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“What do you think of all this Ouija Planchette rumpus, anyway? I can’t for the life of me see why any one with a whole new world to explore should hang around chattering with this one. I know that I’d be half mad with excitement to get at the new job, and that I’d find reassuring the loved ones (exquisite phrase number two) a hideous bore. Still, I can see that it would be nice from their selfish point of view! Well, I’m no ghost yet, thank God, nor yet are you—but if ever I am one, I’ll show you what devotion really is. I’ll come all the way back from heaven to play with foolish Janie, who doesn’t believe that there is one to come from. To foolish, foolish Janie, who will still be dearer than the prettiest angel of them all, no matter how alluringly her halo may be tilted or her wings ruffled. To Janie who, Heaven forgive him, will be all that one poor ghost has ever loved!”

Had there come to him, the radiant and the confident, a moment of terrible and shattering surprise—a moment when he realized that there were no pretty angels with shining wings waiting to greet him—a moment when he saw before him only the overwhelming darkness, blacker and deeper than the night would be, when she blew out the little hungry flame that was eating up the sheet that held his laughter? Oh, gladly would she have died a thousand deaths to have spared him that moment!