ladies, a platform at one end on which a black cabinet stood. A
man, erect and with something of the soldier in his bearing, led
forward a girl, pretty and fair-haired, who wore a black velvet
dress with a long, sweeping train. She moved like one in a dream.
Some half-dozen people from the audience climbed on to the
platform, tied thy girl's hands with tape behind her back, and
sealed the tape. She was led to the cabinet, and in full view of
the audience fastened to a bench. Then the door of the cabinet was
closed, the people upon the platform descended into the body of
the hall, and the lights were turned very low. The audience sat in
suspense, and then abruptly in the silence and the darkness there
came the rattle of a tambourine from the empty platform. Rappings
and knockings seemed to flicker round the panels of the hall, and
in the place where the door of the cabinet should be there
appeared a splash of misty whiteness. The whiteness shaped itself
dimly into the figure of a woman, a face dark and Eastern became
visible, and a deep voice spoke in a chant of the Nile and Antony.
Then the vision faded, the tambourines and cymbals rattled again.
The lights were turned up, the door of the cabinet thrown open,
and the girl in the black velvet dress was seen fastened upon the
bench within.

It was a spiritualistic performance at which Julius Ricardo had
been present two years ago. The young, fair-haired girl in black
velvet, the medium, was Celia Harland.

That was the picture which was in Ricardo's mind, and Hanaud's
description of Mme. Dauvray made a terrible commentary upon it.
"Easily taken by a new face, generous, and foolishly
superstitious, a living provocation to every rogue." Those were