Her lips moved. Distinctly I heard her speak:
"Dr. Murray—good friend of my beloved, who tells me of your presence in response to his appeal for your assistance to us—I bid you welcome to our home. Thrice welcome are you, upon whose coming depends, as he tells me also, our future happiness together, as well as the life of our child."
She addressed me most surprisingly in English, until I bethought me that Croft had doubtless taught her the tongue, exactly as he had taught her so much else; to fly the first airplane in Palos, the control of the astral body itself. Her words moved me oddly. I rose to answer:
"I am more than happy to be here, Princess Naia, and to bid you be of good cheer, remembering that even now Azil stands close by the gateway of life, in charge of a newborn soul."
And then I sank back, confused. I had spoken wholly on impulse, voicing the inmost emotions of my heart, forgetting my nebulous condition entirely for the instant, in the spell of what seemed so real. With a feeling akin to acute annoyance at my inability to speak thus to her directly I resumed my chair.
But even so, it seemed that I had reached her—that in some way akin to that in which Croft had assured me he would be able to follow my mental direction while working, she had sensed my meaning and intention. Women are intuitive by nature, more susceptible to the waves of a personal or thought vibration. Her lips moved again as I ceased speaking.
"Azil," she whispered. "But—that new soul is so long in passing, my friend."
I turned to Croft.
"Come," I hurled my thought force toward him. "Let us spare her more bodily anguish than must be endured. Let us make an end."
Of what followed I shall say no word. Suffice it to state that Jason Croft labored, grim of lips and pallid of feature; that I sat in that weirdest position of assistance capable of conception; that the lights burned on in that room where the pale form of Azil spread his wings on the pedestal of wine-red wood; that the eyes of Naia of Aphur widened until they were two dark pools no more than fringed by the purple iris; that the two female attendants waited, intent on naught save the catching, the rendering of obedience to each of Croft's intense though low-pitched words.