"I see the light, but no hand," he replied.
"I can see more. I see the dim form of an old man outlined on the wall. It must be your grandsire, Nelson Blodgett. Am I right?" she asked, apparently of the dark.
Victor could now perceive a thin, bluish, wavering shape, like a cloud of cigar smoke, and from this a whisper seemed to come, strong and clear. "_Yes, I have come to speak to my grandson._"
"Don't you see him now?" asked Mrs. Joyce.
"I see nothing," he repeated; and as he spoke the misty shape vanished.
"But you heard the whisper, did you not?" Mrs. Joyce persisted.
He did not reply to her, but rose and bent above his mother. "Mother, did you speak?" he asked.
Mrs. Joyce excitedly restrained him. "Sit down! You must not touch her now."
"Because it is very dangerous while the spirits are using her organism."
"I don't know what you mean!" he retorted, angrily. "I know that that voice sounded exactly like my mother's voice, and I want to know--"
"_Silence, foolish boy!_" was sternly breathed into his ear.
A cloud passed over the sky, and as the room became perfectly black a fluttering gray-blue cloud developed out of the darkest corner. It had the movement of steam-wreaths, with each convolution faintly edged with light. At one moment it resembled a handful of lines, fine as cobweb, looping and waving, as if blown upward from below, and the next moment it floated past like the folds of some exquisite drapery, lifting and falling in gentle undulations. At last it rose to the height of a man, drifted across the bed, and there hung poised over the head of the sleeper. As it swung there for an instant Victor could plainly detect a man's figure and face. His eyelids were closed and his features vague, but his chin and the spread of his shoulders were clearly defined. "Who are you?" Victor demanded, as if the apparition were an intruder.
The answer came in a flat, toneless voice, neither male nor female in quality. "_I am your father._"
Victor leaped up impulsively, his hair on end with fright, and the apparition vanished precisely as though an open door had been closed between it and the observer.
Again Mrs. Joyce clutched him. "Be careful! Sit down; don't stir!"
"Somebody is playing a joke on me," he insisted, hotly. "I'm going to strike a light."