Half past eleven!
The spiritual healer rose, his face set with an unalterable purpose.
“I will turn down the light, Mrs. Wells,” he said quietly. “I want you to compose yourself. Remember that God is watching over you. You are God's child. He will guard you from all evil. Hold that thought strongly as you go to sleep.”
Penelope closed her eyes. Her face was deathly pale in the shadows. The minutes passed.
“I—I am afraid to go to sleep,” the sufferer murmured, and her hands opened and closed nervously as if they were clutching at something.
“Think of your mother, dear,” soothed Seraphine. “Her pure spirit is near you, trying to come nearer. Oh God, keep Penelope, Thy loving child, under the close guardianship of her mother's exalted spirit in this her hour of peril.”
Twelve o'clock by the musical, slow-chiming bells!
Then at last Penelope spoke, her face transfigured with spiritual light and beauty.
“Doctor,—I—I know I have only a few minutes,” she began haltingly, but almost immediately became calm, as if some new strength or vision had been accorded her. “I realize that my troubles have come from selfishness and—sensuality. I have deceived myself. I blamed my husband for encouraging these desires in me, but—I knew what kind of a man my husband was before I married him. There was another man, a much finer man, who asked me to be his wife, but I refused him because—in a way I—wanted the kind of husband that—my husband was.”