Mrs. Stapleton had been lunching with her friend. The Colonel had
returned for Christmas, so his wife's duties had recalled her for the
present from those spiritual conversations which she had enjoyed in
the autumn. It was such a refreshment, she had said with a patient
smile, to slip away sometimes into the purer atmosphere.
Mr. Vincent folded the letter and restored it to his pocket.
"We must be careful with him," he said. "He is extraordinarily
sensitive. I almost wish he were not so developed. Temperaments like
his are apt to be thrown off their balance."
Lady Laura was silent.
For herself she was not perfectly happy. She had lately come across
one or two rather deplorable cases. A very promising girl, daughter of
a publican in the suburbs, had developed the same kind of powers, and
the end of it all had been rather a dreadful scene in Baker Street.
She was now in an asylum. A friend of her own, too, had lately taken
to lecturing against Christianity in rather painful terms. Lady Laura
wondered why people could not be as well balanced as herself.
"I think he had better not come to the public _seances_ at present,"
went on the medium. "That, no doubt, will come later; but I was going
to ask a great favor from you, Lady Laura.
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