This interview, which Ida had granted to him alone, he kept as a precious secret.
The next day, as he had promised, Paul called at Mrs.Legrand's and saw Dr.Hull.That gentleman was unable to promise him anything definite about a seance, on account of Mrs.Legrand's continued illness.
"Is she seriously sick ?" asked Paul, with a new terror.
"I think not," said Dr.Hull; "but her trouble is of the heart, the result of the nervous crises which a trance medium is necessarily subject to, and a disease of the heart may at any time take an unexpected turn." "Has she the best advice ?" asked Paul.

"Excuse me; but if she has not, and if her pecuniary means do not enable her to afford it, I beg you will let me secure it for her." Dr.Hull thanked him, but said that he was a physician himself, and that, on account of his acquaintance with her constitutional peculiarities, Mrs.Legrand considered him, and he considered himself, better able to treat her than any strange physician.

"You seem to be very much interested in her case," added the doctor, with a slight intonation of surprise.
"Can you wonder ?" replied Paul.

"Is she not door-keeper between this world and the world of spirits where my love is?
Don't think me brutal if I confess to you that what I think of most is that her death might close that door." "I do not think you brutal," replied Dr.Hull; "what you feel is very natural." "Is it not strange--is it not hard to bear," cried Paul, giving way to his feelings, "that the key of the gate between the world of spirits and of men should be intrusted to a weak and sickly woman ?" "It is hard to bear, no doubt," replied Dr.Hull; "but it is not strange.
It is in accordance with the laws by which this world has always been conducted.

From the beginning has not the power of calling spirits out of the unknown into this earth life been intrusted to weak and sickly women?
What the world loosely calls spiritualism is no isolated phenomenon or set of phenomena.