or disbelief has nothing to
do with it. Yes, I have had a message. I know that some accident has
happened to Sidney--painful and inconvenient but not particularly
dangerous. I do not know what it is. Sidney will write me that. He
writes when it is absolutely necessary.'

"'Aerial communication isn't perfected yet then?' I said
mischievously. But, observing how really worried she seemed, I added,
'Don't fret, Miriam. You may be mistaken.'

"Well, two days afterwards she got a note from her lover--the first I
had ever known her to receive--in which he said he had been thrown
from his horse and had broken his left arm. It had happened the very
morning Miriam received her message.

"Miriam had been with us about eight months when one day she came into
my room hurriedly. She was very pale.

"'Sidney is ill--dangerously ill. What shall I do?'

"I knew she must have had another of those abominable messages--or
thought she had--and really, remembering the incident of the broken
arm, I couldn't feel as sceptical as I pretended to. I tried to cheer
her, but did not succeed. Two hours later she had a telegram from her
lover's college chum, saying that Mr. Claxton was dangerously ill with
typhoid fever.

"I was quite alarmed about Miriam in the days that followed. She
grieved and fretted continually. One of her troubles was that she
received no more messages; she said it was because Sidney was too ill
to send them. Anyhow, she had to content herself with the means of
communication used by ordinary mortals.

"Sidney's mother, who had gone to nurse him, wrote every day, and at
last good news came. The crisis was over and the doctor in attendance
thought Sidney would recover. Miriam seemed like a new creature then,
and rapidly recovered her spirits.

"For a week reports continued favourable. One night we went to the
opera to hear a celebrated prima donna. When we returned home Miriam
and I were sitting in her room, chatting over the events of the
evening.

"Suddenly she sat straight up with a sort of convulsive shudder, and
at the same time--you may laugh if you like--the most horrible feeling
came over me. I didn't see anything, but I just felt that there was
something or someone in the room besides ourselves.

"Miriam was gazing straight before her. She rose to her feet and held
out her hands.

"'Sidney!' she said.

"Then she fell to the floor in a dead faint.

"I screamed for Dick, rang the bell and rushed to her