"Oh, mother, mother," it wailed. "Why don't you let me go and rest?"
CHAPTER XXVI
AND REDISCOVERING REALITIES
I think Lady clutched at my arm, but I can not remember. The one memory that remains to me of that moment is the face of Doctor Paulus. His color had turned from ivory to chalk, his mouth was drawn open in a snarling square and his eyes shrank back hollowly, glaring into nothingness. For a second he stood so, clawing in front of him with his hands, a living horror. Then with an effort that shook him from head to foot, the strong soul of the man commanded him. "It's nothing," he whispered, "I understand it. Take hold of yourselves." The hands dropped, and he bent again over Mrs. Tabor. The next moment Sheila had sprung out in front of us, and was speaking to the voice that we could not see.
"Miriam Reid," she cried, in a high chanting cadence between song and speech, "if it's yourself that's here, lie down to your rest again, an' leave us. Go back to your place in purgatory, darling till the white angels come to carry ye higher in their own good time. In the name av God an' Mary, in the name av the Blessed Saints, go back! Go back to your home between hell an' Heaven, an' come no more among us here!"
"Get some water, Reid," snapped Doctor Paulus. "Quiet that woman, some of you."
But Sheila had done before we could move or speak to her. With her last words, she flung her arms wide apart, above her head, and brought them inward and downward in some strange formal gesture. Then as swiftly and certainly as if she had planned it all from the beginning, she caught a little bottle from her breast, and sprinkled its contents in the upturned face of Mrs. Tabor. We caught hold of her just as she was making the sign of the Cross. But she was perfectly quiet now, with nothing more to say or do, and stood motionless like the rest of us, breathing deep breaths and watching.
The cool shock of the water did its work. Mrs. Tabor's eyelids quivered, and she gasped faintly. Reid came hurrying back with a glass of water, and stood at the side of his superior, looking foolishly disappointed as he realized the anticipation of his errand.
"She comes out of it all right," Doctor Paulus muttered. "No harm. It is more the trance condition than an ordinary faint." He looked up at Sheila with a grim smile. "Superstition is a fine thing—sometimes, under medical direction. Now I leave her to you, Reid, a few minutes. It is better that at first she sees only her own." He beckoned to the medium, and the two went out of the room together. Then as we stood about, Mrs. Tabor caught another breath, and another. Her hands groped a moment, and her eyes opened. She looked around at us wonderingly, as we raised her up in her seat.