“But how changed she has become during the last few weeks. Sometimes I regard her with amazement and cannot believe she is the same Hannah I married! Where is her timidity--her stolidity--her implacable good humour--her fear of me and Von Steinberg, flown? She has become brisk and pert, almost dominant in her manner--and at times I catch a look in her eye, as though her soul had but just waked up and was astonished at its own power. Yet with it all, I like her better--yes! there is decidedly something that I like better in Hannah now, than when I first married her! “But this folly about assuming her title! How I wish Von Steinberg would hasten home, that he might reason her out of it!” Here, his wife’s voice summoned him to the séance chamber, and he was soon absorbed in watching for the wonders which his sittings with her revealed to him. One point had rather worried him lately, and that was the defection of his beloved Leonora, or rather, the little advance which she made towards development. Ricardo had imagined on commencing his studies in Occultism, that the apparitions would grow with the growth of his knowledge of them, and from being visible but silent, would progress in language, as in familiarity, until they would converse with him as easily as if they stood face to face on earth, or in Heaven. He had a thousand things to ask of Leonora. He yearned to ascertain where she now lived--how she employed herself--what associates she had--and how her spirit life was sustained in her; above all, by what mystical wonder, she managed to leave her Heavenly dwelling-place and visit him in the little dark chamber, which he called his séance room, and through the instrumentality of so rough and untutored a medium as Hannah Stubbs. But though he addressed such queries to the apparition of Leonora night after night, he never received any satisfactory reply. A shrug of the shoulders--a shake or nod of the head--a whispered “Yes!” or “No!” seemed to be the extent of information he could receive from her. Naturally, having been her husband, he longed to touch her again, to put his lips to hers, or to grasp the little white hand which was invariably thrust through the curtain to greet him. But such favours were sparingly accorded him. If he were permitted to touch her hand, it was only to pat the outside of it--if her face were advanced to meet his, it merely brushed his cheek, like the fluttering of a butterfly’s wing. And, as he had complained to Von Steinberg, her visits had become far less frequent than they had been at first. Strangers, in whom he felt but sparse interest, had taken her place and usurped the time and power, which he considered Leonora’s. But this evening, after an interval of several days, she appeared. Her dark eyes peeped at him through a veil of gossamer, which fell to her feet, and her lissom form swayed itself to and fro, as though loath to leave the sheltering curtain.