me?"

Considering more intently she made no answer, and he then knew he
should have been adequately answered by her asking how often he
himself had spoken of their terrible friend. Suddenly a brighter
light broke in her face and an excited idea sprang to her lips in
the appeal: "You HAVE forgiven him?"

"How, if I hadn't, could I linger here?"

She visibly winced at the deep but unintended irony of this; but
even while she did so she panted quickly: "Then in the lights on
your altar--?"

"There's never a light for Acton Hague!"

She stared with a dreadful fall, "But if he's one of your Dead?"

"He's one of the world's, if you like--he's one of yours. But he's
not one of mine. Mine are only the Dead who died possessed of me.
They're mine in death because they were mine in life."

"HE was yours in life then, even if for a while he ceased to be.
If you forgave him you went back to him. Those whom we've once
loved--"

"Are those who can hurt us most," Stransom broke in.

"Ah it's not true--you've NOT forgiven him!" she wailed with a
passion that startled him.