She was present at the Hall of Music meeting on October 21, when Margaret made her repudiation and produced the raps. She was silent on that occasion, but that silence may be taken as a support of the statements to which she listened.
If this were indeed so, and if she spoke as reported to the interviewer, her repentance must have come very rapidly. Upon November 17, less than a month after the famous meeting, she wrote to a lady in London, Mrs. Cottell, who was the tenant of Carlyle's old house, this remarkable letter from New York (LIGHT, 1888, p. 619):
I would have written to you before this but my surprise was so great on my arrival to hear of Maggie's exposure of Spiritualism that I had no heart to write to anyone.
The manager of the affair engaged the Academy of Music, the very largest place of entertainment in New York City; it was filled to overflowing.
They made fifteen hundred dollars clear. I have often wished I had remained with you, and if I had the means I would now return to get out of all this.
I think now I could make money in proving that the knockings are not made with the toes. So many people come to me to ask me about this exposure of Maggie's that I have to deny myself to them.
They are hard at work to expose the whole thing if they can; but they certainly cannot.
Maggie is giving public exposures in all the large places in America, but I have only seen her once since I arrived.
This letter of Kate's points to pecuniary temptation as playing a large part in the transaction. Maggie, however, seems to have soon found that there was little money in it, and could see no profit in telling lies for which she was not paid, and which had only proved that the Spiritualistic movement was so firmly established that it was quite unruffled by her treachery. For this or other reasons-let us hope with some final twinges of conscience as to the part she had played-she now admitted that she had been telling falsehoods from the lowest motives. The interview was reported in the New York Press, November 20, 1889, about a year after the onslaught.
"Would to God," she said, in a voice that trembled with intense excitement, "that I could undo the injustice I did the cause of Spiritualism when, under the strong psychological influence of persons inimical to it, I gave expression to utterances that had no foundation in fact. This retraction and denial has not come about so much from my own sense of what is right as from the silent impulse of the spirits using my organism at the expense of the hostility of the treacherous horde who held out promises of wealth and happiness in return for an attack on Spiritualism, and whose hopeful assurances were so deceitfulÉ.
"Long before I spoke to any person on this matter, I was unceasingly reminded by my spirit control what I should do, and at last I have come to the conclusion that it would be useless for me further to thwart their promptingsÉ."
"Has there been no mention of a monetary consideration for this statement?"
"Not the smallest; none whatever."
"Then financial gain is not the end which you are looking to?"
"Indirectly, yes. You know that even a mortal instrument in the hands of the spirit must have the maintenance of life. This I propose to derive from my lectures. Not one cent has passed to me from any person because I adopted this course."
"What cause led up to your exposure of the spirit rappings?"
"At that time I was in great need of money, and persons-who for the present I prefer not to name-took advantage of the situation; hence the trouble. The excitement, too, helped to upset my mental equilibrium."
"What was the object of the persons who induced you to make the confession that you and all other mediums traded on the credulity of people?"
"They had several objects in view. Their first and paramount idea was to crush Spiritualism, to make money for themselves, and to get up a great excitement, as that was an element in which they flourish."
"Was there any truth in the charges you made against Spiritualism?"
"Those charges were false in every particular.