"Darling!" breathed the voice. "My husband! How happy you make me. This is our true marriage—the marriage of spirits. Oh, do not let the barrier rise between us again. Put Joyce Arnold out of your heart as well as your life, and talk to me every day in future. Will you do that?"
"How can I to talk to you every day?" he asked.
"As we are talking now. Through a medium. This one will not always be near you. But there will be somebody. I've often tried to get word through to you. I never could, because you wouldn't believe. Now you believe, and we need not be parted again. You know the way to open the door. It is never shut. It stands ajar. Remember!"
"I will remember," Robert echoed. And his voice was sad as the sound of the sea on a lonely shore at night. There was no warm happiness for him in the opening of a door between two worlds. The loss of Joyce was more to him than the gain of this spirit-wife who claimed him from far off as all her own. It seemed to me that a released soul should have read the truth in his unveiled heart. But perhaps it did read—and did not care.
The voice was talking on.
"I am repaid for everything now," it said. "My sacrifice is no sacrifice. For to-day I must say good-bye. Power is leaving me. I have felt too much. I must rest, and regain vitality—for to-morrow. To-morrow, Robert, my Robert! By that time we can talk with no restraint, for you will have parted with Joyce Arnold. After to-day you will never see her again?"
"No. After to-day I will never see her again, voluntarily, as that is your wish."
"Good! What time to-morrow will you talk with me?"
"At any time you name."
"At this same hour, then, in this same room."