"Fool! What have you done?" cried Clarke, in a terrible voice.
Serviss's tone expressed only contempt as he answered, "No great harm, I think."
The clergyman pushed him aside rudely, and knelt beside the girl, who was writhing and moaning in her chair, as though contorted with pain.
Words of indignation arose from the circle, and one or two shouted, "Run him out! He has no business here." But Clarke cried out, in a commanding voice: "Remain where you are, friends! Be quiet for a few minutes." They obeyed, and Serviss was about to withdraw when Pratt confronted him. "What do you mean? Do you want to kill the psychic?"
The mother was bending above her daughter with soothing words. "There, there, dearie! It will soon pass. You may turn on the light, Anthony."
Clarke turned the cock of the burner till a faint glow revealed the girl, white, suffering, her left side convulsed. "You can't do things like that," he went on, addressing himself to Serviss. "In these trances the nervous system is in a state of enormous tension. The psychic must not be mishandled."
"I merely touched her arm," answered Serviss, quietly.
The mother answered: "The lightest touch is sufficient to convulse her, professor. You should have asked permission of the 'control,' then it would not have shocked her."
"I hope it has done no lasting harm." His voice, in spite of himself, took on sympathy, though he believed the girl's shock to have been grossly exaggerated for some reason of her own. "I thought I was invited to make the test."
The mother's calm voice was thrilling as she said: "She's better now. You may turn the light on full."
Viola was a most appealing figure as she bloomed from the dark, pure and pale as a lily. She was dressed exquisitely in white, and seemed older, more worldly wise, and more bewitching than when he had last seen her; but with a feeling of profound contempt and bitterness Serviss shrank from meeting her gaze. He slipped away into the hall and out of the house--back into the cool, crisp air of the night, ashamed of himself for having yielded again to the girl's disturbing lure, burning with disappointment, and sad and grieving over the loss of his last shred of respect for her.
"Britt was right," he exclaimed, drawing a deep breath as if to free his lungs of the foul air of deceit. "They are all frauds together," and with this decision came a sense of relief as well as of loss.