"This hitherto unseen face had a wan and mournful beauty which at once changed my feelings from apathy to interest. The eyes were of a lovely blue, and were remarkable for that translucent brilliancy which is rarely seen after childhood; the features were delicate to attenuation, and, in the faint light, the cheeks looked hollow and colourless, and even the lips were of a sickly pallor. The loveliness of those large ethereal eyes counterbalanced all want of life and colour in the rest of the face, which, had those eyes been hidden under lowered lids, might have seemed the face of the dead. I looked at it, awe-stricken. Its presence had in one instant transformed the scene of vulgar imposture to a temple and a shrine. I watched and waited, spell-bound.
"There were subdued whisperings round the table, and a general excitement and expectancy which indicated the beginning of a more enthralling performance than the vagabond rappings on table and wainscot, or even the furtive and flying touch of smooth cold hands.
"For some minutes, for an interval that seemed much longer than it really was, nothing happened.
"The face looked at us—or, rather, looked beyond us; the pale lips were parted as in prayer or invocation; the long yellow hair streaming over the shoulders gleamed faintly in the dim, uncertain light, which came and went from some mysterious source. The door opening on the entrance hall was behind my side of the table, and I have little doubt that the curiously soft and searching light, which fluttered every now and then across the circle and lingered on the face opposite, was manipulated by some one outside the door.
"Presently there came a shower of raps—here, there, everywhere, on ceiling, wainscot, doors, above our heads, under our feet—while a strain of organ music, so softly played as to seem remote, crept into the room, and increased the confusion of our senses, distracted past endurance by those meaningless rappings.
"Suddenly a young woman at the end of the table gave a hysterical cry.
"'She is rising, she is rising!' she said. 'Oh, to think of it, to think of it! To think how He rose—He whom they had slain—and vanished from the loving eyes of His disciples! She is like the angels who gather round His throne. Who can doubt now?'
"'It's humbug, and we all know it's humbug,' grumbled the sea-dog on my right. 'But it's clever humbug; and it isn't easy to catch them napping.'
"'Hush!' said the professor's wife indignantly. 'Watch her, and be silent.'
"We watched. I had not once taken my eyes from that pale, spiritual face, with the eyes that had a look of seeing things in an immeasurable distance—the things that are not of this earth. Suddenly the dreamy tranquillity of the countenance changed to violent emotion, an ecstatic smile parted the pale lips, and, for the first time since I had been conscious of her presence, those exquisite lips spoke.