“Oh, how awful it is for Mark to do such a thing!� said Lissa severely. “I wonder he does not receive some terrible punishment. I am sure he will if he is not more believing. I pity Alice.�
Nathan felt like retorting that he pitied Mark, but he forbore.
“I confess,� he said, “I did feel as if Russell was almost sacrilegious in assuming to duplicate one of Christ’s miracles, but I can see no harm in Mark’s exposing the means employed.�
“One thing, Nathan, I want to speak of now, while I think of it. If I should die first, I will, if there is such a thing as the spirit returning to earth—come back to you. Now let us determine upon a test, and see how I shall come in such a way as to be convincing to you if you are left behind. We will tell no living soul what it is. Then if one of us goes and can fulfil the conditions, there can be no doubt in the other’s mind of its genuineness. If I go first and give you the test, you will have no doubt my disembodied spirit is near you.�
Nathan looked thoughtfully at his wife.
“Your idea is a good one, but God knows I don’t like to think of a time when it could be tested. Still, it might be a satisfaction to the one that is left.�
Then they planned a test that should never again be spoken aloud or imparted to another person.
“There would be danger from the mind-reader, even in this,� Nathan said to himself. “He might surmise the secret and make use of it to deceive. Ah, how can we know the truth?�
The next morning the white snow had covered and shut in all the outer world, and so filled the air that they could only get to the stables by tying themselves to ropes, and the cold was so intense that many of the fowls froze upon their perches in the coops.