"Now then," he said.
"It's not about myself, father," she began rather hurriedly. "It's about Laurie Baxter. May I begin at the beginning?"
He nodded. He was not sorry to hear something about this boy, whom he didn't like at all, but for whom he knew himself at least partly responsible. The English were bad enough, but English converts were indescribably trying; and Laurie had been on his mind lately, he scarcely knew why.
Then Maggie began at the beginning, and told the whole thing, from Amy's death down to Mr. Morton's letter. He put a question or two to her during her story, looking at her with pressed lips, and finally put out his hand for the letter itself.
"Mrs. Baxter doesn't know what I've come about," said the girl. "You won't give her a hint, will you, father?"
He nodded reassuringly to her, absorbed in the letter, and presently handed it back, with a large smile.
"He seems a sensible fellow," he said.
"Ah! that's what I wanted to ask you, father. I don't know anything at all about spiritualism. Is it--is it really all nonsense? Is there nothing in it at all?"
He laughed aloud.
"I don't think you need be afraid," he said. "Of course we know that souls don't come back like that. They're somewhere else."
"Then it's all fraud?"
"It's practically all fraud," he said, "but it's very superstitious, and is forbidden by the Church."
This was straight enough. It was at least a clear issue to begin to attack Laurie upon.
"Then--then that's the evil of it?" she said. "There's no real power underneath? That's what Mr. Rymer said to Mrs. Baxter; and it's what I've always thought myself."
The priest's face became theological.
"Let's see what Sabetti says," he said. "I fancy--"
He turned in his chair and fetched out a volume behind him.
"Here we are...."
He ran his finger down the heavy paragraphs, turned a page or two, and began a running comment and translation: "'Necromantia ex'.... 'Necromancy arising from invocation of the dead'.... Let's see ... yes, 'Spiritism, or the consulting of spirits in order to know hidden things, especially that pertain to the future life, certainly is divination properly so called, and is ... is full of even more impiety than is magnetism, or the use of turning tables. The reason is, as the Baltimore fathers testify, that such knowledge must necessarily be ascribed to Satanic intervention, since in no other manner can it be explained.'"