"I mean her invisible ministers, compared with whose wisdom our learning is child's prattle for they are one with the sages of history. Their minds drink of the limitless ocean of all past knowledge and catch the gleam of discovery to come. Furthermore"—here his voice grew hard and his glance shifted to Serviss—"no one living has a more vital interest in her welfare than I. Surely I may be trusted to guard and cherish one who is soon to be my wife."
This blow, delivered with the orator's telling arrangement of phrase, fell with tremendous force upon Serviss, towards whom it was vengefully directed. With a heart filled with anger and disgust and pain the young host responded: "I am glad to have this assurance from you, for your action has seemed to me calculated to do Miss Lambert irreparable injury. Of course, I do not doubt your good intentions as regards her—I cannot do that after your final statement—but I think you underestimate your opposing force."
"We expect battle, but nothing can really harm us. What do we care for the puerile dispraise of the press? We are doing God's work in the world, and as for the scientists, they are as moles in the dark."
Weissmann's voice became reflective. "Do the parents of the girl not object?"
"Quite the contrary. Her mother trained her for this great work."
"That is very strange—this mother seems nice and sensible."
Clarke sneered. "You physicists think nothing is natural or sensible but your own grubbing. You nose in the mire studying parasites of decaying flesh, while we are lifting wing into the world of spirit where neither pain nor death is known. You are blinded by your bigotry, or you would see the leading of every new discovery in the modes of motion. Heat, light, the X-ray, the emanation of radium—do they not all point to new subtleties of the physical universe? The power which the spirits use to communicate with us, the world which they inhabit, is only a higher evolution, a more potent condition—"
Weissmann arrested him in full flight and began to question him about Viola's powers, drawing from him rapidly, and with the precision of a great lawyer, all that he would say of her case, while Serviss, smoking quietly, listened in deep amazement, so candid, so sincere did Clarke seem to be in his answers. He was more—he became eloquent, almost convincing; and the young scientist was forced to acknowledge once more that appearances were deceitful. "Can this man be the fakir I have thought him? He is a bigot, a crazy fool, but he does not fit the rôle of villain; and yet—"
He could not put the alternative into words, so deeply did it involve Viola herself.
The preacher was in full flow—turgid, studiedly ornate, egotistical, and bombastic, but the final effect, even upon Weissmann, was that of one deluded, rather than of one carrying on a deep and far-reaching system of deception. He bodied forth the emotional moralist seeking escape from the ferocity of the creed in which his youth had been nurtured, rather than the self-seeking, coldly calculating fortune-hunter. With lofty courage he concluded: