on the Morning Glory when the sun warmed them. There was nothing to disturb her; she could let her soul lie open to the night and think out the cause for her disquietude.
She hated the idea of commerce between the living and the dead; there was the root of it. The strangeness of the idea made it seem unnatural. Yet where, if she examined it more closely, was the unnaturalness? Why should not loving souls who had passed that tiny rivulet called Death into the fuller life beyond be allowed to call from the other side to those they loved? Was there not something exquisite, something supremely tender in the thought that Martin, who had been but little more than a child when he died in that Swiss chalet, should tell Archie about the cache he had made under the pine-tree? It was a childish communication, it brought no message of consolation or encouragement; but it was just what Martin, had he been alive on this side of Death, might have told Archie. Besides, who knew that he did not give that as a test, as a proof of his identity, for surely nothing could have been devised so convincing? And if God willed that the dead should be able, under certain circumstances, to speak from the sunlit beyond to those who still moved among material shadows, who was she, Jessie, to question so wonderful an ordinance? And if he could speak like that to a young and innocent child, why should he not continue to speak to his brother when he grew up?
She looked elsewhere for the grounds of her repugnance, and for a moment thought she had found them. For she had once been to a séance, at the house of a professional medium, and that afternoon still was vivid and degrading in her memory. They had all sat round a table in a darkened room while the medium went into trance, and instantly ridiculous knockings and melodies from a musical-box began to resound in the gloom.
