Mrs. Joyce interposed. "I can explain that," she said. "Mrs. Ollnee was
my friend. She was what is called a medium. She is the Mrs. Ollnee you
may have read about in the papers."
"Ah!" Sill's tone conveyed a mingling of surprise and increased
interest. "So you are the son of Mrs. Ollnee?" he said, turning to
Victor.
Mrs. Joyce again answered for him. "Yes; he has been away at school; he
came home Sunday to comfort and protect his mother; but, unfortunately,
he does not accept her faith. He rebelled against her work, and demanded
that she give up her Voices. I can understand his wanting her to go away
with him, and I can understand also how painful it was to her; but I
don't believe that what he said had anything to do with her passing out.
She was very frail at best, and has many times said that she expected to
leave the body in one of her trances and never again resume her worn-out
garment."
"She was subject to trances, then?"
"Yes, though not strictly a trance-medium, she did occasionally pass out
of the body."
"May I take your name?"
"Certainly; I am Mrs. John H. Joyce, of Prairie Avenue."
His manner changed. "Oh yes. I should have known you, Mrs. Joyce, I have
seen you before. What you tell me does not explain the disposal of Mrs.
Ollnee's body. She must have gone to her death consciously, as if
preparing to sleep. Perhaps she intended only to enter a trance."
Mrs. Joyce started. "She may be in trance now! Have you thought of that,
Doctor?"
Victor's heart bounded at the suggestion. "Do you think it possible?" he
asked, excitedly.
Sill remained unmoved. "She does not respond to any test, I'm sorry to
say. Life is extinct."
The entrance of Doctor Eberly, a tall, stooping man with deep-set eyes
and a sad, worn face, cut short this explanation. Eberly was Mrs.
Joyce's family physician, and taking him aside she presented the case.
Eberly knew Doctor Sill, and together they returned to Mrs. Ollnee's
bedside while Mrs. Joyce kept Victor as far away from their examination
as possible.
"There have been many cases of this deep trance, Victor, and we must not
permit the coroner to come till we are absolutely convinced that your
mother has gone out never to return."
"She must come back," he cried, huskily. "She did so much for me. I want
to do something for her."
"You did a great deal for her, my dear boy. It was a great joy and
comfort to her to see you growing into manhood. She was a little afraid
of you, but she worshiped you all the same. Your letters were an ecstasy
to her."
"And I wrote so seldom," he groaned. "I was so busy with my games, my
studies, I hardly thought of her. If she will only come back to me I
will give up everything for her."
"She understood you, Victor. She was a wonderful little woman, lovely in
her serene, high thought. She lived on a lofty plane."
"I begin to see that," he answered, contritely. "I understand her better
now."
The kindly Mrs. Bowers had slipped away back to her household below, and
the men of science were still deep in a low-toned, deliberate
discussion, so that Victor and the woman he now knew to be his best
friend were left to confront each other in mutual study. He was
wondering at her interest in him, and she was weighing his grief and
remorse, thinking enviously of his youth and bodily perfection. "I wish
you were my son," she uttered, wistfully.
Doctor Eberly again approached, walking in that quaint, sidewise fashion
which had made him the subject of jocose remark among his pupils at the
medical school.