Success as a pulpit orator was assured by the charm of his voice, the magnetism of his manner. His head was singularly handsome, and often when he spoke his face was irradiated like that of a seraph, and the women of all his congregations adored him from the first glance, embarrassing him with their ardent praises. That he had remained faithful to his wife in spite of this adoration was evidence of her great beauty of character. She was, indeed, his safeguard and his hourly monitor while she lived.
For him she had sacrificed all her friends in the East. She came to the mountains without a murmur, she bore with him, cheered him, upheld him in a hundred ways--and when she died his world went black as midnight. It was as if in the midst of a monster, interminable cavern his one starlike light had gone out in his hand. For days he beat his head against the wall, crying defiant curses against his God; but in the end he sank into voiceless despair. Then it was, as he lay prone and passive, that he began to hear mysterious whisperings and tappings on the walls of his cavern of despond. He rose and listened. He groped his way towards the dim light. He returned to the world of men. His faith in the Scriptures was weakened; but he soon discovered a wondrous change of heart towards those who claimed to be intermediaries between the worlds of matter and of spirit. He turned his attention to the study of the physical evidences of life after death.
Up to that moment he had given but little credence to Mrs. Lambert's half-hearted confidences concerning her own change of faith, and, as Viola had been away at school much of the time, he had forgotten that she was concerned in the mother's confession.
The disclosure of her powers, as he told Dr. Britt--after they were both involved in the curious case--came violently, without warning, a few days after Adele's death. "I was sitting with Mrs. Lambert in sad conversation, seeking her aid and comfort. Viola occupied a low chair beside the shaded lamp, a book upon her knee. She was listening to me. I had just finished saying, in deeply passionate tones, 'I would give all my hope of life for one whisper from the lips of my Adele,' when the room began to darken. At first I thought the effect lay in my own brain, but a moment later I perceived that the light had actually begun to fail. We all watched it in silence for a moment, then Mrs. Lambert remarked, 'Viola, Mary forgot to fill the lamp.'