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Page 16
"I am glad to hear you say so," replied Mrs. Legrand languidly; "but I
feel that we shall be successful, and my intuitions rarely deceive me."
A trembling came over Paul at these words.
There was a little more general conversation, and the silence which
followed was interrupted by Dr. Hull.
"I suppose there is no reason why the seance should not proceed, Mrs.
Legrand?"
"I know of none," assented that lady in lifeless tones. "Please show our
friends the cabinet."
Dr. Hull rose. "It is usual," he said, "for those who attend our seances
to be asked to satisfy themselves that deception is impossible by an
examination of the apartment which Mrs. Legrand occupies during her
trance, and from which the materialized spirit appears. Will you kindly
step this way?"
The room in which they sat was a long apartment, divided by double
sliding-doors into a front and back parlour, the former of which had been
the scene of the preceding conversation.
Dr. Hull now conducted the two visitors into the back parlour, which
proved to be of similar size and appearance to the front parlour, except
that it contained no furniture whatever. There was only one window in the
back parlour, and this was firmly closed by inside blinds.
It was also uncurtained, and in plain view from the front parlour.
Besides the connection with the front parlour, there was but one door in
the back parlour. This opened into a small apartment, about six feet by
five, which had been taken out of the right-hand rear corner of the back
parlour, and was separated from it by a partition reaching to the
ceiling. This was the cabinet. It had neither window nor door, except the
one into the back parlour. A sofa was its only article of furniture, and
this was of wicker-work, so that nothing could be concealed beneath it.
"Mrs. Legrand lies upon this sofa while in a state of trance, during
which the spirit is materialized, and appears to us," explained Dr. Hull.
A rug lay on the floor of the cabinet, the walls were of hard-finished
white plaster, quite bare, and the ceiling, like that of the parlours,
was plain white, without ornament.
There seemed no possibility of introducing any person into the cabinet or
the back parlour without the knowledge of those in the front parlour. But
Dr. Hull insisted upon making assurance doubly sure by pounding upon the
walls and pulling up the rug in the cabinet, to prove that no sliding
panel or trap-door trick was possible. There was something calculated to
make an unbeliever very uneasy in the quiet confidence of these people,
and the business-like way in which they went to work to make it
impossible to account for any phenomenon that might appear, on any other
but a supernatural theory. No doubt whatever now remained in the mind of
Miss Ludington or Paul that the wonderful mystery which they had hardly
dared to dream of was about to be enacted before them. They followed Dr.
Hull on his tour of inspection as if they were in a dream, mechanically
observing what he pointed out, but replying at random to his remarks,
and, indeed, barely aware of what they were doing. The sense of the
unspeakably awful and tender scene so soon to pass before their eyes
absorbed every susceptibility of their minds.
Nor indeed would this detective work have had any interest for them in
any case. They would have been willing to concede the medium all the
machinery she desired. There was no danger that they could be deceived as
to the reality of the face and form that for so many years had been
enshrined in their memories.
There might be as many side entrances to the cabinet as desired, but she
whom they looked for could come only from the spirit-land.
The front parlour, too, having been investigated, to show the
impossibility of any person's being concealed there, Dr. Hull proceeded
to close and lock the hall-door, that being the only exit connecting this
suite of rooms with the rest of the house. Having placed a heavy chair
against the locked door for further security, he gave the key to Paul.
Mrs. Legrand now rose, and without a word to any one passed through the
back parlour and disappeared in the cabinet.
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