He then went among the guests, reassuring them.  By degrees they settled down, but it was observable that their former easy and good-humoured interest in the proceedings was now changed to strained watchfulness.  Maskull and Nightspore took the places allotted to them.  Mrs. Trent kept stealing uneasy glances at them.  Throughout the entire incident, Mozart’s hymn continued to be played.  The orchestra also had heard nothing.

Backhouse now entered on his task.  It was one that began to be familiar to him, and he had no anxiety about the result.  It was not possible to effect the materialisation by mere concentration of will, or the exercise of any faculty; otherwise many people could have done what he had engaged himself to do.  His nature was phenomenal—­the dividing wall between himself and the spiritual world was broken in many places.  Through the gaps in his mind the inhabitants of the invisible, when he summoned them, passed for a moment timidly and awfully into the solid, coloured universe....  He could not say how it was brought about....  The experience was a rough one for the body, and many such struggles would lead to insanity and early death.  That is why Backhouse was stern and abrupt in his manner.  The coarse, clumsy suspicion of some of the witnesses, the frivolous aestheticism of others, were equally obnoxious to his grim, bursting heart; but he was obliged to live, and, to pay his way, must put up with these impertinences.

He sat down facing the wooden couch.  His eyes remained open but seemed to look inward.  His cheeks paled, and he became noticeably thinner.  The spectators almost forgot to breathe.  The more sensitive among them began to feel, or imagine, strange presences all around them.  Maskull’s eyes glittered with anticipation, and his brows went up and down, but Nightspore appeared bored.

After a long ten minutes the pedestal of the statue was seen to become slightly blurred, as though an intervening mist were rising from the ground.  This slowly developed into a visible cloud, coiling hither and thither, and constantly changing shape.  The professor half rose, and held his glasses with one hand further forward on the bridge of his nose.

By slow stages the cloud acquired the dimensions and approximate outline of an adult human body, although all was still vague and blurred.  It hovered lightly in the air, a foot or so above the couch.  Backhouse looked haggard and ghastly.  Mrs. Jameson quietly fainted in her chair, but she was unnoticed, and presently revived.  The apparition now settled down upon the couch, and at the moment of doing so seemed suddenly to grow dark, solid, and manlike.  Many of the guests were as pale as the medium himself, but Faull preserved his stoical apathy, and glanced once or twice at Mrs. Trent.  She was staring straight at the couch, and was twisting a little lace handkerchief through the different fingers of her hand.  The music went on playing.