"What is it?" His voice was eager.
"I've found him."
"Oh, I'm so glad! I've longed so to find him and do what was right by
him. You know, don't you?" All this was spoken so low that but few
could make out the words.
"Yes, I know. I know you love him."
"Where is he, Felicia?"
"He's in this city. I shall bring him to you. Then we'll be so happy,
all three of us--you and I and our dear son!"
Payson's voice rang out sharply in an angry exclamation:
"It's all a damned fraud!" he cried. "This is not a spirit at all!" He
took a step forward.
On the instant, before even Vixley could move, Dougal had jumped up and
run forward. As he dashed up the aisle he pressed the key of his
electric torch and cast a bright light upon the group by the cabinet.
The draped form had started back, Payson faced her, Vixley had risen
from his chair fiercely, Flora Flint's startled face peered through the
curtains.
"Come on, Max!" Dougal shouted, and threw himself bodily upon the person
wrapped in the sheet. Maxim grappled at almost the same time, but before
him Vixley sprang in and rained blow after blow upon Dougal, who fell,
dropping his torch. Vixley then locked with Maxim. Starr and Benton
had run up, hurtling past Spoll, who had risen to block the way. They
were just too late to save Dougal, who had fallen, still holding his
captive fast. It was too dark to see what was happening, but Vixley's
oaths led them on, crashing over chairs, creeping and fighting through
the now terrified crowd. A match was struck somewhere behind them, and,
before it flared out, Starr and Benton fell on Vixley together and bore
him to the floor.
The room was now horrid with confusion. A racket of moving chairs told
that every one had arisen in panic. Women screamed, and there was a
rush for the door. It seemed hours before there was a light, then Madam
Spoll reached up and turned up the light. At that moment Ringa flew
past her--she was thrown down and the lamp fell crashing upon the seat
of a chair beside her. There was an explosion on the instant. She was
drenched with blazing oil, and the flames enveloped her.
Her screams rose over the tumult so piercingly that every one turned,
saw her, and fell back in fear and terror. She clambered to her feet
clumsily, shrieking in agony, ran for the door, tore it open and fled
down-stairs, to fall heavily at the bottom, writhing.
Benton was that moment free, and the only man to keep his senses. He
burst right through the room, throwing men and women to right and left
and broke out the door after her, and down the stairs, tearing a
table-cloth from a table as he ran through the hall. He wrapped it about
her, the flames scorching his face and hands as he did so. The woman
was struggling so in her blind terror and torture that it was for a
moment impossible to help her. Then, in a few heroic moments he
conquered the fire. At last he called to the crowd above for help, and
they carried her up into a small side room and laid her upon a bed.
Starr, meanwhile, still clung to Vixley while Maxim had held Ringa off.
Spoll was busy extinguishing the fire on the carpet. Then some one at
last lighted the chandelier, showing a score of white, frenzied faces,
men and women in wild disarray, chairs broken and strewn upon the floor,
a smoking, blackened place on the carpet where the remains of the lamp
had fallen. The room smelled horribly.
Vixley lay in a welter of ornaments that had been swept from the mantel
in his struggle. He was still cursing.
Dougal had held his captive fast through all that turmoil, yelling
continuously for a light. Now Mabel and Elsie, who had flattened
themselves against the wall, joining their screams to the din, crept
trembling up to him to see what he had caught. He turned the limp
figure in his arms and sought amongst the folds of the sheet, and turned
them away at the face. Elsie gave a little cry.
[Illustration: He sought amongst the folds of the sheet]
It was Fancy Gray.
*CHAPTER XVIII*
*A RETURN TO INSTINCT*
Clytie Payson had come home after a two weeks' stay at Lonely with Mrs.
Maxwell, poised, resolute, calm. She seemed sustained by some inward
faith manifesting itself only in a higher degree of self-consciousness,
as of one inspired by a purpose.
At breakfast, on the morning after the materializing seance, Mr. Payson
read the morning journal interestedly, so intensely absorbed in its
columns that he scarcely spoke to his daughter. But he did not mention
the evening's event, and was moody and morose. The affair had received
an extensive notice. Madam Spoll, it seemed, still lingered at the
point of death. Although Mr. Payson's name was not mentioned, he was
much disturbed and apprehensive of publicity. Clytie, noticing his
abstraction, did not disturb him with questions.
After her father had left the house she went up to her workroom, put on
her pink pinafore and commenced her bookbinding. She worked at the
bench near the window where she could occasionally look out upon the
shadows that swept over Mount Tamalpais. The day was alternately bright
and lowering; it promised rain before night.
At ten, as she was pausing from her work, with a lingering look out into
her garden, she saw a young woman coming up the path. It was Fancy
Gray, looking about her as if uncertain whether or not she had found the
right place. Fancy wore a black-and-white shepherd's plaid suit, bright
and tightly-fitted, which picked her out, in an errant glance of
sunshine, against the dull green shrubbery. She stopped for a moment to
look at the sun-dial, raising her white-gloved hand to her red and white
hat, then passed on toward the house, out of sight.
Clytie went down-stairs herself to answer the bell, and opened the door
with a look of pleasure on her face.