"It was a dream, Phil. It was fever. Try to realise what you are saying!"
"I do. The next evening I lay watching; and I saw a figure reflected in the mirror. It was not yet dusk. Celia, in the sunset light I saw her standing by the curtains. But it was star-light before she came to the bed and looked down at me.
"I said very quietly: 'Mother dear!' Then she spoke to me; and I knew she was speaking, but I could not hear her voice. . . . It was that way while she stood beside me—I could not hear her, Celia. I could not hear what she was saying. It was no spirit I saw—no phantom from the dead there by my bed, no ghost—no restless wraith, grave-driven through the night. I believe she is living. She knows I believe it. . . . As you sat here, a moment ago, reading to me, I saw her reflected for a moment in the mirror behind you, passing into the room beyond. Her hair is perfectly white, Celia—or," he said vaguely to himself, "was it something she wore?—like the bandeaux of the Sisters of Charity——"
The lighted candle fell from Celia's nerveless fingers and rolled over and over across the floor, trailing a smoking wick. Berkley's hand steadied her trembling arm.
"Why are you frightened?" he asked calmly.
"There is nothing dead about what I saw."
"I c-can't he'p myse'f," stammered Celia; "you say such frightful things to me—you tell me that they happen in my own house—in her own room—How can I be calm? How can I believe such things of—of Constance Berkley—of yo' daid mother——"
"I don't know," he said dully.
The star-light sparkled on the silver candle-stick where it lay on the floor in a little pool of wax. Quivering all over, Celia stooped to lift, relight it, and set it on the table. And, over her shoulder, he saw a slim shape enter the doorway.
"Mother dear?" he whispered.