Avon Fantasy Reader No. 13 — page 58: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

grew more definite, until at last I recognized it for what it was—the figure of a young gitl—the girl of the photograph—the girl whose brother we had just left. 3 , I do not know how long it took me to come to this realization of what I was seeing. Probably it was only an instant; it seemed an eternity. I could hear Dr. Johns’s labored breathing—see dimly the outlines of the cot and Hoorne’s face upon its pillow. But all that remained clear and real _ was the figure of this girl, quivering there in the air above the bed. The upper part of her body particularly was vivid; below the breasts it seemed to melt away into the blackness of the room beyond. Her hair hung in two flowing braids over her bare shoulders; her arms were reaching down toward the bed, and on her beautiful face was a look of tenderness and sorrow and unutterable longing. : | And then I saw that around her head and shoulders there hung another radiance, dimmer far than the outlines of her form—a radiance that seemed to fade away as I looked at it directly. Yet I knew it was there; and I seemed to feel, too, rather than see, that it was not silver, but the delicate color of a rose—a color extraordinarily beautiful, yet fragile, wistful as the rose petals it resembled. Then as I sat staring I heard a whisper come up from the bed. The whisper grew louder, and I heard that same toneless voice from the lips of Norton. Hoorne, saying: “I cannot stay here. I must go. Play—play—you must play.” I think I must have resumed playing; I know I heard music—the same music as before, only softer, sweeter, more tender. And then, from the body lying inert on the bed, I saw issue another shape —in outline, form, and every detail the body of Norton Hoorne. It glowed, swirled, and drifted upward. It was Norton Hoorne—its face the face of my friend as I had always known him. After an instant his figure hung swaying above the bed. And from it depended a thin silver cord—fine as the finest gossamer, holding it chained to its human shell below. The music swelled louder. The arms of the girl reached out; her eyes seemed to cry aloud with yearning. The man’s figure pulled and strained at its leash; but the silver cord held strong. , The music grew still louder, thundering now in the hush of the room. The body in the bed sat up suddenly, beating with clenched hands its naked breast. And then, slowly it seemed, the silver cord parted. A look of ineffable happiness suffused the girl’s face as the man’s figure, growing suddenly brighter, swirled upward and mingled with hers. The body on the bed fell back upon the pillow and lay motionless. The mingled shapes above drifted away. The music ceased abruptly. Norton Hoorne was—dead? et a