“You say you seem to have heard dance-music in a dream?�
“Yes, I have a feeling as though I had been floating up in the air and hearing music. A sort of dim remembrance of a dream. Oh, if mamma would never compel me to see him again! I shall leave home and go where he shall never find me if that man continues to come to our house. He is so detestable! I hate him!� And the girl shuddered and again covered her face with her hands.
“I have told mamma so, but she will not listen to me. She is wholly wrapped up in the belief of spirits, and in Russell.�
“Your dislike is very strong to be based only upon this power he has of making you dance hypnotically,� Mark said. “Are you just to him?�
“I have reasons enough for my dislike of him,� Esther replied, compressing her lips. “And what am I to do if my own mother will not listen to me? Think of being subject to the power of such a man. I believe him thoroughly unprincipled, and—�
“The villain! If he dares!� Mark ground his teeth.
Here Lissa put her head in at the door.
“Come, Mark,� she whispered, “Professor Russell is writing messages.�
Mark stepped quietly into the sitting-room just as the Professor, who sat at a small table scrawling with a pencil a profusion of characters on a sheet of writing-paper, finished it and paused, while the paper was passed from hand to hand for examination.
At first nothing could be made of it. Finally some one discovered it was addressed to Lissa. Another read it Alice, and still another Anna.