The director made copies of both the tapes, and Karras returned to the Jesuit residence hall with the originals. He found a message slip in his room. The records from the clinic had arrived.

He hurried to Reception and signed for the package. Back in his room, he began to read immediately; and was soon convinced that his trip to the Institute had been wasted.

"...indications of guilt obsession with ensuing hysterical-somnambulistic..."

Room for doubt. Always room. Interpretation. But Regan's stigmata... Karras buried his weary face in his hands. The skin stigmata that Chris had described had indeed been reported in Regan's fife. But it also had been noted that Regan had hyperreactive skin and could herself have produced the mysterious letters merely by tracing them on her flesh with a finger a short time prior to their appearance. Dermatographia.

She did it herself, brooded Karras. He was certain. For as soon as Regan's hands had been immobilized by restraining straps, the records noted, the mysterious phenomena had ceased and were never repeated.

Fraud. Conscious or unconscious. Still fraud.

He lifted his head and eyed the phone. Frank. Call him off? He picked up the receiver. There was no answer and he left word for him to call. Then, exhausted, he stood up and walked slowly to the bathroom. He splashed cold water an his face. "The exorcist will simply be careful that none of the patent's manifestations are left...." He looked up at himself in the mirror. Had he missed something? What? The sauerkraut odor. He turned and slipped a towel off the rack and wiped his face. Autosuggestion, he remembered. And the mentally ill, in certain instances, seemed able unconsciously to direct their bodies to emit a variety of odors.

Karras wiped his hands. The poundings... the opening and closing of the drawer.

Psychokinesis? Really? "You believe in that stuff?" He paused as he set back the towel; grew aware that he wasn't thinking clearly. Too tired. Yet he dared not give Regan up to guess; to opinion; to the savage betrayals of the mind.

He left the hall and went to the campus library. He searched through the Guide to Periodical Literature: Po... Pol... Polte... He found what he was looking for and sat down with a scientific journal to read an article on poltergeist-phehomena investigations by the German psychiatrist Dr. Hans Bender.

No doubt about it, he concluded when he finished: psychokinetic phenomena existed; had been thoroughly documented; filmed; observed in psychiatric clinics. And in none of the cases reported in the article was there any connection to demonic possession. Rather, the hypothesis was mind-directed energy unconsciously produced and usually--- and significantly, Karras saw--- by adolescents in stages of "extremely high inner tension, frustration and rage."

Karras rubbed his tired eyes. He still felt remiss. He ran back through the symptoms, touching each like a boy going back to touch slats on a white picket fence. Which one had ha missed?

he wondered. Which?

The answer, he concluded wearily, was None.

He returned the journal to the desk.

He walked back to the MacNeil house. Willie admitted him and led him to the study. The door was closed. Willie knocked. "Father Karras," she announced.

"Come in."

Karras entered and closed the door behind him. Chris was standing with her back to him, brow in her hand, an elbow on the bar. "Hello, Father."

Her voice was a husky and despairing whisper. Concerned, he went over to her. "You okay?"

he asked softly.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Her voice held tension. He frowned. Her hand was obscuring her face. The hand trembled.

"What's doin'?" she asked him.

"Well, I've looked at the records from the clinic." He waited. She made no response. He continued. "I believe..." He paused. "Well, my honest opinion right now is that Regan can best be helped by intensive psychiatric care." She shook her head very slowly back and forth.

"Where's her father?" he asked her.

"In Europe," she whispered.

"Have you told him what's happening?"

She had thought about telling him so many times. Had been tempted. The crisis could bring them back together. But Howard and priests... For Regan's sake, she'd decided he mustn't be told.

"No," she answered softy.

"Well, I think it would help if he were here."

"Listen, nothing's going to help except something out of sight!" Chris suddenly erupted, lifting a tear-stained face to the priest. "Something way out of sight."

"I believe you should send for him."

"It would---"

"I've asked you to drive a demon out, goddammit, not ask another one in!" she cried at Karras in sudden hysteria. Her features were contorted in anguish. "What happened to the exorcism all of a sudden?"

"Now---"

"What in the hell do I want with Howard?"

"We can talk about it---"

"Talk about it now, goddammit! What the hell good is Howard right now? What's the good?"

"There's a strong probability that Regan's disorder is rooted in a guilt over---"

"Guilt over what?" she cried, eyes wild.

"It could---"

"Over the divorce? All that psychiatric bullshit?"

"Now---"

"She's guilty because she killed Burke Dennings!" Chris shrieked at him, hands crushing hard against her temples. "She killed him! She killed him and they'll put her away; they're going to put her away! Oh, my God, oh, my..."

Karras caught her up as she crumpled, sobbing, and guided her toward the sofa. "It's all right,"

he kept telling her softly, "it's all right..."

"No, they'll put... her away," she was sobbing. '"They'll put... put... ohhhhhhh! Oh, my God!

Oh, my God!"

"It's all right..."

He eased her down and stretched her out on the sofa. He sat down on the edge and took her hand in both of his. Thoughts of Kinderman. Dennings. Her sobbing. Unreality. "All right... its all right... take it easy... it's all right..."