[Illustration:  NORCROSS’S BREATH CAME A LITTLE FASTER]

“I shall probably not go into trance,” she said.  “That is rare with me, rare with anyone, though often assumed for effect.  Of you, I ask only that you remain quiet and passive.  I’d like less light.”

Norcross shot a glance of quick suspicion at her as he rose, reached for the old-fashioned gas chandelier, and turned the jets down to tiny points.

“Oh, dear no!” spoke Mrs. Markham, “not so low as that—­this is no dark seance.  I merely meant that the lights are too strong for a pair of sensitive eyes.  I feel everything when I am in this condition.  Would you mind sitting a little further away?  Thank you.  I think that’s right.  Please do not speak to me until I speak, and do not be disappointed if I tell you nothing.”

For five minutes, no sound broke the silence in Mrs. Markham’s drawing-room, except the hiss of a light, quick breath and the intake and outgo of a heavier, slower one.  And so suddenly, with such smothered intensity, that Norcross started in his seat, Mrs. Markham’s voice emitted the first quaver of a musical note.  She held it for a moment, before she began to hum over and over three bars of an old tune—­“Wild roamed an Indian maid, bright Alfaretta.”  Thrice she hummed it, still sitting with her hand over her eyes.—­“Wild roamed an Indian maid—­” Then silence.  But now, the breath of Norcross was coming more heavily, and the masses of his face had still further fallen.  After an interval, Mrs. Markham spoke, in a low, even tone: 

“It is Lallie.”

Another period of heavy silence.

“I cannot see her nor hear her speak.  Martha, my control, is speaking for her.  But Martha shows me the picture of a child—­a little girl in an old-fashioned dress.  And I think she is saying that name—­Lallie.”

The silence again, so that when Norcross moistened his dry lips with his tongue the slight smack seemed like the crackle of a fire.

“I see it more clearly now and I understand.  The child gave her that name, but someone else used it for a love name.  It was just between those two.”  The rest came in scattered sentences, with long pauses between—­“I hear that song again—­it was her favorite—­I understand now why it comes—­she was singing it when—­Yes, you are the man—­when you told her—­She calls you Bobbert—­and now I cannot see.”

A bead of perspiration had appeared so suddenly on the forehead of Norcross that it had the effect of bursting from a pore.  He was on his feet, was pacing the floor in his jerky little walk.  When, after one course of the drawing-room, he turned back, Mrs. Markham had taken her hand from her eyes, and was facing him.

“Oh, why did you do that?” she asked.  “It has its effect on me—­you do not know how much!” Her manner spoke a smothered irritation.  “I shall not see Lallie to-night.  And she was very near.”

As though something had clicked and fallen into place within him, Norcross straightened and stiffened, controlled the relaxed muscles of his face, flashed his eyes on Mrs. Markham.