Not long after this she came to me with a supposition.  “Supposing,” she said, “that those people find it impossible to dematerialize him, they might do something which would be a great deal worse.”

“What could that possibly be?” I asked.

“They might materialize his first wife,” said she, “and could anything be more dreadful than that?  I suppose that woman lived to a good old age, and to bring her forward now would be a height of cruelty of which I believe those people to be fully capable.”

“My dear,” I exclaimed, “don’t bring up any harrowing possibilities which no one but yourself is likely to think of.”

“I wish I could be sure of that,” she said.  “I have heard, but I don’t know how true it is, that spirits cannot be called up and materialized unless somebody wants them, and I don’t suppose there is anybody who wants the first Mrs. Kilbright.  But these men might so work on Mr. Kilbright’s mind as to make him think that he ought to want her.”

I groaned.  “Dear me!” I said.  “I suppose if they did that they would also bring up old Mr. Scott’s mother, and then we should have a united family.”

“And a very funny one it would be,” said my wife, smiling, notwithstanding her fears, “for now I remember that old Mr. Scott told me that his grandmother died before she was sixty, but that his mother lived to be seventy-five.  Now, he is eighty, if he is a day, so there would be a regular gradation of ages in the family, only it would run backward instead of in the usual way.  But, thinking it over, I don’t believe the spiritualists will permanently bring up any more of that family.  If they did, they would have to support them, for they could not ask old Mr. Scott to do it, who hasn’t money enough to satisfy his descendants, and ought not to be expected to support his ancestors.”

My letter must have had a good deal of effect upon Mr. Corbridge, for in less than a week after it was written he came into my office.  He informed me that he and his associates were about to give a series of seances in our town, but that he had come on before the others in order to talk to me.  “I am extremely sorry,” he said, “to hear of this proposed marriage.  We want to do what is right and fair, and we have no desire that any act of ours shall create a widow.”

“Then,” I exclaimed, “you relinquish your design against Mr. Kilbright?”

“Not at all,” said he.  “We shall carry out our plan before our subject marries.  If you choose to hurry up matters and have the wedding take place before we are ready to proceed with our dematerializing process, we shall be very sorry, but the blame must rest on you.  You should have had consideration enough for all parties to prevent any such complication as an engagement to marry.  As to what you said in your letter in regard to invoking the law against us, I attach no weight whatever to that threat.”

“You will find you have made a great mistake,” said I, angrily, “when I have brought the law to bear upon you, which now I shall not delay to do.”