“Celie!  Celie!”

Again the impatient voice rang up the stairs, as Helene pinned the girl’s hat upon her fair head.  Celie sprang up, took a quick step or two towards the door, and stopped in dismay.  The swish of her long satin train must betray her.  She caught up the dress and tried again.  Even so, the rustle of it was heard.

“I shall have to be very careful.  You will help me, Helene?”

“Of course, mademoiselle.  I will sit underneath the switch of the light in the salon.  If madame, your visitor, makes the experiment too difficult, I will find a way to help you,” said Helene Vauquier, and as she spoke she handed Celia a long pair of white gloves.

“I shall not want them,” said Celia.

“Mme. Dauvray ordered me to give them to you,” replied Helene.

Celia took them hurriedly, picked up a white scarf of tulle, and ran down the stairs.  Helene Vauquier listened at the door and heard madame’s voice in feverish anger.

“We have been waiting for you, Celie.  You have been an age.”

Helene Vauquier laughed softly to herself, took out Celia’s white frock from the wardrobe, turned off the lights, and followed her down to the hall.  She placed the cloak just outside the door of the salon.  Then she carefully turned out all the lights in the hall and in the kitchen and went into the salon.  The rest of the house was in darkness.  This room was brightly lit; and it had been made ready.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE SEANCE

Helene Vauquier locked the door of the salon upon the inside and placed the key upon the mantel-shelf, as she had always done whenever a seance had been held.  The curtains had been loosened at the sides of the arched recess in front of the glass doors, ready to be drawn across.  Inside the recess, against one of the pillars which supported the arch, a high stool without a back, taken from the hall, had been placed, and the back legs of the stool had been lashed with cord firmly to the pillar, so that it could not be moved.  The round table had been put in position, with three chairs about it.  Mme. Dauvray waited impatiently.  Celia stood apparently unconcerned, apparently lost to all that was going on.  Her eyes saw no one.  Adele looked up at Celia, and laughed maliciously.

“Mademoiselle, I see, is in the very mood to produce the most wonderful phenomena.  But it will be better, I think, madame,” she said, turning to Mme. Dauvray, “that Mlle. Celie should put on those gloves which I see she has thrown on to a chair.  It will be a little more difficult for mademoiselle to loosen these cords, should she wish to do so.”