on of despair, disillusion,
rage, were expressed for a moment within him by an emotion of
supernatural awe which sent the tremors running from his face to his
spine, and his spine to his feet. She stood a perfect phantom of the
night, like Annette called back from the dead.

The pillar of dull light was moving now. She had stooped; he heard a
faint creak, he imagined that he felt new air. Suddenly, too, a voice
which had been droning far away became audible. And now the pillar of
light was sinking, sinking through the floor. The feet were gone, the
torso; the star of light was level with the floor, was gone. He was
looking into darkness.

Mrs. Markham's controlled, vibrant voice rose clearly from below--he
caught every word:

"Come, Helen; be strong. He loves you. His love calls you!"

Silence for a quarter of a minute; then a swish as of garments agitated
by some swift motion; then Annette's well-remembered contralto voice of
a boy--Annette's voice, which had spoken such things to him--

"_Robert, dearest, I have come again. Robert, I keep for you out here
the little ring. Robert, we will be happy!_"

And the voice of a man, sobbing and breaking between the exclamatives:

"_My little Lallie--Dear Helen--how long I've waited--sweetheart--how
many years!_"

And the voice of Annette.

"_Only a few more years to wait, dearest--and now that you have faith,
I can come to you sometimes--but, oh, dearest, I foresee a danger--a
great danger!_"

Ten minutes later, Rosalie tiptoed from the library from which she had
observed the seance to the last detail of method, and made her way to
the closet wherein she had shut Dr. Blake. She opened the door with all
precaution, fumbled, found nothing, whispered. No one answered. At last
she stepped within, plugged the keyhole with her key, and lit a match.

The closet was empty.

Rosalie crept upstairs to her own room. When she lit the gas, she was
crying softly and--as of old habit under emotional stress--talking to
herself under her breath.

"I had to do it," she whispered. "He'd believe nothin' but his eyes!"

She sat down then, and surveyed her belongings. "The job's over. What
whelps it makes people--just to touch this business!"

XII

ANNETTE LIES

Blake rose from a night of protracted, dull suffering; of quick rages;
of hideous, unrelieved despairs. When the day came and the city roared
about him again, the habits of life reasserted themselves. He rose,