A sofa was its only article of furniture, and this was of wicker-work, so that nothing could be concealed beneath it.
"Mrs.Legrand lies upon this sofa while in a state of trance, during which the spirit is materialized, and appears to us," explained Dr.Hull.
A rug lay on the floor of the cabinet, the walls were of hard-finished white plaster, quite bare, and the ceiling, like that of the parlours, was plain white, without ornament.
There seemed no possibility of introducing any person into the cabinet or the back parlour without the knowledge of those in the front parlour.

But Dr.Hull insisted upon making assurance doubly sure by pounding upon the walls and pulling up the rug in the cabinet, to prove that no sliding panel or trap-door trick was possible.

There was something calculated to make an unbeliever very uneasy in the quiet confidence of these people, and the business-like way in which they went to work to make it impossible to account for any phenomenon that might appear, on any other but a supernatural theory.

No doubt whatever now remained in the mind of Miss Ludington or Paul that the wonderful mystery which they had hardly dared to dream of was about to be enacted before them.

They followed Dr.
Hull on his tour of inspection as if they were in a dream, mechanically observing what he pointed out, but replying at random to his remarks, and, indeed, barely aware of what they were doing.