"Hush! Your mother may hear you and grieve."
"If she can hear me she will understand my feeling. I like the world as it is—I don't want the supernatural thrust into it."
"I think you're wrong," she said, firmly. "The larger view is that of the scientist who recognizes nothing supernatural in the universe. I would not part with what your mother gave me for huge sums. I've had wonderful, thrilling experiences. Remember Altair!"
Altair! Yes, he remembered her, and remembering her he recalled the graceful figure at his bedside and the touch of the faintly clinging lips. That mystery remained the most inexplicable of them all.
While thus he sat, dream-filled and rapt, the girl studied him, and her face changed. "You believe in Altair. What's more, you love her, and I can't blame you for it. She is more beautiful than angels. You will not forsake the 'ghost-room' so long as you have a hope that she may return."
"You are mistaken," he protested. "Altair is only a dream. I worship her as a figure in a vision. Do you know what I think she was?" Her look questioned, and he went on. "For days I have pondered on her face and figure, in the light of modern science, and I am convinced that she was nothing but a union of my mother's astral self and you."
She looked at him in startled thought. "What do you mean?"
He explained eagerly. "You must have noticed how much like my mother she was? Her brow was the same—her eyes the same—"
"Yes, they were a little like hers."
"But her mouth and chin were exactly like yours. Her hands were like yours. She held her head exactly as you do—and then she changed; sometimes my mother predominated in her, sometimes you were the stronger."