In a few moments she pulled me gently back, and said, in quick, low tones, as if we had been in presence of the dead:  “In less than an hour she will be at the church.  We must not stay here.”

With this she turned and stepped quickly from the room.  I followed, closing the door behind me.

Swiftly moving, and without a word, my wife put on her hat and left the house.  Mechanically I followed.  I could speak no word of comfort to that poor girl, at this moment the happiest of expectant brides.  I knew that I had not the power to even attempt to explain to her the nature of the dreadful calamity that had fallen upon her.  But I could not let my wife go alone.  She, indeed, must speak to Lilian, but there were other members of the family; I might do something.

To my great surprise, Mrs. Colesworthy did not turn into the street which led to the Budworths’ house, but went straight on.  I thought at first she was going to the church to countermand the wedding preparations.  But before I could put a question to her she had gone around a corner, and was hurrying up the steps of the principal hotel in our town.

“Is Dr. Hildstein in?” she asked of the first person she met.

The man, gazing astonished at her pallid face, replied that he was, and immediately conducted us to a little parlor on the first floor, the door of which stood partly open.  Without knocking, Mrs. Colesworthy hastily entered, I closely following.  A middle-aged man suddenly arose from a small table at which he was sitting, and turning quickly toward us, made an abrupt exclamation in German.

As I have said, I do not understand German, but Mrs. Colesworthy knows the language well, and, stepping up to the man, she said (she afterward told me the meaning of the words that passed between them):  “Are you Dr. Hildstein?”

“I am,” he said, his face agitated by emotion, and his eyes sparkling, “but I can see no one, speak to no one!  I go out this moment to observe the result of an important experiment!”

My wife motioned to me to close the door.  “You need not go,” she said, “I can tell you that your experiment has succeeded.  You have dematerialized Mr. Kilbright.  In one hour he was to be married to a noble, loving woman; and now all that remains where he stood is a pile of clothes!”

“Do you tell me that?” exclaimed the doctor, wildly seizing his hat.

“Stop!” cried Mrs. Colesworthy, her face glowing with excitement, her eyes flashing, and her right arm extended.  “Stir not one step!  Do you know what you have done?”

“I have done what I had a right to do!” exclaimed the doctor, almost in a shout.  “If he is gone he was nothing but a spirit.  Tell me where—­”