“What is your name?” I asked.  “You have not yet told me that.”

“I am Amos Kilbright, of Bixbury,” he answered.

“You have not revisited your native place?” I said.

“No,” he replied, “I much desire to do so, but I have no money for a journey, even on foot, and I doubt me much if those men would suffer me to go to Bixbury.”

“And have you spoken to your grandson, old Mr. Scott?” I said.  “It is but right that you should make yourself known to him.”

“So have I thought,” he answered, “and I have felt an earnest drawing toward my daughter’s child.  I have seen him thrice, but have not had the heart to speak to him and declare myself the progenitor of that mother whose memory I know he cherishes.”

“You shall make yourself known to him,” I said.  “I will prepare the way.”

He shook me again by the hand and took his leave without a word.  He was deeply affected.

I reseated myself by my table, one thought after another rushing through my mind.  Had ever man heard a story such as this!  What were all the experiences of the members of the Society for Psychical Research, their stories of apparitions, their instances of occult influences, their best authenticated incidents of supernaturalism compared to this experience of mine!  Should I hasten and tell it all to my wife?  I hesitated.  If what I had heard should not be true—­and this, my first doubt or suspicion impressed upon me how impossible to me had been doubt or suspicion during the presence of my visitor—­it would be wrong to uselessly excite her mind.  On the other hand, if I had heard nothing but the truth, what would happen should she sympathize as deeply with Amos Kilbright as I did, and then should that worthy man suddenly become dematerialized, perhaps before her very eyes?  No, I would not tell her—­at least not yet.  But I must see the spiritualists.  And that afternoon I went to them.

The leader and principal worker of the men who were about to give a series of spiritual manifestations in our town was Mr. Corbridge, a man of middle-age with a large head and earnest visage.  When I spoke to him of Amos Kilbright he was very much annoyed.

“So he has been talking to you,” he said, “and after all the warnings I gave him!  Well, he does that sort of thing at his own risk!”

“We all do things at our own risk,” I said, “and he has as much right to choose his line of conduct as anybody else.”

“No, he hasn’t,” said Mr. Corbridge, “he belongs to us, and it is for us to choose his line of conduct for him.”

“That is nonsense,” said I.  “You have no more right over him than I have.”