... And in spite of the assurances he had received, even
at the hands of his own senses, that this was indeed the same girl
that he had known on earth, there was a strange awe mingled with his
old rather shallow passion. There were moments, as he sat alone in his
rooms at night, when it rose almost to terror; just as there were
other moments when awe vanished for a while, and his whole being was
flooded with an extraordinary ecstatic semi-earthly happiness at the
thought that he and she could yet speak with one another.... Imagine,
if you please, a child who on returning home finds that his mother has
become Queen, and meets her in the glory of ermine and diadem....
But the real deciding point--which, somehow, he knew must come--the
moment at which these conflicting notes should become a chord, was
fixed for Sunday evening next. Up to now he had had evidence of her
presence, he had received intelligible messages, though fragmentary
and half stammered through the mysterious veil, he had for an instant
or two looked upon her face; but the real point, he hoped, would come
in two days. The public _seances_ had not impressed him. He had been
to three or four of these in a certain road off Baker Street, and had
been astonished and disappointed.
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