"You're trying to bluff me," she sneered. Then all at once, her coolness gave way, and she flung herself around upon us in a flood of tears: "You're a nice crowd of men, aren't you?" she sobbed, "to make a dead set on one woman this way!" She came swiftly up to me, and caught both my hands, leaning against me with upturned face. "Did you see anything wrong at my sittings? Have you anything against me, that you'd swear to, yourself?"
"Not a thing," I answered. "What of that?"
"Then you'd lie about me?" I could feel the hurry of her breathing.
"I would," said I, "with the greatest pleasure, in every paper in New York." I stepped back. "Excuse me, I'm going to telephone."
She looked around at the others with the eyes of a cornered cat. Then she dropped back into her chair.
"Very well," she sniffed, "I'll do it. I'll deny my faith to preserve my usefulness. And God will punish you."
The granite face of Doctor Immanuel Paulus relaxed into a grim smile.
"The press, in America," said he. "That is a fine weapon."
Mrs. Mahl, having finally yielded, was not long in recovering from her emotion; and while Mr. Tabor went to bring his wife, the two doctors rapidly discussed the precise needs of the case, and with the medium's assistance formulated a plan of action. I am bound to say that she entered into the scheme as unreservedly as though it had been from the first her own; suggesting eagerly how this and that detail might best be managed, and showing a familiarity with Mrs. Tabor's trouble, and with nervous abnormality in general, hardly less complete and practical than theirs. Presently we heard the voices of the others in the hall, and she went quietly out to meet them. Then came a confused blur of tones, Mrs. Tabor's in timid protest and Sheila and Lady in reassurance; then Mr. Tabor, a little louder than the rest: "Not in the least, my dear. Why should I? You should have told me all about it from the first." Then the voices grew quieter, and at last blunted into silence behind the heavy curtains of the living-room. We waited an interminable five minutes gazing into one another's rigid faces, and hearing only the restless movement of Reid. At last, Doctor Paulus nodded at us, and we tiptoed noiselessly across the hall to where around the edges of the close-drawn curtains we could hear and see.
At a little card-table, drawn out into the center of the floor, sat Mrs. Tabor and the medium, face to face. Between them and beyond the table was Mr. Tabor; Lady sat on her mother's nearer side, and Sheila, with her back to us, completed the circle. They were all leaning forward intently, something in the attitude of people saying grace before a meal. The windows were not covered, but the dull light of the late and stormy afternoon came inward only as a leaden grayness, in which faces and the details of the surroundings were heavily and vaguely visible, like shadows of themselves. In the window at the far end of the room, the canary hopped carelessly about his cage, with an occasional cricket-like chirp; and but for this the house was quiet enough for us to hear the swish of wind along the leaves of the vine-covered veranda and the ripple of the rain upon the glass.