another pause the voice went on: "Swear now therefore unto me by the Lord, that thou wilt
not cut off my seed after me."
Lanny knew only too well what that meant. The old man had objected strenuously to the
practice known as birth control. He had wanted grandchildren, plenty of them, because that was
the Lord's command. Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. It had been one of
Samuel Budd's obsessions, and the first time Irma had been taken to see him he had quoted
the words of old King Saul to David. But Irma had disregarded the injunction; she didn't want
a lot of babies, she wanted to have a good time while she was young. The price which nature
exacts for babies is far too high for fashionable ladies to pay. So now the old man had come
back from the grave!
Or was it just Lanny's subconscious mind? His guilty conscience —plus that of Irma's, since
she was defying not merely Lanny's grandfather in the spirit world, but her own mother in this
world! A strange enough phenomenon in either case.
"I will bear your words in mind, Grandfather," said Lanny, with the tactfulness which had
become his very soul. "How am I to know that this really is you?"
"I have already taken steps to make sure that you know," replied the voice. "But do not try to
put me off with polite phrases."
That was convincing, and Lanny was really quite awestricken. But still, he wasn't going to
forget about Freddi. "Grandfather, do you remember Bess's husband, and his young brother?
Can you find out anything about him?"
But Grandfather could be just as stubborn as Grandson. "Remember the Word of the Lord,"
the voice commanded; and then no more. Lanny spoke two or three times, but got no answer.
At last he heard a sigh in the darkness, and the soft fluorescent light was switched on, and
there sat Madame Diseuse, asking in a dull, tired voice: "Did you get what you wanted?"
X
Lanny arrived at the hotel just a few minutes before Irma, who had consulted two other
mediums, chosen from advertisements in the newspapers because they had English names.
"Well, did you get anything?" she asked, and Lanny said: "Nothing about Clarinet. Did you?"
"I didn't get anything at all. It was pure waste of time. One of the mediums was supposed to
be a Hindu woman, and she said I would get a letter from a handsome dark lover. The other
was a greasy old creature with false teeth that didn't fit, and all she said was that an old man
was trying to talk to me. She wouldn't tell me his name, and all he wanted was for me to learn
some words."
"Did you learn them?"
"I couldn't help it; he made me repeat them three times, and he kept saying: 'You will know
what they mean.' They sounded like they came from the Bible."
"Say them!" exclaimed Lanny.
"And that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house."
"Oh, my God, Irma! It's a cross-correspondence!"
"What is that?"
"Don't you remember the first time you met Grandfather, he quoted a verse from the Bible,
telling you to have babies, and not to interfere with the Lord's will?"
"Yes, but I don't remember the words."
"That is a part of what he said. He came to me just now and gave me the beginning of it.
'Swear now therefore unto me by the Lord, that thou wilt not cut off my seed after me, and
that thou wilt not destroy my name out of my father's house.'"
"Lanny, how perfectly amazing!" exclaimed the young wife.
"He said he had already taken steps to convince me that it was really he. He had probably
already talked to you."
Irma had been living with the spirits now for nearly four years, and had got more or less used
to them; but this was the first time she had come upon such an incident. Lanny explained that the
literature of psychical research was full of "cross-correspondences." Sometimes one part of a
sentence would be given in England and another in Australia. Sometimes there would be
references by page and line to a book, and through another medium references to some other
book, and when the words were put together they made sense. It seemed to prove that whatever
intelligence was at work was bound by none of the limitations of time and space. The main
trouble was, it was all so hard to believe—people just couldn't and wouldn't face it.
"Well," said Lanny, "do you want to have another baby?"
"What do you suppose Grandfather will do if we don't?"
"You go and ask him," chuckled Lanny.
Irma didn't. But a day or two later came a letter from Robbie, telling what the old gentleman
would do if they obeyed him. He had established in his will a trust fund for Frances Barnes
Budd to the amount of fifty thousand dollars, and had provided the same amount for any other
child or children Irma Barnes Budd might bear within two years after his death. The old realist
had taken no chances, but added: "Lanny Budd being the father."
XI
The golden-haired and blue-eyed young sports director, Hugo Behr, came to see his
American friend, and was taken for a drive. Hugo didn't need any urging to induce him to
