“The second night after he died,” she went on, a far-away look in her eyes, “he came to me in a dream. He assured me that he was happy, and that I must be so, too, and that he would always be with me, nearer, in more perfect communion, than if he had remained alive. It was just when Dr. Yarrow was beginning his experiments to establish communication with the other world. Stanley and I had been most interested. And when he appeared to me after his death he explained that he had been able, through the intensity of his love for me, to pierce the barrier and bring his soul and my soul face to face.” Frothingham showed that he was profoundly moved. “When I was a little chap,” he said in a low voice, “I ran bang into the ghost of an ancestor of mine--old Hoel de Beauvais. He has paced a hall in the east wing of Beauvais House the night before the head of the family dies, for hundreds of years. They laughed me out of it, but, by gad, I knew I saw him--and my grandfather was thrown from his horse and killed the next day. I pretend not to believe in that sort of thing, but I do--all we English do.” “Nothing could be more certain,” said Cecilia, radiant at this prompt acceptance of what she expected him to try to laugh her out of. “I have told no one--I shouldn’t have told you if it hadn’t seemed the only course I could honestly take.” “Can you see him now?” asked Frothingham in an awe-stricken voice. “No--I _see_ him only in dreams--and sometimes when I go to Mrs. Ramsay. But we talk together at any time. You noticed how he stopped teasing the horse?” The horse was, indeed, perfectly quiet. Frothingham nodded. His habitual look of vacancy and satire had given place to earnestness and intense interest. “And does he wish you to marry?” he asked. “Yes--he has said it, and he has written it--in one of the first letters he sent me through Mrs. Ramsay. I’ve only asked him verbally about you, and he consents and approves. I’ll take you to Mrs. Ramsay, and we’ll get his written permission.” “But why does he consent?” asked Frothingham. “Is there no--no jealousy--_there_?” “Jealousy? Impossible! Don’t you see, he can look into my soul--he knows that I am his. And all the interest he has in this gross mortal life of mine is that it shall be honourable and that I shall do my duty as a daughter and as a woman.”