"There's Sypher's Cure--"

"My dear Mr. Sypher!" she laughed protestingly.

"Oh," said he, "you are helping it on more than you imagine. I'm going
through a rough time, but with you behind me, as I told you before, I know
I shall win. If I turn my head round, when I'm sitting at my desk, I have a
kind of fleeting vision of you hovering over my chair. It puts heart and
soul into me, and gives me courage to make desperate ventures."

"As I'm only there in the spirit, it doesn't matter whether the bodily I
is in Nunsmere or Los Angeles."

"How can I tell?" said he, with one of his swift, clear glances. "I meet
you in the body every week and carry back your spirit with me. Zora
Middlemist," he added abruptly, after a pause, "I implore you not to leave
me."

He leaned his arm on the mantelpiece from which Septimus had knocked the
little china dog, and looked down earnestly at her, as she sat on the
chintz-covered sofa behind the tea-table. At her back was the long casement
window, and the last gleams of the wintry sun caught her hair. To the man's
visionary fancy they formed an aureole.

"Don't go, Zora."

She was silent for a long, long time, as if held by the spell of the man's
pleading. Her face softened adorably and a tenderness came into the eyes
which he could not see. A mysterious power seemed to be lifting her towards