undeveloped gifts. Who knew how they might not have worked on Peter Quick?
Who knew but that the sitting was invaded by some base power? Such powers, as
he had said, made special objects of the inexperienced—used them, to make their
mischief with. ''And it is mischief,'' he said, ''—not the marvels of our movement!
no, never those!—that the papers seize on. There were many spiritualists, I am
afraid— and some of them the very people who had most celebrated her
successes!—who turned their backs to poor Miss Dawes, when she stood most in
need of their good wishes. And now, I hear, the experience has quite embittered
her. She has turned her back to us—even to those of us who would be still her
friends.''
I gazed at him in silence. To hear him celebrate Selina; to hear her called,
respectfully, ''Miss Dawes'', ''Miss Selina Dawes'', instead of ''Dawes'' or ''prisoner'',
or ''woman''—well, I cannot say how disconcerting that was. It was one thing to
have had her story from her own lips, in that dim half-world of the wards, so different,
I realise now, to all the worlds that I am used, that no-one in it—not the women, not
the matrons, not even myself when I am there—seem quite substantial or quite real.
It was very different to hear it here, told by a gentleman. I said at last, ''And was she
really so successful then,