my mind. Had ever man heard a story such as this! What were all the
experiences of the members of the Society for Psychical Research, their
stories of apparitions, their instances of occult influences, their best
authenticated incidents of supernaturalism compared to this experience
of mine! Should I hasten and tell it all to my wife? I hesitated. If
what I had heard should not be true--and this, my first doubt or
suspicion impressed upon me how impossible to me had been doubt or
suspicion during the presence of my visitor--it would be wrong to
uselessly excite her mind. On the other hand, if I had heard nothing but
the truth, what would happen should she sympathize as deeply with Amos
Kilbright as I did, and then should that worthy man suddenly become
dematerialized, perhaps before her very eyes? No, I would not tell
her--at least not yet. But I must see the spiritualists. And that
afternoon I went to them.

The leader and principal worker of the men who were about to give a
series of spiritual manifestations in our town was Mr. Corbridge, a man
of middle-age with a large head and earnest visage. When I spoke to him
of Amos Kilbright he was very much annoyed.

"So he has been talking to you," he said, "and after all the warnings I
gave him! Well, he does that sort of thing at his own risk!"

"We all do things at our own risk," I said, "and he has as much right to
choose his line of conduct as anybody else."

"No, he hasn't," said Mr. Corbridge, "he belongs to us, and it is for us
to choose his line of conduct for him."

"That is nonsense," said I. "You have no more right over him than I