"Never! Don't you see I can't take another cent of my mother's money now that I know how it's earned?"
Frenson listened unexcitedly. "Well, now, suppose these voices should turn out to be real? Suppose these messages have been from the dead?"
"It wouldn't make any difference."
"Oh yes, it would. At least it would to me. Scientific men have been against a whole lot of things in the past that turned out to be true. Natural selection, for instance, and X-rays and the wireless telephone."
"I see your drift, Gil. You want to be a comfort to me, but I've been digging down into my memory, and I know now that my mother has been trained into these habits, these delusions, for over twenty years. It won't be an easy thing to get her out of them. She is as much deceived as the rest. I am sure of that."
"Well, why don't you experiment with her? Make a test," suggested Frenson.
"Would you experiment with your own mother?" asked Victor.
"I'd make a case out of my grandmother if as much hinged on her as swings on this question of your mother's honesty. You can't blink these charges, Vic, they'll have to be met if she remains in the city."
Victor sat in silence for a few moments, then broke out again. "Gil, I begin to understand a hundred things that have always seemed queer to me. She has kept me away from her because she knew I would not sanction her way of earning money. Why, I haven't slept in her house but once since I was ten years old, and that was just before I entered here. I hated where she lived; it was a ratty little hole down on the south side, and the people with her were sloppy Sals. I refused to stay a second night. I can see it all now. She was living there in that way to save money for me, to keep me here. She wanted me to have just as good a chance as any of the rest of you. This room, the clothes I have on, my trinkets, everything came from her, and now there's no telling what may happen to her. That article threatens all kinds of persecution. I ought to be there this minute. I must take the very next train."
"I guess you're right there, old man. It's likely to be a pretty exciting day for her. This article is apt to bring all kinds of trouble to her as well as to you."