My Library

closed, and a wire was so attached to it that it could not be opened, or even the latch be raised, without touching a spring that instantly rung a bell that was suspended directly over my head in the rear office. I used this rear office as a reading-room and laboratory, and I frequently became so absorbed in my reading or chemistry, that nothing less than the ringing of that bell would suffice to divert my attention. “And there and thus we sat and talked for more than three long hours. The strong-minded woman’s soul had at last really been aroused; while I once more brought to the surface my Rosicrucian lore. In thought and speech we traversed a score of conjectural worlds and labyrinths of Being; until, at last: ‘Are there, really, any intelligent, but viewless beings, other than man, in all the broad universe—I mean other than man as he is here, and disembodied likewise?—that’s the question,’ said the lady by the desk. “ ‘Of course there are! MYRIADS!’ said a clear, manly voice in the room, right straight from the centre of the triangle formed by the desk, the door and the southern wall of the office! It was not the lady who thus replied to her own question! It was not I who spoke; nor, strange as it afterwards appeared, did the circumstance strike me as being at all out of the common. And, therefore, without an instant’s hesitation, I rejoined to the observation of the speaker,