"So be it. If the medium consents."
"I shall make her consent. And you and I will agree upon someone else to bring us together, when she must go elsewhere, as I can see through her mind that she soon must. Good-bye, dearest husband, for twenty-four long hours. Yet it isn't really good-bye, for I am seldom far from you. Now that you know, you will feel me near. I——"
The voice seemed to fade. The last words were a faint whisper. The new sentence died as it began. The medium's eyelids quivered. Her flat breast rose and fell. The "influence" was gone!
CHAPTER V
THE BARGAIN
That night was one of the worst in my life. I was so fond of Robert Lorillard, and I'd grown to love Joyce Arnold so well that the breaking of their love idyll hurt as if it had been my own.
Never shall I forget the hour when we three talked together at my flat after that séance at the Savoy, or the look on those two faces as Robert and Joyce agreed to part! Even I had acquiesced at first in that decision—but only while I was still half stunned by the shock of the great surprise, and thrilled by the seeming miracle. At sight of the two I loved quietly giving each other up, making sacrifice of their hearts on a cold altar, I had a revulsion of feeling.
I jumped up, and broke out desperately.
"I don't believe it's true! Something tells me it isn't! Don't spoil your lives without making sure."