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Page 14
Previous to Mrs. Slater's visit he had been quite content in his devotion
to an ideal mistress, for the reason that any nearer approach to her had
not occurred to him as a possibility. But now the suggestion that he
might see her face to face had so inflamed his imagination that it was
out of the question for him to regain his former serenity. He resolved
that, in case they should fail to hear from Mrs. Slater's friend, he
would set about finding Mrs. Legrand himself, or, failing that, would go
to some other medium. There would be no solace for the fever that had now
got into his blood, until experiment should justify his daring hope, or
prove it baseless.
However, the third day after Mrs. Slater's letter there came one from her
friend, Mrs. Rhinehart. She said that she had received a note from Mrs.
Slater, who had suddenly been called to Cincinnati, telling that Miss
Ludington desired the address of Mrs. Legrand, with a view to securing a
private seance. She could have sent the address at once, as she had it;
but Mrs. Legrand was so overrun with business that an application to her
by letter, especially from a stranger like Miss Ludington, might not have
any result. And so Mrs. Rhinehart, who had been only too happy to oblige
any friend of Mrs. Slater's, had called personally upon Mrs. Legrand to
arrange for the seance. The medium had told her at first that she was
full of previous engagements for a month ahead, and that it would be
impossible to give Miss Ludington a seance. When, however, Mrs. Rhinehart
told her that Miss Ludington's purpose in asking for the seance was to
test the question whether our past selves have immortal souls distinct
from our present selves, Mrs. Legrand became greatly interested, and at
once said that she would cancel a previous appointment, and give Miss
Ludington a seance the following evening, at her parlours, No.-East Tenth
Street, at nine o'clock. Mrs. Legrand had said that while she had never
heard a belief in the immortality of past selves avowed, there had not
been lacking in her relations with the spirit-world some mysterious
experiences that seemed to confirm it. She should, therefore, look
forward to the issue of the experiment the following evening with nearly
as much confidence, and quite as much interest, as Miss Ludington
herself. Mrs. Rhinehart hoped that the following evening would be
convenient for Miss Ludington. She had assumed the responsibility of
making the engagement positive, as she might have failed in securing a
seance altogether had she waited to communicate with Miss Ludington.
Hoping that "the conditions would be favourable," she remained, &c. &c..
When Miss Ludington had read this letter to Paul, she intimated, though
rather faintly, that it was still not too late to withdraw from the
enterprise; they could send Mrs. Legrand her fee, say that it was not
convenient for them to come on the evening fixed, and so let the matter
drop. Paul stared at her in astonishment, and said that, if she did not
feel like going, he would go alone, as he had at first proposed. Upon
this Miss Ludington once more declared that they would go together, and
said nothing further about sacrificing the appointment.
The fact is she did not really wish to sacrifice it. She was experiencing
a revulsion of feeling; Mrs. Rhinehart's letter had affected her almost
as strongly as Mrs. Slater's talk. The fact that Mrs. Legrand had at once
seen the reasonableness and probability of the belief in the immortality
of past selves made it difficult for Miss Ludington to think of her as a
mere vulgar impostor. The vague hint of the medium's as to strange
experiences with the spirit world, confirmatory of this belief, appealed
to her imagination in a powerful manner. Of what description might the
mysterious monitions be, which, coming to this woman in the dim
between-world where she groped, had prepared her to accept as true, on
its first statement, a belief that to others seemed so hard to credit?
What clutchings of spirit fingers in the dark! What meanings of souls
whom no one recognised!
The confidence which Mrs. Legrand had expressed that the seance would
prove a success affected Miss Ludington very powerfully. It impressed her
as the judgment of an expert; it compelled her to recognize not only as
possible, but even as probable, that, on the evening of the following
day, she should behold the beautiful girl whom once, so many years
before, she had called herself; for so at best would words express this
wonder.
With a trembling ecstasy, which in vain she tried to reason down, she
began to prepare herself for the presence of one fresh from the face of
God and the awful precincts of eternity.
As for Paul, there was no conflict of feeling with prejudice in his case;
he gave himself wholly up to a delirious expectation. How would his
immortal mistress look? How would she move? What would be her
stature--what her bearing? How would she gaze upon him? If not with love
he should die at her feet. If with love how should he bear it?
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