Having obtained the consent of my father, he began taking off my shoes and then my socks. I blushed crimson; at least my spiritual entity did. My physical body, I must confess, betrayed no evidence of shame at the exposure; and before Geraldine, too! Mary and father and the rest of the family looked on with anxiety and little apparent faith. Geraldine stood beside me, resting one hand against my breast and looking at me as if not to lose the faintest sign of life I might show. Her father, all business and energy, attached the wires with a reckless want of ceremony; I thought in wretchedly bad taste. I must confess I hoped for the result of this experiment but faintly; however, there might be something in it, so I stood with my arm around Geraldine and my head resting upon her shoulder--spiritually, of course--as the connection was made. I was quiet enough for just one-millionth of a second, till I felt the power of the current. It was awful; worse than any other experiment. I groaned in anguish while that fiendish old man made the current stronger and stronger, and that miserably placid body of mine lay there as calm and as unfeeling as a log, while I was in torment. I flew at the old man, clinched my hands in his hair, grasped him around the throat, did everything, and yet had to bear a current strong enough to have killed a dozen men, added to which was the anguish of feeling my last hope vanish. I was doomed! The scientific fervor of old Holabird was at last satisfied, and he allowed the current to die down to one of much less intensity, merely keeping, as he said, a little on in case of an emergency. A little! It felt like ten toothaches run into one, but was so much less than before that it seemed almost like a caress in the first moment of relief. While I was standing there helplessly, wondering what they would do with me, the old man walked up to Geraldine, who stood wringing her hands, looking at me, with her last hope gone, too, poor girl! and said,-- "Come, Geraldine, we must go; the man is dead." "Liar!" I shouted; but no one heard me. "And there is no use staying here," he continued; "I tell you you must come. I promised John Haverford that you would see him to-night. He asked me for your hand, and I consented to-day." Oh, I could have begged him to turn on the electricity again; each pang fate had in store for me was worse than before. Geraldine answered gloriously,-- "But _I_ have not consented." "What difference? I say you shall marry him!" he said, grasping her wrist. "And I say I will not! I will be faithful to my dear dead Harry here!" "Nonsense! You shall marry Haverford! You must!" At this moment a strange thing occurred. Geraldine wrenched herself away from her father, threw herself upon the physical half of me, and whispered, "I'll die with him first!"