The assisting parties were either slightly embarrassed or strongly impressed, all save Belvoir, who sat opposite her; on his face lived a smile of scepticism. Up went the arm and the Hall was dim once more.
“I have it now,” said the seeress: “I am in fog, deep fog.”
“Good,” came a sotto voce from the other end of the table, but the word was drowned in the current of her speech. Leaning back, but apparently still gazing at the sphere, in trance-life passivity, she seemed not so much to utter words as to let the words flow from her mouth.
“I am in fog, thick fog; it clings about me.” Her hands made dim outward movements, as if pressing away the mist that enveloped her. “I am lost, and there is a malignant spirit nearby, but I am not sure I know that—yet. I sit down—on a rock. I am not very hungry, but since there is nothing else to do, I eat what I have brought with me. I wait for light to penetrate the fog. I wish to find something; perhaps I fear the malignant spirit that is near. I wish to find the ancient hermit’s cell. It is a place hallowed by good works and piety. The malignant spirit will not dare come near me there. I eat and wait. The mist clears partly away at last. I go on. The sun shines on me; I am glorified. . . .”
I suddenly realized it was my story she told. There was nothing wonderful in this, to be sure, for the narrative of my afternoon on the hills had long been common property. I listened with care, to see if she included some detail proving her version to be a brain-picture really evoked by the crystal and having objective authority. But all she added to the fable was the “malignant spirit” hovering near me all the while, a presence which I certainly had no idea was dogging me on the hilltops.
It became apparent that the seeress was not interested in me but in the spirit, and some time before the dénouement I had an inkling of how the story would end.
“I am fleeing from the malignant spirit in its carnal shape. I allow it to overtake me—so far, no farther. We are approaching the brink of the cliff. I leap aside, and the animal plunges into the gulf. I am saved, and I hear the carnal shape of the spirit go thundering down, down, down. I am saved, and the bull is dead.”
Silence. . . . When Mrs. Belvoir spoke again, her voice had lost its dreaminess and become positive. But she spoke with effort; the phrases seemed wrung out of her.
“The bull is dead. . . . But spiritual force . . . is never destroyed. . . . The bull is dead. . . . The malignant spirit is living still. . . . It never ceases to operate. . . . It is localized. . . .”
A small sound shattered the tension of that moment: merely the opening of one of the french windows.