"Hannibal? He's all right, Hannibal. He and I and Barkington had a little session in this very room about a fortnight ago. I was saying something about the question of Mr. Vail's insanity.
"'Question?' says Barkington. 'Question? Why there is no question! As a man of science, Count Hannibal, you know as well as I do——'
"'But I am not a man of science, my dear fellow—I'm a Roman,' says Hannibal, grinning away (those Italians speak wonderful English, you know). 'Very odd things happen in Rome, now and then, my good Barkington!'"
I looked at him steadily. He sat surrounded by his mysterious electric machines under shining glass domes, among costly leather-bound volumes whose very titles questioned the foundation of reason; telephones and telegrams ready to hand upon his orderly desk. And it seemed to me that he smiled mockingly at me behind his baffling eye-glasses.
"I don't understand you, Will," I said slowly, "you seem to be leading me to ... do you mean me to understand that you believe that Mrs. Vail's—spirit—entered—came back ... do you mean you think Mr. Vail is right, all the time?"
"Not at all," he returned promptly. "I acknowledge no such conditions. I know nothing of spirits nor what they do. I do not know that there are any. I study the human brain: when it ceases to respond to nervous stimuli, I cease to study it, that's all."
"Then why do you—why do you look at me..."
He struck his fist on the table.
"I look at you," he cried, "because you amaze me so, you people who assume that you know all about the human brain, where I leave off! Granted your premises, yours and Trix's and the Barkingtons', why don't you believe him? I should. Look at that woman's eyes! Try to talk to her! Do you suppose we haven't tried? Ask Jarvyse what he's got out of her! Get something out of her, yourself! Then ask yourself: if what Absolom says is so, how would she act differently from the way she does act?
"God! I wish I could believe him!"