Even in hell, however, there are moments when the intensity of the suffering is, for a narrow space of time at least, relaxed, and when the anguish-stricken spirit is mercifully allowed a temporary reprieve. Such a moment occurred after the first awful paroxysm of self-loathing and torture which I experienced when my past life was made known to me in its true colours, and it was in this saner, and comparatively painless interval, that I met in the spirit realm one whom I had known and honoured on earth as a woman of the purest life and character. Being still under the impression that I was in "hell" in the sense in which I had been accustomed to think of that place, I started back upon seeing her, and hardly noticing her words of greeting, cried out in astonishment, "You here! _You!_ and in Hades!" "Where else should I be except where _he_ is?" she answered quietly, adding, as she observed my look of evident perplexity, "It is Arthur, of course, of whom I speak." I remembered then that when I had known her first, her only living relative was a worthless brother of that name, to whom she was passionately attached, but who had been dead so long that I had hardly any recollection of him. Before I could question her further, I suppose she saw something in my face which told her all that was necessary to be known of my own story, for she suddenly burst into tears, and taking both my hands in her own with a gesture of compassionate grief, exclaimed, "Forgive me my foolish and selfish forgetfulness! Oh, I am so, so sorry!" It was from her that I first gathered that even for me there was yet hope, and it was from her lips that I learned much of that which I have to tell of the spirit-world.