The sisters retired early, although there was no sleep for either of them for hours. Clare won her sister’s confidence at last; Margaret confided to her the reason for the “no” that should have been “yes.” Ned’s obsession by the determined spirit of Clifford Bentley had been so plainly discernible by the girl that she had refused to marry him, because she felt it would not have been Ned she was marrying, but the intruding personality of that long-dead childhood sweetheart. The horror of the situation had been too much for her self-control. The bizarre idea of becoming the wife of two men in one body had forced from her that decisive, agonized negative.

Clare calmed her as best she might, both girls prayed together, and about half past 11 they fell asleep, exhausted by their emotions.

It was, as the girls ascertained afterward, shortly after midnight that Margaret awoke from troubled dreams. The room was in partial darkness. As she shook off her drowsiness, she became aware of arms about her, and a face that pressed close against her own. The thought flashed through her gratefully that her sister had been watching and praying over her; she turned her lips to meet those others that sought hers.

The kiss undeceived her; that was no sister’s kiss!

With convulsive nervous force Margaret drew herself away from the arms that had been holding her and sat up in bed, half dazed. For an instant she imagined that the events of the afternoon had been a dream, and that it was the kiss of her young husband that had just been pressed upon her lips. And then she knew that it was no dream.

The soft light of the night lamp fell upon the face of a young man, a complete stranger, who in his turn rose from the kneeling posture he had been maintaining by the side of her bed. Although she had never seen that face as an adult face, the terrified girl knew intuitively that she was looking upon the features of Clifford Bentley, who had succeeded at last in making himself visible and tangible.

She felt her senses slipping weakly from her control. She was convinced that this would be fatal, as she had not the slightest confidence in the kindly intentions of that dead lover from the unknown world. With all her might she gripped at courage and stared that dead-alive entity squarely in the deep eyes that burned passionately upon her with a significance that froze the coursing blood in her veins; Margaret Sloane was no coward, but she had never shaken and trembled as she did that night, in the throes of an unearthly fear.

“What do you want?” she managed to whisper through dry lips.

“You!”

“Why do you come back to torment me? That was a child’s silly promise—you cannot hold me to it.”

“I can—and will!” The apparition, doubly terrible because of its tangibility, moved toward her.