"Young man!" she reprimanded. "Young man, beware! If you're agoin' to hamper this poor, grief-stricken woman, you're amakin' a great mistake. You can't argue with me, young man."
"You are doing the arguing, right now," objected Dick.
Anita was furious. Her eyes were wild with rage. Only the presence of Maude Garwood restrained her from uttering oaths and imprecations.
"Dick!" exclaimed the widow. "You mustn't be unfair to Anita Marie. She is trying to help me."
"The young man is a skeptic," declared Anita Marie, in a cold, harsh voice. "He is one of them who make trouble. They think because the spirits will not talk when they are around, that the spirits cannot talk.
"They are fools! Fools!" — she spat the word with a frenzy— "fools! They frighten the spirits away. They drive them away — yes— and sometimes they bring evil spirits that lie like they lie." The heavy woman calmed gradually after she had loosed her feelings. Because Dick refrained from further response, she fancied, egotistically, that she had withered him. Ignoring the intruder, Anita Marie turned again to Maude Garwood.
"You remember what Little Flower told you?" she questioned. "You do as Little Flower tells. Little Flower is atryin' to help you."
"I know it, Anita Marie!" exclaimed Maude Garwood in a voice choked with emotion. "I know it — but I am so afraid. You know how my husband was. He would not believe. I wonder what he would think. I told you that over the telephone, Anita Marie."
"Your dear husband will think the same as you do, now," declared the medium impressively. "He is on the spirit plane, too. Perhaps he can talk to you through Little Flower."
"You believe he could?"