“But what if Ratcliff should return?”
“That’s what disturbs me; for the papers say he has escaped.”
“Then he may be here any moment?”
“For that we must be prepared.”
“But that is horrible! I pledged my word—my very life—that the poor child should be saved from his clutches. She must be saved! Money can do it,—can’t it?”
“Brains can do it better.”
“Let both be used. Is not this a case where some medium can help us? Why not consult Bender?”
“There is, perhaps, one chance in a hundred that he might guide us aright,” said Peek. “That chance I will try, but I have little hope he will find her. During the years I have been searching for my wife I have now and then sought information about her from clairvoyants; but always without success. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. So with these spiritual doings. Look for them, and you don’t find them. Don’t look, and they come. I once knew a colored boy, a medium, who was lifted to the ceiling before my eyes in the clear moonlight. A white man offered him a hundred dollars if he would show him the same thing; but it couldn’t be. No sooner had the white man gone than the boy was lifted, while the rest of us were not expecting it, and carried backward and forward through the air for a full minute. Seeing is believing.”
“But we’ve no time for talking, Peek. We must act. How shall we act?”
“Can you give me any article of apparel which Miss Clara has recently worn,—a glove, for instance?”