting; but Viola convinced him that it was the will of her 'guides' and that it was a splendid opportunity to interest two renowned sceptics, and in that spirit he again reluctantly consented. XIII THE TEST SÉANCE Morton's study was decided upon as the most suitable place in which to experiment, for the reason that it had but one exit, a sliding double door, which led to the library, and its windows all opened upon the street, six stories below. A burglar could not have entered with full license to do so.