“Perhaps,” replied Steinberg, stolidly, “but you see, I haven’t.” “But you will try again, will you not? You will come when this first alarm has subsided, and see if you cannot stand it better? I, too, felt fear when first I sat alone and watched the spirits rise from the incense I had lighted, with my own hands. But that has all gone! I am as calm now as the dead themselves! And so will you be, if you will only try again!” “_Never!_ Not for all the wealth of the Indies would I enter that accursed room of my own free will, again. I am going, Ricardo! I don’t feel well! I think the smell of the incense has upset me! Forgive me for leaving you so soon, but I shall be better at home. Good-night!” He ran hastily down the stairs as he spoke, and the Professor, ruminating on the little trust there is to be put in one’s friends in time of need, retired sadly to his bed. CHAPTER III. Signor Ricardo passed a restless night. His disappointment preyed upon his mind and robbed him of sleep. He had so long wished to ask Steinberg to join him in his pursuit of Occultism--had so depended on his assistance--and prophesied their mutual success--that the Doctor’s abject terror at his first experience, had thrown cold water on all his hopes. Leonora seemed further off than ever, and he groaned in spirit to think she might be so near, and yet he was unable to communicate with her, and ascertain if he had been right or wrong in the indulgence of his revenge. Had his dead wife stood before him then, he would hardly have known what he most desired to hear her say. If she declared her innocence, his rash act had made him doubly guilty, yet if she confessed that he had been right, she was lost to him for ever. But the Signor hardly thought of that--the burning truth was all he wished to discover. The real fact being, that Leonora had been all and much worse than he had ever believed her to be. She had been a heartless coquette of the worst dye--vain, deceitful, and self-seeking--caring nothing whom she wounded, so long as her insatiate vanity was gratified--with no thought, so long as she gained her cause, over whose dead bodies she trampled on her road to Victory. She had been guilty with Lorenzo Centi, and half-a-dozen other men, and the death-blow which her husband’s dagger gave her, was the very smallest punishment which she deserved. Yet Ricardo was not satisfied. With Leonora, whom he had so fondly worshipped, dead, his belief in her iniquity had died also, and all his fear was, lest he had slain a woman who loved him as much as he loved her. And he knew of no way by which his doubts could be laid to rest, except by bringing her back from the grave to tell him the truth with her own lips.