vided they are to be
seen. It requires people of a certain organization--with a spiritual
eye, as it were. We haven't all got that--in fact, I think very few of
us have. I dare say you think I'm talking nonsense."

"Well, yes, I think you are. You really surprise me, Mary. I always
thought you the least likely person in the world to take up with such
ideas. Something must have come under your observation to develop such
theories in your practical head. Tell me what it was."

"To what purpose? You would remain as sceptical as ever."

"Possibly not. Try me; I may be convinced."

"No," returned Mrs. Sefton calmly. "Nobody ever is convinced by
hearsay. When a person has once seen a spirit--or thinks he has--he
thenceforth believes it. And when somebody else is intimately
associated with that person and knows all the circumstances--well, he
admits the possibility, at least. That is my position. But by the time
it gets to the third person--the outsider--it loses power. Besides, in
this particular instance the story isn't very exciting. But then--it's
true."

"You have excited my curiosity. You must tell me the story."

"Well, first tell me what you think of this. Suppose two people, both
sensitively organized individuals, loved each other with a love
stronger than life. If they were apart, do you think it might be
possible for their souls to communicate with each other in some
inexplicable way? And if anything happened to one, don't you think
that that one could and would let the spirit of the other know?"

"You're getting into too deep waters for me, Mary," I said, shaking my
head. "I'm not an authority on telepathy, or whatever you call it. But
I've no belief in such theories. In fact, I think they are all
nonsense. I'm sure you must think so too in your rational moments."

"I dare say it is all nonsense," said Mrs. Sefton slowly, "but if you
had lived a whole year in the same house with Miriam Gordon, you would
have been tainted too. Not that she had 'theories'--at least, she
never aired them if she had. But there was simply something about the
girl herself that gave a person strange impressions. When I first met
her I had the most uncanny feeling that she was all spirit--soul--what
you will! no flesh, anyhow. That feeling wore off after a while, but
she never seemed like other people to me.

"She was Mr. Sefton's niece. Her father had died when she was a child.
When Miriam was twenty her mother had married a sec