'Yes!' he heard again.

'Then I want to see you!' he cried, and he jumped out of bed.

For some instants he stood in the same place, pressing his bare feet on
the chill floor. His eyes strayed about. 'Where? where?' his lips were
murmuring....

Nothing to be seen, not a sound to be heard.... He looked round him, and
noticed that the faint light that filled the room came from a night-light,
shaded by a sheet of paper and set in a corner, probably by Platosha while
he was asleep. He even discerned the smell of incense ... also, most
likely, the work of her hands.

He hurriedly dressed himself: to remain in bed, to sleep, was not to be
thought of. Then he took his stand in the middle of the room, and folded
his arms. The sense of Clara's presence was stronger in him than it had
ever been.

And now he began to speak, not loudly, but with solemn deliberation, as
though he were uttering an incantation.

'Clara,' he began, 'if you are truly here, if you see me, if you hear
me--show yourself!... If the power which I feel over me is truly your
power, show yourself! If you understand how bitterly I repent that I did
not understand you, that I repelled you--show yourself! If what I have
heard was truly your voice; if the feeling overmastering me is love; if
you are now convinced that I love you, I, who till now have neither loved
nor known any woman; if you know that since your death I have come to love