No, I have not spoken to you, seen you, since he came into your life—It has been hard for me to push my way through to-day—There is a barrier between us—You have been deceived—Can it be that you—but no, I trust my wife—
The hand paused. “Oh! oh!” sobbed Cecilia. The hand was moving again:
My friends here tell me that you are going away across the sea with an English fortune-hunter—with him. You have been cruel enough to bring him here to our bridal chamber—Oh, Cecilia——
The end of the sheet had been reached, but the hand wrote on for a few seconds, making vague markings in space, then vanished, dropping the pencil with a noise that in the strained silence sounded like a crash and made both Cecilia and Frothingham leap in their chairs. After a moment Cecilia’s trembling, eager, pathetic hands lifted off the filled sheet and withdrew. But the hand did not return. After a long wait her right hand—it seemed bloodless now—appeared once more upon the paper and wrote:
I have been deceived. I love only you. I thought I was obeying you. Speak to me, dearest. You see into my heart. Speak to me. Do not leave me alone.
Her hand laid the sheet upon the other filled sheets and withdrew from that neutral ground of dazzling light between the two great mystery lands. Immediately the other hand darted into the light, caught the pencil, and scrawled in great, tottering letters:
Yes, yes—but I cannot until he has gone far from you—Then come again—Good-b——
The hand vanished and there was a moan from the darkness that enveloped the medium—a moan that ended in a suppressed shriek. Frothingham saw Cecilia’s hands hastily snatch the written sheets from under the light. Then he heard a voice in his ear—he hardly knew it as hers: “Come—come quickly!”
He rose, and with his hand touching her arm followed her. The door opened—the dim hallway seemed brightly lighted, so great was the contrast. The maid was seated there. She at once rose, entered the medium’s room, and closed the door behind her. Cecilia and Frothingham went into the quiet little street—the enormous sunshine, the white snow over everything, in the distance the rumble of the city. He gave a huge sigh of relief, and wiped the sweat from his face—his very hair was wet and his collar was wilted. He was sickly pale.
