The ghostly touch is frequently described, not only in fiction but in reports of the Psychical Society as well, as being of supernatural chill or of burning heat. _Afterwards_[111] brings in the icy touch of the spirit hand. In certain cases the ghost touch leaves a burn or mark that never goes away. [111] By Fred C. Smale. Yet the touch of horror is not the only one introduced in fiction of the supernatural. There are tender and loving touches as well, expressing yearning love and a longing to communicate with the living. What could be more beautiful than the incident in _They_? "I felt my relaxed hand taken and turned softly between the soft hands of a child. The little brushing kiss fell in the center of my palm--as gift on which the fingers were _once_ expected to close--a fragment of a mute code devised very long ago." And in a similar story,[112] the woman says, "I will swear to my dying day that two little hands stole and rested--for a moment only--in mine!" Wilkie Collins speaks of his story, _The Ghost's Touch_, as follows: The course of this narrative leads the reader on new and strange ground. It describes the return of a disembodied spirit to earth--not occurring in the obscurity of midnight but in the searching light of day; neither seen as a vision nor heard as a voice--revealing itself to mortal knowledge through the sense that is least easily self-deceived, the sense that feels. [112] _A Pair of Hands_, by Quiller-Couch. The widow feels the clasp of her husband's hands, not only psychically but physically, and when she asks for a further sign, the ghost kisses her unmistakably on the lips. Another widow[113] feels her hand clasped by the hand of her husband who has mysteriously disappeared after having presumably absconded with trust funds--and knows that he is dead and seeking to give her some message. His hand gently leads her to the edge of the cliff where he has fallen over and been killed, so that she may know the truth. The lover in Poe's _Eleonora_ feels a "spiritual kiss" from the lips of his beloved. The ghost touch is an impressive motif of strength in recent fiction and marks an advance over the earlier forms, showing an access of imaginative power and psychological analysis. [113] In _Our Last Walk_, by Hugh Conway. * * * * *