She rose from her seat, approached him, and gently laid her hand upon his arm.
‘Mr. Bradley,’ she said, ‘what is it?’
He passed his hand across his brow as if to dispel a dream, and looked at her curiously.
‘Eustasia,’ he said, using for the first time her Christian name, ‘speak the truth to me to-day; tell me, is all this real?’
‘Is what real?’ she asked, trembling. His presence made her faint, and the sound of her name, as he had spoken it, rang continually in her ears.
‘Is it not all a lie? Tell me that what you have done once you can do again; that you can bring me once more into the presence of the spirit of her I love!’
‘Of her you love?’ said the girl, fixing her large eyes wistfully upon his face. ‘What—what do you want me to do?’
‘Prove that it is not all a lie and a cheat: if you are a true woman, as I trust, I want you to bring back to me the spirit of my darling who is dead!’
She shrank for a moment from him, a sickening feeling of despair clouding all her senses; then she bowed her head.
‘When will you come?’ she said.