"But I am here!"
"For a time only, for a little space; and there is no reckoning of time in eternity. Soon you will be with me—forever."
"Paula! Would I were with you now!"
"Hush! That wish is impious."
"Ah, but think! I have the means at my command to send my soul into eternity, within the twinkling of an eye!"
"Into eternity, but not to me. Oh, my husband, there is no sin accounted so heinous as the taking of a God-given life. You must live on until your appointed hour, then come into the courts of heaven with hands unstained, with soul unsullied."
Raised to a pinnacle of exaltation which, in his normal condition, he would have deemed unattainable to one of his stanch rationality, Morton exclaimed:
"I cannot live without you! After what I have just heard, which renders my dreary existence tenfold more dreary, I will not hold myself responsible for what I may do. Oh, Paula, my wife, my wife! if you would not have me commit a crime against myself which may separate us for all eternity, come back to me!"
"I will come back to you," responded the voice.
"Oh, I do not mean enveloped in this ghostly invisibility!" he cried.