"No. Up to the very moment when that red lamp was lit I could not believe in her. I couldn't help doubting--even now I need the photographs to bolster up my belief."
The reportorial instinct awoke in her. "I wish I might see those photographs--to reassure myself, not for publication. May I see them?"
He did not observe that her desire for his pardon seemed suddenly to be met, even though he had not yet put it in words, and his mind was wholly on the question of the photographic tests as he slowly replied:
"They are very marvelous--especially those which came on the unexposed plates."
Her eyes widened in wonder. "What do you mean?"
"Mr. Stinchfield had several packages of plates opened ready to use in his cameras, but The Voices only let him make one flashlight. It seems as if they knew the experiment would end my mother's life, and yet on each of the unexposed plates are faces and forms, some of which Mr. Bartol 'recognized.'"
"Let me see them--please!" she pleaded, earnestly. "They will comfort me, too, for I am under conviction."
He took from his pocket a package of small photographs. "Here," he said, "are the three flashlights of my grandfather, Nelson Blodgett."
The young woman almost snatched them in her eager haste. "Oh, wonderful! What a document! The medium plainly in her cage--and this figure on the same plate."
"It is the most convincing picture in existence," he said, sadly, "but it cost me my mother."
She fixed a dreamy gaze upon him. "If this is a spirit--then your mother can return to you. Has she done so?"
He moved uneasily. "I have not asked her to do that. I don't care to be controlled or guided by spirits, not even by her spirit."
His voice was firm and assured as he replied: "Because I want to live and work out my career like other men. I don't want to see or hear any more of the 'astral plane'--" He checked himself. "It isn't natural for a man like me to be mixed up with all this spirit business, and I'm tired of it."
"I see what you mean. You want to work and woo and marry like other men. You're right; of course you're right. What have we who are young and vigorous to do with the dead, anyway? Unless all human life is a mistake, a foolish thing, it's our business to live it humanly." She held out her hand for the other pictures. "Let me see them all, please!"