"Just so," he said. "It is about that that I have come."
"I beg your pardon...?"
"Please sit down, Lady Laura.... May I say in a sentence what I have come to say?"
This seemed a very odd old man.
"Why, yes—" she said.
"I have come to beg you not to allow Mr. Baxter to enter the house.... No, I have no authority from anyone, least of all from Mr. Baxter. He has no idea that I have come. He would think it an unwarrantable piece of impertinence."
"Mr. Cathcart ... I—I cannot—"
"Allow me," he said, with a little compelling gesture that silenced her. "I have been asked to interfere by a couple of people very much interested in Mr. Baxter; one of them, if not both, completely disbelieves in spiritualism."
"Then you know—"
He waved his hand towards the cabinet.