He picked up one of the Major’s gloves which, in his agitation, he had withdrawn and left behind him, and motioning to an usher, asked him to place it upon the table for Madame Lucien’s reading. Then he awaited results with eager curiosity.
One after another the articles were taken up and read.
“This brings me face to face with an aged woman,� she said, as a thimble was presented. “She calls ‘Annette, Annette.’�
A woman across the aisle from Nathan began to sob. He noticed the tawdry showiness of her attire, and read in her face a pathetic history as she stood up to reclaim the thimble. “It was my mother’s,� she sobbed, as she dropped back into her seat.
Then Madame Lucien’s fingers lifted the glove Nathan had sent to her.
“I am sure the owner of this glove is a person of very positive character,� she began. “He will combat any irrational belief, or one not proven to his satisfaction. I can feel a chill of opposition. I—I—can—� Mrs. Lucien began to breathe in gasps. Her hands shook. Nathan was frightened at the spasm of agony which swept her face. She dropped the glove and stretched out her hands helplessly.
The manager came forward and assisted her from the platform, amid a buzz of excitement in the audience, returning in a few moments to announce that Madame Lucien had been affected by the heat of the room and would be unable to continue the reading, but he would introduce in her place the trance medium Mr. Eugene Potts, who was both clairvoyant and audient.
While this scene was transpiring in Boxwell Hall, Major Walden was hurrying down the street as though driven by a legion of furies. He felt that he must get away or do that for which he might be sorry. On, on he walked, heeding not his direction or whereabouts. He was fleeing from her and from this nightmare of horror which beset him. And the vision before his eyes of the pale, spirituelle face of his lost one kept pace with him. He could not escape it.
An hour later he had turned his steps homeward. He had walked away the uncontrollable emotion which had possessed him at the sight of Agnes, and a calmer spirit prevailed. He had decided that it was better that he should not meet her again. He would go to his office and write her fully, and send her again the letter which he had sent to her Eastern home and which had been returned to him through the dead letter office but a few days before this. She should know how completely he had been punished for his lack of trust in her, and should forgive him, if her sweet, forgiving nature could do so.
The people were returning from the hall. He stepped into the shadow of a doorway and waited for the crowd to pass by and the street to become once more deserted. He realized he scanned each face and figure closely. Was he hoping to see her? No, it were better that he did not; he had settled that question, but now, in the struggle with himself.