My wife, too, was in a penitent and rather exalted mood.  During the sermon she sat with her hand in mine, and I was conscious of peace and a deep thankfulness.  We had been married for many years, and we had grown very close.  Of what importance was the Wells case, or what mattered it that there were strange new-old laws in the universe, so long as we kept together?

That my wife had felt a certain bitterness toward Miss Jeremy, a jealousy of her powers, even of her youth, had not dawned on me.  But when, in her new humility, she suggested that we call on the medium that afternoon.  I realized that, in her own way, she was making a sort of atonement.

Miss Jeremy lived with an elderly spinster cousin, a short distance out of town.  It was a grim house, coldly and rigidly Calvinistic.  It gave an unpleasant impression at the start, and our comfort was not increased by the discovery, made early in the call, that the cousin regarded the Neighborhood Club and its members with suspicion.

The cousin—­her name was Connell—­was small and sharp, and she entered the room followed by a train of cats.  All the time she was frigidly greeting us, cats were coming in at the door, one after the other.  It fascinated me.  I do not like cats.  I am, as a matter of confession, afraid of cats.  They affect me as do snakes.  They trailed in in a seemingly endless procession, and one of them took a fancy to me, and leaped from behind on to my shoulder.  The shock set me stammering.

“My cousin is out,” said Miss Connell.  “Doctor Sperry has taken her for a ride.  She will be back very soon.”

I shook a cat from my trouser leg, and my wife made an unimportant remark.

“I may as well tell you, I disapprove of what Alice is doing,” said Miss Connell.  “She doesn’t have to.  I’ve offered her a good home.  She was brought up a Presbyterian.  I call this sort of thing playing with the powers of darkness.  Only the eternally damned are doomed to walk the earth.  The blessed are at rest.”

“But you believe in her powers, don’t you?” my wife asked.

“I believe she can do extraordinary things.  She saw my father’s spirit in this very room last night, and described him, although she had never seen him.”

As she had said that only the eternally damned were doomed to walk the earth, I was tempted to comment on this stricture on her departed parent, but a large cat, much scarred with fighting and named Violet, insisted at that moment on crawling into my lap, and my attention was distracted.

“But the whole thing is un-Christian and undignified,” Miss Connell proceeded, in her cold voice.  “Come, Violet, don’t annoy the gentleman.  I have other visions of the next life than of rapping on tables and chairs, and throwing small articles about.”

It was an extraordinary visit.  Even the arrival of Miss Jeremy herself, flushed with the air and looking singularly normal, was hardly a relief.  Sperry, who followed, was clearly pleased to see us, however.