Clarke glowered in silence; disapproving, with manifest disdain, the levity of the scientists, and resenting bitterly Viola's growing trust and confidence in Serviss. Each moment his anger took on heat, and he found it hard to reply even to his hostess, who tried to interest him in a deeper discussion of the evening's marvels. He seemed to have but one desire--to get away and to take Viola with him. "Tell me," said Viola to Morton, "did papa speak to you?" "A voice purporting to be your father spoke a few words." "He is very nice. Didn't you think so?" "The voice was very gentle and refined, and expressed a very tender regard for you." She sighed. "I have never heard my father's voice, for he always comes when I am in my deepest trances. They say that I will be permitted some day to hear all the voices through the cone--I only hear them now in an interior way." "Do you really suffer as you seem to do?" he asked, the echo of his pity still in his tone. "Not after I am really gone. Did I groan?" "Horribly! My heart was filled with remorse--" "I'm sorry. It doesn't really hurt me--physically. You see I am perfectly well again. And yet I hate more and more to give myself up. I can't explain it, but I seem to be losing more and more of _myself_--that is the thought that scares me. I hate to think of being so helpless. It seems to me as if I were becoming like--like a hotel piano--for any one to strum on--I mean that any one in the other world--It is so crowded over there, you know!" Her brows drew together in momentary disgust. "I _don't_ know, but it must be so if all the myriads of past humanity are living there. If I had my way you would never sit again," he declared, most fervently. "I wouldn't mind so much," she went on, "if I were not marked out for suspicion--if people would only talk to me of nice earthly things part of the time as they would to any other girl--but they never do. Everybody wants to talk to me about death and spirits--" "That's what gives edge to my remorse," he interrupted. "Here am I doing the very things you abhor. To think that we who have made such a protest against your slavery could not allow you one free evening! I will not say another word on these uncanny subjects." "But I _want_ to talk of them to _you_! I wanted to tell you all about myself that day we rode up to the mine--but I could not." "I wish you had. It might have made a great deal of difference in your life--and mine. I have been thinking of that ride to-night, as we sat in the darkness. If I could, I would keep you as girlish, as gay, as you were that day. This business is all a desecration to me. I love to think of you as you were then--when you laughed back at me in the rain. I wish we were both there this minute."