“How did she know that you came from Warwickshire?”

“She did know it.  If I tell you something, don’t you say anything about it.  I have an idea about her.”

“What is it?”

“I didn’t mention it before, because I don’t talk much of those sort of things.  I don’t pretend to understand them, and it is better to leave them alone.”

“But what do you mean?”

Doodles looked very solemn as he answered, “I think she’s a medium—­or a media, or whatever it ought to be called.”

“What! one of those spirit-rapping people?” And Archie’s hair almost stood on end as he asked the question.

“They don’t rap now—­not the best of them, that is.  That was the old way, and seems to have been given up.”

“But what do you suppose she did?”

“How did she know that the money was in your waistcoat pocket, now?  How did she know that I came from Warwickshire?  And then she had a way of going about the room as though she could have raised herself off her feet in a moment if she had chosen.  And then her swearing, and the rest of it—­so unlike any other woman, you know.”

“But do you think she could have made Julia hate me?”

“Ah!  I can’t tell that.  There are such lots of things going on now-a-days that a fellow can understand nothing about!  But I’ve no doubt of this—­if you were to tie her up with ropes ever so, I don’t in the least doubt but what she’d get out.”  Archie was awe-struck, and made two or three strokes after this but then he plucked up his courage and asked a question—­“Where do you suppose they get it from, Doodles?”

“That’s just the question.”

“Is it from—­the devil, do you think?” said Archie, whispering the name of the Evil One in a very low voice.

“Well, yes, I suppose that’s most likely.”

“Because they don’t seem to do a great deal of harm with it, after all.  As for my money, she would have had that any way, for I intended to give it to her.”

“There are people who think,” said Doodles, “that the spirits don’t come from anywhere, but are always floating about.”

“And then one person catches them, and another doesn’t?” asked Archie.

“They tell me that it depends upon what the mediums or medias eat and drink,” said Doodles, “and upon what sort of minds they have.  They must be cleverish people, I fancy, or the spirits wouldn’t come to them.”

“But you never hear of any swell being a medium.  Why don’t the spirits go to a prime minster or some of those fellows?  Only think what a help they’d be.”

“If they come from the devil,” suggested Doodles, “he wouldn’t let them do any real good.”

“I’ve heard a deal about them,” said Archie, “and it seems to me that the mediums are always poor people, and that they come from nobody knows where.  The Spy is a clever woman I dare say—­”

“There isn’t much doubt about that,” said the admiring Doodles.