"'YOU NEED NOT SPEAK—JUST PUT YOUR HAND IN MINE AND I WILL UNDERSTAND'"[ToList]
"But you don't realize what I am. You must not think of me in that way. I can't let you. I am different from other women. You must not deceive yourself."
"I do not. I know, to my joy, that you are different from other girls; that is why I am here and asking you to be my wife. That is why I loved you that day on the mountain-side, because you were different."
"No, no!" she despairingly exclaimed. "You don't understand. I mean that I am surrounded by spirits, and they will make you ashamed of me. Think what your friends would say?"
"I am not responsible to my friends. I don't care what they say. They are not choosing my wife for me. I do know what you mean, and your protest increases my love for you. I am not concerned with your ghosts—only with your character."
"But I am a medium!" she went on, desperately. "I have this awful power. You're all wrong about mother and Mr. Clarke. They have nothing to do with what happens." Her beautiful hands were clinched and her face set in the resolution to force her confession upon him. Her bosom rose and fell piteously as she struggled for words, "You must not misunderstand me. I believe in the spirit-world. Sometimes I say I don't, but I do."
He spoke soothingly: "There is nothing wrong or disgraceful in your theory; it is your practice of trance, of mediumship, to which I object, and which I intend to prevent."
"I want you to do that. I hate my trances and those public circles. But will that put an end to the rappings and other things that go on around me when I am awake? That is the question."