"No; I never thought of it. What's that to do with it?"
"Everything, they say."
"Who?"
"Oh, people like the Adleys who think they know about such matters. You understand, I don't claim to know much myself; but I've often heard them discussing methods of communication with those on 'the other side of the veil.'"
"That's what they call—heaven?"
"Frequently. On that other side—they say—are any number of people, who recently were here and are mightily concerned about us who still are here, and who want to communicate with some of us but can't, because not enough of us do what is necessary to give them a chance."
Ethel quivered. "You think that my father might be one of those, and he perhaps wanted very much to say something to me and could not because I didn't try to reach him?"
"I think," Barney replied, "that the Adleys would say so."
"Then perhaps," Ethel considered out loud, "perhaps he talked to you—or tried to—because you were the only person who was trying to communicate through the veil who would soon see me."
"I thought of something like that myself last night, Miss Carew."
"But how did he know that we were to meet? How?" She drew her shoulders up quickly and walked in the snow upon the floor. "All my life I've known that my father was hiding something he held against my mother's family; and I've known that having to hide it and not to act was terribly, terribly hard for
