It all seemed so unreal to her.  Surely, she felt in her heart, she could not have been so mistaken in the man.  Yet the facts seemed to speak for themselves.

In spite of it all, she was almost about to kiss the portrait when something seemed to stay her hands.  Instead she laid the picture down, with a sigh.

A moment later, Jennings entered with a card on a salver.  Elaine took it and saw with surprise the name of her caller: 

MADAME SAVETSKY, MEDIUM

Beneath the engraved name were the words written in ink, “I have a message from the spirit of your father.”

“Yes, I will see her,” cried Elaine eagerly, in response to the butler’s inquiry.

She followed Jennings into the adjoining room and there found herself face to face with the hard-featured woman who had only a few moments before left the Clutching Hand.

Elaine looked rather than spoke her inquiry.

“Your father, my dear,” purred the medium with a great pretence of suppressed excitement, “appeared to me, the other night, from the spirit world.  I was in a trance and he asked me to deliver a message to you.”

“What was the message?” asked Elaine breathlessly, now aroused to intense interest.

“I must go into a trance again to get it,” replied the insinuating Savetsky, “and if you like I can try it at once, provided we can be left alone long enough.”

“Please—­don’t wait,” urged Elaine, pulling the portieres of the doors closer, as if that might insure privacy.

Seated in her chair, the medium muttered wildly for a few moments, rolled her eyes and with some convulsive movements pretended to go into a trance.

Savetsky seemed about to speak and Elaine, in the highest state of nervous tension, listened, trying to make something of the gibberish mutterings.

Suddenly the curtains were pushed aside and Aunt Josephine and Bennett, who had just come in, entered.

“I can do nothing here,” exclaimed Savetsky, starting up and looking about severely.  “You must come to my seance chamber where we shall not be interrupted.”

“I will,” cried Elaine, vexed at the intrusion at that moment.  “I must have that message—­I must.”

“What’s all this, Elaine?” demanded Aunt Josephine.

Hurriedly, Elaine poured forth to her aunt and Bennett the story of the medium’s visit and the promised message from her father in the other world.

Aunt Josephine, who was not one easily to be imposed on, strongly objected to Elaine’s proposal to accompany Savetsky to the seance chamber, but Elaine would not be denied.  She pleaded with her aunt, urging that she be allowed to go.

“It might be safe for Elaine to go,” Bennett finally suggested to Aunt Josephine, “if you and I accompanied her.”

All this time the medium was listening closely to the conversation.  Elaine looked at her inquiringly.  With a shrug, she indicated that she had no objection to having Elaine escorted to the parlor by her friends.