er forehead. And, at the unfelt contact, the
light again sprang into her eyes.

"Can't you see I'm trying to help you, Katje?" he begged. "Can't you
even hope? Come, come! _Hope!_ Why, anybody can hope. It is the very
easiest and most natural thing on earth. Especially when one is
young--as you and I are. What _is_ Youth but perpetual Hope?"

The light in her eyes deepened. Her look strayed again to the closed
office door. She rose and took a step toward it, then turned, passed her
hand caressingly over the flowers on the desk, and moved over to the
piano.

She seated herself on the music stool and, for the first time in ten
endless days, let her fingers stray over the keys. In a hushed little
voice she began to sing:

"The bird so free in the heavens
Is but the slave of the nest.
For all things must toil as God wills it,
Must laugh and toil and rest.
The rose must bloom in the garden,
The bee must gather its store.
The cat must watch the mousehole,
And the dog must guard the door."

"Oh!" she broke off in sudden self-reproach. "How _can_ I sit here
singing,--at a time like this!"

"Sing!" urged the Dead Man. "Why not? Why not at a time like this as
well as at any other time? Is it because you are afraid you are not
being sad enough at losing me? You _haven't_ lost me. Nothing is ever
lost. The old uncle you loved doesn't sleep out in the churchyard dust.
That is only a dream. He is _here_--alive! More alive than ever he was.
A thousandfold more alive. All his age and weaknesses and faults are
gone. Youth is glowing in his heart. He is bathed in it. It radiates
from him. Eternal Youth that no one still on earth can know. Oh, little
girl of mine, if only I could tell you what is ahead of you! It's the
wonderful secret of the Universe. And you _won't_ hear me? You won't
understand?"

Still smiling, but without turning toward the loving, eager Spirit close
beside her, Kathrien was looking out into the fragrant June dusk. Peter
Grimm shrugged his shoulders.

"I must try some other way of making you hear," said he.

He looked up at the closed door of Willem's sick room for a moment, then
nodded.

"Here comes some one," he announced, with the old whimsical twist of his
lips, "who will know all about it. The secrets of the other world are as
plain as day to him. He has told me so himself."

CHAPTER XIV

"I CAN'T GET IT ACROSS"

The door of Willem's room opened, and Dr. McPherson cam