But she had not fainted there; she had lived through its thunder-rains, its arid blasts of withering dust, its quivering quicksands, and its mirage-like meadows gay with deceitful, poisonous flowers.

At last she had reached the mountain slopes of Truth to travel up them higher--ever higher, till she won their topmost peak, where the sun shone undimmed and the pure air blew; whence the world seemed far away and heaven very near.

Yes, and from that heaven she had called down the spirit of her lost sister, and thenceforward was content and sure.
She had called down the spirit of her sister.

Was it not written in the pages which she thought that no eye but hers would see?
Well, if such spirits were, hers--Stella's--must be also.

And if they could be made apparent, why should not hers share their qualities?
Morris paused in his swift walk and trembled: "I will be near you always." For aught he knew she was near him now--present, perhaps, in this very room.