Morton, hearing this, inwardly commented; "These obscure forms of hysteria often possess the cunning, the dissimulation of madness. Poor girl! She is beginning to realize her predicament, and is preparing us for disappointment," and a return of his doubt kept him silent. Weissmann spoke. "Shall we not sing something--'We Shall Meet Beyond the River,' or some ditty like that?" Thereat Kate said: "Doctor, you betray astonishing familiarity with the ways of 'spooks.'" "Oh, I know everything." "I begin to believe it," she retorted. "I begin to suspect that you are a secret adherent. Morton, you would better tie Dr. Weissmann, otherwise he may speak from the cone himself." As if to counteract this banter Clarke began a discourse on the leadings of the most recent discoveries: "The X-ray is a mode of motion, as light is a mode of motion, but the waves of light move in such a way as to clash with and weaken those of the X-ray; so we argue that the mode of motion, through which disembodied souls manifest themselves, being far subtler than the X-ray, is neutralized--though by no means destroyed--by the motion called light. Furthermore, there seems to be a reluctance on the part of the invisible ones to have the actual processes scrutinized. I once laid a pencil on the table and asked for a visible action of writing, vainly, so long as it was completely exposed, but upon being covered with a silk handkerchief it plainly rose and wrote. It could be distinctly seen moving beneath the cloth. Sir William Crookes had a similar experience, except in his case he saw the pencil move, prop itself against a ruler, and try three times to write--all in the light. I have seen letters form on an exposed surface of a slate, I have had hands appear through a curtain and write in the light, but the power must always be generated in shadow." Kate shuddered. "Woo! It gives me the shivers to think of such things. Will anything as wonderful happen to-night?" "I cannot tell--the conditions are severe, but I think we will have something. Viola?" he called, softly. "Yes," she answered, faintly. "Would you like us to sing?" "No--I'd rather you'd all talk. Perhaps they will let me take part in the demonstration to-night. They promised to do so, you remember." Weissman recounted some of the experiences Zöllner had enjoyed in Germany shortly after the Fox sisters became so celebrated in America. "Crookes and Wallace and several others went into the whole question at that time--the world rang with the controversy. But the clamor passed, the phenomena passed. It is like an epidemic, it comes and it goes, and in the end is humanity the wiser? No."