“Jenny was my affair,” said Mary Faust, with her grave smile. “I furnished her, and of course I provided for her return. She is none the worse for the trip.”
Miriam had not yet recovered her spiritual footing. “Saturn!” she murmured. “Lamara—Zarga! Torpeon!”
Suddenly she snatched at the right sleeve of her dress, and tore it across, exposing the shoulder. She scrutinized it eagerly. The mark was still there, but instead of red it now appeared as a white scar. Mary Faust eyed it with interest.
“He must have stamped it deep!” she observed. “It has survived your Saturnian incarnation. But its power is gone; it’s only a memento now.”
“I was there!” said Miriam wonderingly; “and this is our own earth again!”
“It was a trying experience,” said her friend in a matter-of-fact tone; “but our science is vindicated, and we need never repeat the experiment. We’ll talk it over at our leisure some other time. What lovely roses you brought back with you! The place looked like a conservatory! We understand the principle, of course; but it was exquisitely done! I wish I could have been with you; but I kept in touch as well as I could.”
“They know and honor you there; and Solarion!” “Yes, I have much to thank him for. But don’t be agitated, dear; things will take their proper places by degrees. The world will be under a great obligation to you. Your departure was a little premature, but after all it was better so. There was only one sad thing about it; and that, too, has beauty and consolation. Dear little Jim!”
Miriam turned and bent upon her friend a long and poignant look. She tried to command herself, but her lips quivered and tears ran down her face.
“So may worlds,” she faltered, “and death in all of them! Jim was a hero, and he died for me; but why must the other be taken, and I be left? Without him, what use am I? I had begun to know what love is; and now I am alone! Mary, his spirit was with me in that last terrible scene; I could even see him and hear his voice. Why couldn’t he stay with me, if only as a spirit? God has all power, in heaven and on earth!”
“The scope of science does not include such problems,” said Mary Faust composedly. “But I should suppose that any conscious intercourse between the two planes of life must be exceptional and transient—in our present stage of development, at any rate. Spirit consorts with spirit, and flesh with flesh; that is normal and wholesome. To overstep the boundaries is dangerous and leads to confusions. Neither side can be of use in its place if it is continually trespassing upon the other. If I had a lover, and knew that he was still alive and loved me, why should I mourn because his senses and mine function for a while under different conditions, and are themselves of a different order? If he had ceased to be, or loved me no more, that might be a cause for mourning.”