A long time they stood there, no word being spoken. Then Eve said softly, “Don’t let your disbelief in supernatural powers blind you to their possible reality. There are many matters yet unknown and spiritism is one of them. Remember that we who are here gathered are sensitives and psychics. We are prepared for and expect experiences not vouchsafed to less clairvoyant natures,—though we did not look for this! But I beg of you, sir, to realize that there are things of which you have no cognizance, that yet are real and effective.”
Doctor Crawford looked at the speaker. In the partially darkened room, Eve’s strange eyes glittered with an uncanny light. Her face was pale, and her red hair like a flame aureole. She took a slow step nearer to the doctor, and he recoiled, as from a vampire.
“You are afraid!” she said, and her tone was exultant. “Do not be afraid,—the phantasms will not hurt you if you do your duty. Unless you do your duty——” she stretched her hand toward him, and again he drew away, “the phantasms will haunt you—haunt you—haunt you!”
Her voice fell to the merest whisper, but it thrilled through the room like a clarion note to the shocked ears of the listening man.
Against his will her eyes held his; against his will, without his volition, he whispered, “What is my duty?”
“To declare,—to declare in accordance with your own conviction, in proof of your own belief,—that these two deaths were the direct result of a supernatural power. What power, you know not, but you do know—remember, you do know, that no mortal hand brought the tragedy about, either the hands of the victims themselves or of any one else.”
Fascinated, frightened, Crawford stared at this strange woman. He had never before encountered such a face, such a sinuous, serpentine form, a personality that seemed to sway his very being, that seemed to dominate and control his whole will power, his whole brain power.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” Eve went on, “don’t think for a moment, I am advising you wrongly, or with intent to deceive. Only, I see you know nothing of occult phenomena, and moreover, you are even ignorant of your own ignorance of them. Therefore, seeing, too, your quick appreciation and perceptive faculty, I warn you not to ignore or forget the fact that these things exist, that unseen powers hold sway over us all, and they must be reckoned with.”
The flattery was subtle. More than the words, Eve’s glance implied a keen apprehension on the part of the doctor, which, as he didn’t possess it, seemed a desirable thing to him, and he gladly assumed that he had it.
“And now,” Eve said, as they left the room, “do you want to go to the other room—the Room with the Tassels?”