"What was it you saw, Mr. Kestern?" asked Etheridge. "Was it at a séance?"
"No," said Paul, "and that's what seems to me particularly interesting. It was in a very ordinary house at a very ordinary luncheon, and in the presence of four or five men who, as certainly as anything is certain, were neither accomplices nor credulous nor open to hypnotic influence. And it happened in broad daylight in about two minutes, while we all sat round and watched."
"What happened?" queried Mr. Etheridge, with a serious air that did not go so strangely with his face as a stranger would suppose.
"A pin, an ordinary pin, wobbled on a white tablecloth and stood on end, all by itself."
"W-W-Wobbled?" exploded Father Vassall, earnestly.
Paul, looking at him, loved him suddenly with a great passionate movement towards his childlike sincerity and profound faith. "Yes, Father," he said as gravely, "wobbled."
"Do you mind telling me all about it?" put in their host. "You've really begun at the wrong end of the stick, you know, Mr. Kestern."
And Paul told him. He told him everything, including the clairvoyant's statement that God was very far off.
When he had finished, David Etheridge nodded. "That would be it," he said. "So much of truth, so much of plausibility, a little release of power, and the grain of error that would, without God, crack even Peter's rock."
"But the p-pin?" asked Father Vassall. "How did he do that?"