The story is damaging
my reputation, but it will be forgotten if her spirit should address me
in terms of endearment from the other shore in the presence of numerous
witnesses. For you will speak to me tenderly, will you not, Ida?”

“No, no. You shall not do it; you shall not think of it. Listen to me,
for God’s sake. During the four years that I have been with you I have
obeyed you faithfully and suffered patiently. I have lied and deceived,
like you; I learned to imitate the sleep and symptoms of clairvoyants. Tell me, did I ever refuse to serve you, or utter a word of complaint,
even when my shoulders bent with the weight of my burden, when you
pierced the flesh of my arms with knitting needles? Worse than all this,
I imitated distant voices behind curtains, and made mothers and wives
believe that their sons and husbands had come from a better world to
communicate with them. How often have I performed the most dangerous
feats in parlors with the lamps turned low? Clothed in a shroud or white
muslin I essayed to represent supernatural forms, whom tear-dimmed eyes
recognized as those of departed dear ones. You do not know what I
suffered at this unhallowed work. You scoff at the mysteries of
eternity. I suffer the torments of an impending retribution. My God! if
some time the dead whom I counterfeit should rise up before me with
uplifted arms and dreadful imprecations! This constant terror has
injured my heart--it will kill me. I am consumed by fever. Look how
emaciated, how worn-out and downcast I am. But I am under your control. Do as you like with me; I am in your power, and I want it to be so. Have
I ever complained? But do not force me to do this thing, Benjamin. Have
pity on me for what I have done for you in the past, for what I am
suffering. Do not attempt this mummery; do not compel me to play the
role of your dead wife, who was so tender and beautiful. Oh, what put
that thought into your mind? Spare me, Benjamin, I implore you!”

The professor did not laugh again. Amid the confusion of upturned
articles of furniture the eavesdropper distinguished the sound of a
skull striking the floor. He concluded that Professor Davenport had
knocked Miss Ida down with a blow of his fist, or had kicked her as she
approached him. But the waiter did not enter the room, as no one rang
for him. II. That evening forty persons were assembled in Mrs. Joanne Harding’s
parlor, staring at the curtain where a spirit form was in process of
materializing. One dark lantern in a corner of the room contributed the
light that emphasized the darkness rather than relieved it. The room was
pervaded by profound silence, save the quickened, suppressed breathing
of the spectators. The fire in the grate cast mysterious rays of light,
resembling fugitive spirits, upon the objects around, almost
indistinguishable in the semi-gloom. Professor Davenport was at his best this evening. The spirit world
obeyed him without hesitation, like their lawful master. He was the
mighty prince of souls. Hands that had no arms were seen picking flowers
from the vases; the touch of an invisible spirit conjured sweet
melodies from the keys of the piano; the furniture responded by
intelligent rappings to the most unanticipated questions. The professor
himself elevated his form in symbolical distortions from the floor to an
altitude of three feet, indicated by Mrs. Harding, and remained
suspended in the air for a quarter of an hour, holding live coals in his
hands. III. But the most interesting, as well as the most conclusive, test was to be
the materialization of the spirit of Mrs. Arabella Davenport, which the
professor had promised at the beginning of the seance. “The hour has come,” exclaimed the medium. And while the hearts of all throbbed with anxious suspense, and their
eyes distended with painful expectancy of the promised materialization,
Benjamin Davenport stood before the curtain. In the twilight the tall
man with the disheveled hair and demon look, was really terrible and
handsome. “Appear, Arabella!” he exclaimed, in a commanding voice, with gestures
of the Nazarene at the sepulcher of Lazarus. All are waiting----

Suddenly a cry burst from behind the curtain--a piercing, shuddering,
horrible shriek, the shriek of an expiring soul. The spectators trembled. Mrs. Harding almost fainted. The medium
himself appeared surprised. But Benjamin recovered his composure on seeing the curtain move and
admit the spirit. The apparition was that of a young woman with long blonde tresses; she
was beautiful and pale, clad in some light, whitish material. Her breast
was bare, and on the left side appeared a bleeding wound, in which
trembled a knife. The spectators arose and retreated, pushing their chairs to the wall. Those who chanced to look at the medium noticed that a deathly pallor
had overspread his face, and that he was cowering and trembling. But the young woman, Mrs. Arabella, the real one, whom he so well
remembered, she had come in response to his summons, and advanced in a
direct line toward Benjamin, who in terror covered his eyes to shut out
the ghastly sight, and with a cry fled behind the furniture. But she
dipped the finger of her thin hand into the blood from her wound and
traced it across the brow of the unconscious medium, the while
repeating, in a slow, monotonous tone that sounded like the echo of a
wail, again and again:

“You are my murderer! You are my murderer!”

And while he was rolling and tossing in deadly terror on the floor they
turned up the lights. The spirit had vanished. But in the communicating room, behind the
curtain, they found the body of poor Miss Ida Soutchotte with horribly
distorted features. A physician who was present pronounced it heart
stroke. And that is the reason that Prof. Benjamin Davenport appeared alone in a
New York courtroom to answer to the charge of having murdered his wife
four years ago in San Francisco. THE PHANTOM WOMAN. He took an all-possessing, burning fancy to her from the first. She was
neither young nor pretty, so far as he could see--but she was wrapped
round with mystery. That was the key of it all; she was noticeable in
spite of herself. Her face at the window, sunset after sunset; her eyes,
gazing out mournfully through the dusty panes, hypnotized the lawyer. He
saw her through the twilight night after night, and he grew at length to
wait through the days in a feverish waiting for dusk, and that one look
at an unknown woman. She was always at the same window on the ground floor, sitting doing
nothing. She looked beyond, so the infatuated solicitor fancied, at him. Once he even thought that he detected the ghost of a friendly smile on
her lips. Their eyes always met with a mute desire to make acquaintance. This romance went on for a couple of months. Gilbert Dent assured himself that nothing in this life can possibly
remain stationary, and he cudgeled his brain for a respectable manner of
introducing himself to his idol.