Kate looked at him with new interest. "You didn't tell me that before. You said you'd met her casually."
"She is enormously interesting, but"—his voice changed to earnest protest—"but, Kate, the thing the girl claims to be is out of key with all organized human knowledge. It is a survival of the past. It belongs to a world of dreams and portents. It is of a piece with the old crone's tales, fortune-telling, palmistry, and all the rest of the hodge-podge or hocus-pocus which makes up the world of the unlearned. I've given a great deal of thought to her fate. My heart bleeds for her, but what can I do? She really needs the care of a great physician, like Tolman. She should be snatched from her unwholesome surroundings and sent away to Europe or back to her hills. When I saw her last she was as sweet and blithe as a bobolink—we were on the trail together, so far above the miasma of humankind that her girlhood seemed uncontaminated by any death-affrighted soul. Why don't she go back? She is vigorous and experienced in travel. Her step-father is not poor; he is rich. Why don't she pull away and go back to her valley?"
"Do you know what a 'control' is?"
"I believe that is the name they give the particular spirits which assume to advise and guide a medium. Why?"
"Well, that poor thing is in mortal terror of her 'control,' who is her grandfather. She was quite defiant till Clarke reminded her that her guide would cut her down in her tracks if she refused. Then she wilted—went right off into death-like sleep. It was pitiful to see her. Clarke was terrible when he said it—he is a regular Svengali, I believe, and the mother is completely dominated by him. One of the spooks is her own father, the other her first husband. It seems that they are willing to sacrifice the girl to their science, for it seems they are leagued to dig a hole through to us from their side, and Viola is their avenue of communication. Then, too, the girl believes in it all. She rebels at times, but she has been having these trances ever since she was ten years old." As the memory of the mother's tale freshened, Kate changed her tone. "You needn't tell me, Morton Serviss, that these people are frauds. They may be mistaken, but they're horribly in earnest. They believe in those spirits as you do in germs, and Viola is absolutely helpless in their hands, if you can say they have hands. They can throw her into a trance at any moment. They've made her life a misery. She is absolutely enslaved to them."
"That, too, could be a delusion—medical science is full of cases of auto-hypnotism."
"Viola Lambert is not a medical case. It's astonishing what a blooming beauty she is in the midst of it all. In fact, her health gives Clarke and the mother an argument—they say 'it hasn't hurt her, you see.' But what future has the poor girl? Think of going through life in that way!"
Morton's eyes were sad as he said: "Her future is a dark one, from our point of view, but she may be earning a crown to be given in the land of shadows. She is beautiful, but it is the beauty of a blighted flower."
Kate regarded him with affectionate eyes. "I don't wonder that she has bewitched you, Morton. She can never be anything to you, of course. But we must help her, just the same, and I confess I am crazy to see one of her 'performances,' as you call them." Her face lightened. "How would it do to invite them to dinner and have a séance afterwards? You could judge then of her truth."
"Sacrifice her to make our holiday, eh? Kate, I thought better of you than that. Isn't that precisely the poor girl's complaint that everybody wants to use her as a sort of telephone connection with the other world? No. If you invite her here, receive her as a lady, not as a pervert. But, now, let us see. You say Clarke is going to issue his challenge soon?"