Raoul got up from his chair and came and patted her on the shoulder.

‘Calm yourself, my good Elise,’ he said, smiling. ‘See, I will give you some good news. Today is the last of these séances; after today there will be no more.’

‘There is one today then?’ asked the old woman suspiciously.

‘The last, Elise, the last.’

Elise shook her head disconsolately.

‘Madame is not fit—’ she began.

But her words were interrupted, the door opened and a tall, fair woman came in. She was slender and graceful, with the face of a Botticelli Madonna. Raoul’s face lighted up, and Elise withdrew quickly and discreetly.

‘Simone!’

He took both her long, white hands in his and kissed each in turn. She murmured his name very softly.

‘Raoul, my dear one.’

Again he kissed her hands and then looked intently into her face.

‘Simone, how pale you are! Elise told me you were resting; you are not ill, my well-beloved?’

‘No, not ill—’ she hesitated.

He led her over to the sofa and sat down on it beside her.

‘But tell me then.’

The medium smiled faintly.

‘You will think me foolish,’ she murmured.

‘I? Think you foolish? Never.’

Simone withdrew her hand from his grasp. She sat perfectly still for a moment or two gazing down at the carpet. Then she spoke in a low, hurried voice.

‘I am afraid, Raoul.’

He waited for a minute or two expecting her to go on, but as she did not he said encouragingly:

‘Yes, afraid of what?’

‘Just afraid—that is all.’

‘But—’

He looked at her in perplexity, and she answered the look quickly.

‘Yes, it is absurd, isn’t it, and yet I feel just that. Afraid, nothing more. I don’t know what of, or why, but all the time I am possessed with the idea that something terrible—terrible, is going to happen to me . . .’

She stared out in front of her. Raoul put an arm gently round her.

‘My dearest,’ he said, ‘come, you must not give way. I know what it is, the strain, Simone, the strain of a medium’s life. All you need is rest—rest and quiet.’

She looked at him gratefully.

‘Yes, Raoul, you are right. That is what I need, rest and quiet.’

She closed her eyes and leant back a little against his arm.

‘And happiness,’ murmured Raoul in her ear.

His arm drew her closer. Simone, her eyes still closed, drew a deep breath.

‘Yes,’ she murmured, ‘yes. When your arms are round me I feel safe. I forget my life—the terrible life—of a medium. You know much, Raoul, but even you do not know all it means.’

He felt her body grow rigid in his embrace. Her eyes opened again, staring in front of her.

‘One sits in the cabinet in the darkness, waiting, and the darkness is terrible, Raoul, for it is the darkness of emptiness, of nothingness. Deliberately one gives oneself up to be lost in it. After that one knows nothing, one feels nothing, but at last there comes the slow, painful return, the awakening out of sleep, but so tired—so terribly tired.’