Did she, perhaps--here an electric shock ran through me at the very thought--did she feel for me _exactly_ in the same way as I felt for her? Oh, rapture! and I tried to persuade myself that she did, for the thought comforted me. "Ah, Maud, Maud," I muttered to myself, in the midst of my reverie. At that moment I heard the door handle move. "Confound that box-keeper," muttered I. "What can he want, coming to disturb my meditation?" The door opened, and I turned my head to see who it was. Gentlemen, will you believe it? It was Maud, again dressed exactly the same as before. I started, and my blood ran cold, my hair stood on end, my teeth chattered, and my knees knocked together. I essayed to speak, but my tongue refused to give utterance to what I wished to say. I was then in the presence, nay close to, a supernatural essence bearing the lineaments of Maud, whose body I knew for certain to be at her country seat, nearly a hundred miles away. The figure gave me a friendly look of recognition, and seated itself. I fancied it offered me its hand, but I was too dumbfounded to accept it, and remained stupefied. At length this excessive feeling of terror began to wear off, and I ventured to say, in a low tone, broken with emotion, "Maud, is it really you? Speak." "William," said a voice proceeding from the lips of the figure, but which sounded as if it came from a long way off, "William!" And there was the deepest pathos in the tone. It was the first time I had been called thus by Maud. When she was in the body she always called me Mr. Blackdeed. I waited for some moments to hear if the voice would say more. After a long pause it spoke again, and said, "You called me. Wherefore?" "Called you, Maud!" said I. "I called you not." "The concentration of your thoughts has had the power to command my spirit from afar," said the figure. "Is it so?" said I. "And can you not battle against such commands?" The figure replied not, save by a look, which seemed to say, "When you command, no." I understood the look, and felt flattered by its meaning, but knew not how to respond, so I was silent for some moments. At length I said, "Maud--if I may call you Maud--tell me, do you suffer much when withdrawn from the body?" "Less out of it than in it," was the reply. "How so?" I asked. "You know how I stand with my family," she said. "True, true," I observed; "and this must cause you great pain. However, I hope in time----" "Never, never," she replied with a sigh. "Oh, why not? Do you not wish to live happily with them?" "Oh, how willingly!" "Then let me see if I cannot make matters a little smooth for you. Perhaps----" She shook her head doubtfully, and said, "I feel as if I did not belong to them nor they to me; in fact, I feel as if I never belonged to anybody, nor ever should." "And never should!" exclaimed I. "Why, you do not mean to say that--that--you never intend to marry?" "I fear I should make but an indifferent wife."