n the mother's confession.

The disclosure of her powers, as he told Dr. Britt--after they were
both involved in the curious case--came violently, without warning, a
few days after Adele's death. "I was sitting with Mrs. Lambert in sad
conversation, seeking her aid and comfort. Viola occupied a low chair
beside the shaded lamp, a book upon her knee. She was listening to me.
I had just finished saying, in deeply passionate tones, 'I would give
all my hope of life for one whisper from the lips of my Adele,' when
the room began to darken. At first I thought the effect lay in my own
brain, but a moment later I perceived that the light had actually
begun to fail. We all watched it in silence for a moment, then Mrs.
Lambert remarked, 'Viola, Mary forgot to fill the lamp.'

"Even as she spoke a cool wind blew over my head and lay along my
hands. The flame leaped into the air, the room went black, save where
a pale glow coming from the street lay upon the floor. A faint
rustling arose, a hand touched my cheek, soft lips brushed my ear, and
a whisper that stopped the beating of my heart began. A vague,
inarticulate murmur, at first; but at last I plainly heard my
spirit-wife speaking in gentle reproof--'Tony, Tony, I am always with
you.'

"The whisper ceased. The hand was taken away. A deep sigh came to my
ear. My Adele was gone! The moment of ecstasy was over. I sat stunned,
inert, my brain whirling with the far-reaching import of this
experience. Before I could drag myself to my feet Mrs. Lambert,
practical and undisturbed, threw open the door and let the light of
the street in. Only then, as I looked on Viola, lying in trance with
white, set face, did I first connect her in any way with my sweet
communion with Adele.

"Then, like a flash of joyous light irradiating my soul, came the
conviction that she was the medium through whom my Adele had
spoken--that she had opened the gates of silence for me.

"I was no longer body--I was a brain suspended in some invisible sea
of force. Here was the reality of religion. Here was the answer to the
anguished cry of humanity--an answer to my prayers which the Hebrew
Scriptures could not give. There _was_ a life beyond the grave. The
spirit _did_ persist after the decay of the body. And here in this
little room, when my despair was deepest, the proof had come, blinding
me with its beauty.

"Then I said: 'Viola, you have given me the most wonderful moment of
all my life. You brought