"Do not cry out too soon. If I thus charmed you and forced you to betray your inmost secrets it would be with a witness by. He would repeat your revelations so as to leave you no doubt."
"A witness? but, think, sir, that a witness to such a deed would be an accomplice."
"A husband is not the accomplice to an experiment he favors on his wife."
"The King?" screamed Marie Antoinette with dread, revealing rather the wife than the medium reluctant to make a scene for the spiritualist: "fie, Dr. Gilbert!"
"The King, your natural defender, your sustainer," replied Gilbert quietly. "He would relate, when you were awakened, how respectful I was, while proud in proving my science on the most venerated of sovereigns."
He left her to meditate on the depth of his words.
"I see," she said at length, "you must be a mortal enemy——"
"Or a proven friend——"
"Impossible; friendship cannot dwell beside fear or distrust."
"Between subject and monarch, friendship cannot live but on the confidence the subject inspires. I have made the vow not to use my weapons but to repulse the wrongs done me. All for defense, nothing for offence!"