This brought him face to face with his opportunity, and he seized it manfully. "Your saying that, gives me opportunity for saying something which has been taking shape in my mind since last night. I do not pretend to fully understand the basis of your mother's faith, and I do not blame her, but I am filled with indignation that you should be called upon to suffer bondage to the dead. I rebel against it." His voice was tense with feeling. "And I will not have it so. I lunched to-day with Dr. Tolman, of whom you've heard me speak, and after describing your case to him—without using your name, of course—I asked his opinion. In reply he gave me every encouragement. The fact that you are young and in good physical health, he said, makes it possible for you to become as normal as any other girl."
"Do you believe that, Dr. Serviss?"
"I am perfectly certain of it, if you will meet my conditions. I am confident of my power to free you from your trances and all their phenomena, but you must, at once and for all time, break every tie that binds you to your 'controls.'"
"I'm afraid they will not consent."
"You must not say such a thing, much less think it," he sharply interrupted. "Your soul, your mind, should be sovereign. You should look rather to science for guidance"—here he smiled meaningly—"and to me, of course, as a representative of science. If you acknowledge the authority of the dead, or even that of your mother, my power is to that extent curtailed. It is to be in effect a war of light and darkness, science and superstition. We are willing to join issue with your shadow foes, provided your best self is with us in the struggle. I engage myself to free you if you will permit me to act."
She leaned towards him with pale face and limpid, heavenly eyes. "You have been good to me, but I cannot ask you to fight my battles. You have so much else to do in the world."
"I have nothing better to do," he responded, with a lover's glance. "Nothing can interest me so profoundly; nothing will give me greater pleasure."
She went on, fervently: "I can't tell you how you comfort me. When you are near me I have no fear of anything; but you oughtn't to give up your work to treat me. We can never pay you for what you've already done for us."
"Don't try, and pray don't exaggerate my sacrifices. You must remember I am an investigator, and you—are a most absorbing problem." She drew away from him slightly, and he returned to a more serious tone. "The influence of mind over mind is the present, or at least the coming, problem, and you have opened a new world to me. The question of your future, your cure, absorbs me, and while I am by no means a rich man, as money runs these days, I am quite able to follow out any line of investigation which may interest me."
Her face clouded, "I wish I didn't have to be investigated."