Geraldine did not come. I waited heart-broken for her. Would she come? The old man surely would not keep her. He was a pretty good fellow, after all--he is devoted to our youngest daughter now. I thought he certainly might bring her. I did not go out I could not bear to leave my lonesome looking body in the coffin. I had no heart for further adventures, anyway. I was intensely cramped from lying so long in one position. When I die I am going to be cremated; no more coffins for me. My wife says, however, she will not hear of that. Geraldine told me afterwards that she passed the day in longing for me to come and take her away, and wondering why I did not, besides being continually impressed with a premonition that something was going to happen. Finally, toward night on the second day of my anomalous situation, Mary--good and faithful Mary--bethought herself to go and tell Geraldine. On hearing the news that noble girl promptly fainted. She recovered herself, however, and through Mary's aid managed to get out of the house and come down to see me. I was looking at myself very dejectedly in the parlor, half dead from loss of sleep, hunger, and thirst, and wholly crazy from loss of love and my dreadful prospects,--I surmised they would bury me to-morrow,--when I heard the outside door open, a familiar and yet nervous step sounded in the hall, and then the parlor door opened. I had recognized the step; it was Geraldine, but how changed! I forgot myself and my trouble, and as she threw herself down on her knees and clasped me in her arms and kissed me, I suffered for her agony a thousand times worse than for mine. Great heavens! Was ever man in such a predicament? I bent over her in despair, and as she turned her face up in prayer, I kissed her lips again. She sprang to her feet and screamed,-- "Oh, he is not dead! I am sure of it! I felt him kiss me! I cannot be mistaken! Mary, send for papa, and tell him to bring his newest and most powerful storage battery along. I am sure Harry is not dead; hurry, hurry!" So it was from Geraldine herself that this new idea of torture emanated. Oh, why could they not let a disembodied spirit alone in its peaceful misery? An electric battery could do no good, and it would be worse than the burnt feather. Old Mr. Holabird was an electrician and an enthusiast. He would have sacrificed his best friend to an experiment, and consequently did not hesitate to come and practice upon me, whom he hated so bitterly previous to the unfortunate dissolution of partnership between my body and spirit. He was soon in the parlor with a servant following him bringing the battery. He was angry and astonished at seeing Geraldine, but his experiment was too engrossing for much time to be wasted upon her then.