“In one of his trances he wrote and delivered to me a sealed communication, purporting to be from the spirit world, hinting,—barely hinting,—among other things, infidelity on the part of my wife. I waited until the other guests had gone, and then I called the wretch to one side and told him what I thought of him, and bade him never set foot, under any pretense, within my doors again. “I told my wife I had forbidden the fellow the house because he was disagreeable to me, and she seemed more pleased than otherwise at what I had done and said she, too, participated in my growing dislike of him. I hoped then I had seen the last of him. “A short time after this my wife was summoned by telegram to visit her mother, who was ill, and left home, taking with her the children, my business being such as to prevent my accompanying her. “While she was gone two letters came to the house addressed to her and I noticed the superscription resembled the chirography of the Doctor. I wondered what he could have to say to her, but laid the letters aside unopened, thinking it unnecessary to forward them, and that I would deliver them to her upon her return and satisfy myself as to their contents. I own I had some curiosity, as I could not imagine a reason for correspondence with the villain. One evening, just before her return, as I was turning over some papers in the writing-desk, a letter fell out addressed in the same peculiar handwriting. It had been opened, and this time my curiosity overcame my scruples of honor, and I opened it and read a most impassioned love-letter to my wife, signed ‘Devotedly yours, Z. T.,’ which I could only interpret Zenas Teasdale. “I hesitated no longer to open and devour the contents of the two letters which had come to her later, and before I had finished, the characters traced in ink had burned into my very soul, and my tongue was parched with a thirst that water could not quench. The words stood before my gaze like demon eyes. “The first letter spoke of the pleasure the writer had received in the perusal of my wife’s last ‘white-winged message of love’ and quoted from her letter sentences about the ‘bear that growled around her hearthstone’ meaning me—and other like extravagant expressions, and concluded by assuring her of his never-dying affection, and hope of their ultimate union in spiritland, where no disagreeable tyrant should ever presume to forbid them the pleasure of each other’s company. “The second letter, written three days later, chided her with her long delay in answering, and informed her that the writer had received a communication from the invisible world to the effect that the obstacle in their way was about to be removed, and pictured the delights in store for them.