st,
who loves the portrait more than the original--and possibly a very
misleading and inadequate portrait. Laurie had seen for himself the
original last night; he had seen a disembodied soul in a garb assumed
for the purpose of identification.... Did he need, then, a "religion?"
Was not his experience all-sufficing....?

Then suddenly all speculation fled away in the presence of the
personal element.

Three days ago he had contemplated the thought of Amy with comparative
indifference. She had been to him lately little more than a "test
case" of the spiritual world, clothed about with the memory of
sentiment. Now once more she sprang into vivid vital life as a person.
She was not lost; his relations with her were not just incidents of
the past; they were as much bound up with the present as courtship has
a continuity with married life. She existed--her very self--and
communication was possible between them....

Laurie rolled over on to his back. The thought was violently
overwhelming; there was a furious, absorbing fascination in it. The
gulf had been bridged; it could be bridged again. Even if tales were
true, it could be bridged far more securely yet. It was possible that
the phantom he had seen could be brought yet more forward into the
world of sense, that he could touch again with his very hand a
tabernacle enclosing her soul. So far spiritualism had not failed him;
why should he suspect it of failure in the future? It had been done
before; it could, and should, be done again. Besides, there was the
pencil incident....

He threw off the clothes and sprang out of bed. It was time to get up;
time to begin again this fascinating, absorbingly interesting earthly
life, which now had such enormous possibilities.

II

The rooms of Mr. James Morton were conveniently situated up four
flights of stairs in one of those blocks of buildings, so mysterious
to the layman, that lie not a very long way from Charing Cross. There
is a silence always here as of college life, and the place is
frequented by the same curious selections from the human race as haunt
University courts. Here are to be seen cooks, aged and dignified men,
errand-boys, and rather shabby old women.

The interior of the rooms, too, is not unlike that of an ordinary
rather second-rate college; and Mr. James Morton's taste did not
redeem the chambers in which he sat. From roof to floor the particular
apartment in which he sat was lined with bookshelves f