“Very glad to have your explanation of that.”

“I am going to give it you.  The beginning of that change came about through the action of Marcus Harding.  He wished for facts that are, perhaps,—­indeed, probably,—­withheld deliberately from the cognizance of man.  You have sneered at those who live by faith, you have sneered at priests.  Well, you can let that Marcus Harding go free of your sarcasm.  Although a clergyman he was not a faithful man.  And he wanted facts to convince him that there was a life beyond the grave.  Henry Chichester—­”

“You!  You!” interjected Stepton, harshly.

“I, then, came into his life.  He thought he would use me to further his purpose.  He constrained me to sittings such as you have often taken part in, with a view to sending me into a trance and employing me, when in that condition, as a means of communication with the other world—­if there was one.  We sat secretly in this room, at this table.”

“You need not give me ordinary details of your sittings,” said the professor.  “I am familiar with them, of course.”

“Henry Chichester—­”

“You!  You!  Don’t complicate matters!”

“I never was entranced; but presently I felt myself changing subtly.”

“People very often imagine they are developing into something wonderful at seances.  Nothing new in that.”

“Please try to realize the facts of my case without assuming that it resembles a thousand others.  I believe, I feel sure, that it resembles no other case that has come under your observation.  To grasp it you must grasp the characters of two men, Marcus Harding as he was—­and myself, as I was.”

“Put them before me, then.”

“That Marcus Harding you knew.  He was the type of the man who, sublimely self-confident, imposes his view of himself upon other men and especially upon women.  He had strength—­strength of body and strength of mind.  And he had the strength which a devouring ambition sheds through a man.  A fine type of the worldly clergyman he was, of the ardent climber up the ladder of preferment.  To him the church was a career, and he meant to succeed in it.  If he had to begin as a curate he meant to end as a bishop, perhaps as an archbishop.  And he had will to help him, and vitality to help him, and the sort of talent that brings quick notice on a man.  And he had also a woman to help him, his wife, Lady Sophia.  He chose well when he chose her for his helpmate, though he may not think so now.  He should have been content with what he had.  But he wanted more, and he thought he might perhaps get what he wanted through me.  Marcus Harding was a full-blooded type of the clerical autocrat.  I once was an equally complete type of the clerical slave—­slave to conscience, slave to humble-mindedness, slave to my rector as soon as I knew him.