“Oh God, let Thy love descend upon Penelope and strengthen her,” prayed Seraphine, kneeling by the couch.
The dream moved on relentlessly toward its inevitable catastrophe. Penelope tried to resist the intruder, but she knew it was in vain. She wept, protested, pleaded, but she knew that presently she would be swept in a current of fierce desire, she would wish to surrender, she would be incapable of not surrendering.
“Oh God, let the spirit of the mother come close to her imperilled child,” prayed Seraphine.
In her dream Penelope was yielding. She had ceased to struggle. She was clasped in her husband's arms and already was turning willing and responsive lips to his, when her eyes fell upon the porthole, through which the distant lighthouse was sending her a message—it seemed like a message of love and encouragement. She saw the mighty shaft towering serenely above dark rocks and crashing waters, and watched it change with beautiful gradations of light into a rugged cross to which a woman was clinging desperately. The waves beat against her, the winds buffeted her, but she cried to God for help and—then, as she slept Penelope recalled Dr. Leroy's words and, still dreaming, stretched out her hands to the Cross, praying with all her strength that her sins might be forgiven, that her soul might be cleansed, that she might be saved from evil by the power of God's love.
Instantly the torture of her dream was relieved. The brutal arms that had clasped her fell away. The ravisher, cheated of his victim, drew back scowling and slowly faded from her view, while from a distance a white figure with countenance radiant and majestic approached swiftly and Penelope knew it was the pure spirit of her mother coming to save her, and presently on her brow she felt a kiss of rapturous healing.
“My child!” came the dream words, perfectly distinct, although they were unspoken. “God will bless you and save you.”
Penelope smiled in her sleep and her soul was filled with inexpressible peace.
“I saw the mother's exalted spirit hovering over her child,” Seraphine wrote of this clairvoyant vision. “I saw the evil entity, leering hideously, go out of Penelope in a glow of scarlet light. I knew that the wicked dream was broken. My darling was saved.”
An hour passed, during which the two doctors and the medium watched anxiously by the sleeping patient.
Finally the young woman stirred naturally and opened her eyes.