Part 42 (1/2)

”Been there?” Douglas looked up quickly.

”Read of it in the book,” said Peter, quietly, annoyed at himself for the slip.

”Yes. Well, there's a table in the middle of the room, and in the drawer of that table Mr. Crane keeps all the things' materialized by the medium. I think he expects to get a big collection.”

”Oh, Lord!” groaned Peter, ”_what_ a mess!”

”Yes, isn't it?” Douglas a.s.sumed that the whole subject of Spiritism was thus referred to.

”Suppose anything happened to shake Mr. Crane's faith?”

”I don't think anything _could_ do that. He's absolutely gullible. He'd swallow anything. I say, how _do_ you explain it? Why is it that big-brained, well-balanced men fall for this rot?”

”They can't be really well-balanced,--and then, too, it's largely the eagerness to believe, the desire for the comfort it brings them that makes them think they do believe. And a clever medium can do much.”

”Sure. But those materializations! Where'd she get the goods?”

”Give it up. Tell me more about Mr. Crane.”

So Douglas patiently recounted and repeated all the words of Peter's father and told of his appearance and manner, under the impression that he was helping an author with data for a psychological story.

Peter had found Douglas by merely making inquiry for a bright young reporter, and had made an agreement, satisfactory to both, for him to try to get the interview with Benjamin Crane, and they would both profit by it.

He was delighted that Crane had asked the young man to call again, and when they parted it was with the understanding that there should be another interview arranged.

Peter Boots had much food for thought.

He sat thinking for hours after the food had been given to him.

What was the explanation? What _could_ be the explanation?

How could communications from a dead man be received when the man was not dead?

How he longed to go home, disclose himself, and run to earth that fearful fraud! How gladly he would do so, except that it would ruin his father's reputation. What would the public think of a man who had been so taken in by fraud, and had blazoned it to the world.

To be sure it was no reflection on Benjamin Crane's sincerity, yet he would be the b.u.t.t of derision for the whole country, and his discredited head would be bowed for the rest of his life.

Peter couldn't bring himself to do that, especially now that he had discovered that his loss was not a source of hopeless grief to his parents.

”I'm not wanted in this world,” he told himself, sadly, ”I'm a superfluous man. I've got to dispose of myself somehow,” and he gave a very realizing sigh.

And the thought of Carly,--that tried to obtrude itself, he put resolutely from him.

”She's probably forgotten me,” he a.s.sured himself, ”and anyway I must do the right thing by Mother and Dad first. If I decide that I can't demolish their air castle, so carefully built up, I must light out,--that's all.”

Trying hard to be cheerful, but feeling very blue and desolate he ate a solitary dinner and went again to the theater to see ”Labrador Luck.”

Douglas' graphic description of his home and his father had given him a great longing to go there, to see the dear old place, the dear old man,--and his mother, and Julie.

He felt he _must_ go. Then, he knew he couldn't go, without breaking his father's heart and life.