c,
all Herne's repulsion, his involuntary, irrepressible shrinking, was
gone. He was back once more on the other side of the gulf, and the hand
he held was the hand of a friend.

"My dear old chap!" he said very gently.

Vaguely he discerned the figure by his side. It sat huddled, mummy-like
but it held no horrors for him any longer. They were not face to face
in that moment--they were soul to soul.

"I say--Monty," stumblingly came the words, "you know--I never dreamed
of this. I thought she would have married--long ago. And she has been
waiting--all these years?"

"All these years," Herne said.

"Do you think she has suffered?" There was a certain sharpness in the
question, as if it were hard to utter.

And Herne, pledged to honesty, made brief reply:

"Yes."

There followed a pause; then:

"Will it grieve her--very badly--to know that I am dead?" asked the
voice beside him.

"Yes, it will grieve her." Herne spoke as if compelled.

"But she will get over it, eh?"

"I believe so." Herne's lips were dry; he forced them to utterance.

The free hand fastened claw-like upon his arm.

"You'll tell me the straight truth, man," said Bobby's voice in his ear.
"What if I--came to life?"

But Herne was silent. He could not bring himself to answer.

"Speak out!" urged the voice--Bobby's voice, quick, insistent, even
imploring. "Don't be afraid! I haven't any feelings left worth
considering. She wouldn't get over that, you think? No woman could!"

Herne turned in desperation, and faced his questioner.

"God knows!" he said helplessly.

Again there fell a silence, such a silence as falls in a death-chamber
at the moment of the spirit's passing. The darkness was deepening. Herne
could scarcely discern the figure by his side.

The hand upon his arm had grown slack. All vitality seemed to have gone
out of it. It was as though the spirit had passed indeed. And in the
stillness Herne knew that he was recrossing the gulf, that his
friend--the boy he had known and loved--was receding rapidly, rapidly
behind the veil of years, would soon be lost to him for ever.

The voice that spoke to him at length was the voice of a stranger.

"Remember," it said, "Bobby Duncannon is dead--has been dead for years!
Let no woman waste her life waiting for him, for he will never return!
Let her marry instead the man who wants her, and put the empty years
behind! In no other way will she find happiness."

"But you?" Herne groan