Then, having arranged the three chairs as before, across the double door between the parlours, he seated Miss Ludington and Paul, and, having turned the gas down, took the third chair.
All being ready, Alta, who was at the piano, struck the opening chords of the same soft, low music that she had played at the previous seance.
It seemed to Miss Ludington that she played much longer than before, and she began to think that either there was to be some failure in the seance, or that something had happened to Mrs.Legrand.
Perhaps she was dead.

This horrible thought, added to the strain of expectancy, affected her nerves so that in another moment she must have screamed out, when, as before, she felt a faint, cool air fan her forehead, and a few seconds later Ida appeared at the door of the cabinet and glided into the room.
She was dressed as at her former appearance, in white, with her shoulders bare, and the wealth of her golden hair falling to her waist behind.
From the moment that she emerged from the shadows of the cabinet Paul's eyes were glued to her face with an intensity quite beyond any ordinary terms of description.
Fancy having not over a minute in which to photograph upon the mind a form the recollection of which is to furnish the consolation of a lifetime.

The difficulties of securing this second seance, and the doubt that involved the obtaining of another, had deeply impressed him.

He might never again see Ida on earth, and upon the fidelity with which his memory retained every feature of her face, every line of her figure, his thoughts by day, and his dreams by night, might have to depend for their texture until he should meet her in another world.
The lingering looks that are the lover's luxury were not for these fleeting seconds.

His gaze burned upon her face and played around her form like lightning.