She rose from her seat, approached him, and gently laid her hand upon his arm.
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.
Eustasia sank into her chair, and, without another word, Bradley departed.
At seven o’clock that night Bradley returned, and found the sibyl waiting for him.
She was quite alone. Since the morning her manner had completely changed; her hands were trembling, her cheek was hushed, but there was a look of strange determination about her lips and in her eyes. Bradley shook hands with her, then looked around as if expecting others.
‘We are to be alone!’ she said--‘quite alone. I thought it better for you!’
For some time she made no attempt to move; at length, noticing Bradley’s impatience, she said quietly--
She rose and placed herself opposite Bradley, and fixed her eyes intently upon him. Then, at her request, he turned down the gas; they were in almost total darkness touching hands.
For some time after Bradley sat in a strange dream, scarcely conscious of anything that was taking place, and touching the outstretched hands of Eustasia with his own.
Suddenly a soft voice close to his ear murmured,--
He started from his chair, and gazed wildly about him. He could see nothing, but he could feel something stirring close to him. Then he staggered back like a drunken man, and fell back in his chair.
‘Alma!’ he cried piteously, still conscious of the medium’s trembling hands, ‘Alma, my darling, come to me!’