"Why do you conclude that she has for some time been attending spiritualisms unknown to her family?" he asked abruptly at last.
"They all seemed to know her, and to recognize the voice called Miriam. She went about it besides in a very accustomed way. And before her first disappearance this summer—the first I knew of personally—she had a telephone message from Mrs. Mahl. I answered it, and I recognized her voice afterward."
After another long silence I ventured: "Hasn't she always been worse after she has been away?"
He answered in a preoccupied tone, as if I had merely tapped the current of his own thought: "It seemed at first to me a temporary breakdown only, which I looked to grow better. I have been much disappointed that it has not, and she grows periodically worse coincidently with disappearances of which they do not know in time to control them. So I tell them that some harmful practice is added to the original cause, and they assure me that no new thing comes into her life, unless—" he looked at me quizzically—"a young man whose interest in the remaining daughter causes him to follow scientists about on bicycles. I recommend quiet and the removal of reminiscences, and still the irritation goes on. Now, as to spiritualism, there I have not made up my mind. I investigate it as a human abnormality, for to me, like the Roman, nothing human is to be thought foreign. It looks to be trickery, and yet that is not sure, but there may be scientific interest there. Certainly so great a man as Lombroso found much to interest. In the end we shall, as I think, find all manifestations physical, or perhaps there is here some little known semi-psychic force disengaged from the living persons present. Of the dead there is little cause to speculate. However it be of all this, there is without any doubt acute nerve-strain very bad for the neuropathic, and aggravated by belief. Yes, it is perhaps cause enough, and perhaps effect only."
The train was pulling into Stamford as he ended, and it was not until the waiting automobile had carried us nearly to the house that Doctor Paulus spoke again.
"I think," he said, "that possibly, I say possibly, Mr. Crosby, you have made a valuable discovery. At least we know now the circumstances better. But on the one hand these visits to séances may be aggravating cause of the unbalancement, and on the other mere results of unnatural cravings in the unbalanced mind. It is a circle, and we seek the slenderest point where it may be broken."
Mr. Tabor met us at the door, and as we came up the steps Reid slipped eagerly past him.
"Splendid!" he exclaimed, wringing the great man's hand. "Splendid! Hoped it would be this train, but I hardly dared think so. I know how important your time is. Very good of you to come out, very good indeed. Now as to the case; manifestations unfortunately very clear just now. Very unfortunate, but I'm afraid we have been right all along. Come out to my rooms a moment, and I'll give you the whole matter in detail. Better to run over the whole thing scientifically."
Doctor Paulus smiled at me dryly: "I shall be most happy," he shrilled, and after a formal word or two with Mr. Tabor, stalked soberly around the house. Mr. Tabor and I went into the living-room without speaking.
"Has Lady told you—?" I began.