Again, to their terrified ears, came three distinct rappings. More than one of the scouts gasped in fear, and Marie Louise began to sob quietly.
“Is this house haunted?”
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Two or three other questions, whose answers threw the girls into greater terror, only made Marjorie more suspicious, more eager to investigate the whole matter. The medium shivered slightly, looked about her in a dazed fashion, and leaned limply back in her chair.
In the lull that followed an idea occurred to Marjorie, and she startled the others by the matter-of-fact tone in which she made a request. But in making it, she knew that her request was a reasonable one; for she had read and heard a great deal of the professed power of mediums, and thought that, if this one were not a fake, she should consent to it.
“Would you be kind enough,” she asked, addressing the medium, “to let me write the questions, instead of asking them out loud?”
The woman hesitated a moment.
“It is a very unusual demand,” she replied, “but I will try it, if you wish. What is it you want to ask?”
Marjorie produced a pencil and a piece of paper from her pocket, wrote something, folded the paper several times with the writing inside, and placed it upon the center of the table.
“Of course,” continued the girl, “it will not be necessary for you to look at what I have written, since the spirit with whom you communicate will know what it says.”