"You know so little about me that I must begin far back--you don't even
know about my aunt--"

"I know something--what you've said, what Mrs. Cole at the Mountain
House told me. She's Mrs. Paula Markham--" his mind went on, "the great
fakir of the spook doctors," but his lips stifled the phrase and said
after a pause, "the great medium."

"I don't like to hear her called that," said Annette. "In spite of what
I'm going to tell you, I never saw but once the thing they call a
medium. That was years ago--but the horrible sacrilege of it has never
left me. She had a part of truth, and she was desecrating it by guesses
and catch words--selling it for money! Aunt Paula is broader than I.
'It's part of the truth,' she said, 'that woman is desecrating the
work, but she's serving in her way.' I suppose so--but since then I've
never liked to hear Aunt Paula called a medium."

She paused a second on this.

"If I were only sure of your sympathy!" A note of pleading fluttered in
her voice.

"No thought of yours, however I regard it, but is sure of my
sympathy--because it's yours," he answered.

As though she had not heard, she went on.

"I was an orphan. I never knew my father and mother. The first things I
remember are of the country--perhaps that is why I love the