This situation, which had entirely escaped from your control—could ithave a happy ending?Who could believe it?Who would dare to affirm that Myra was not blotted out from the visible world forever?So with our intense delight at having found her was mingled our intense distress that she had not been restored to our sight in all her grace and beauty.

It could well be imagined what, in such conditions, the life of the Roderich family would be.

Myra did not take long to realise her condition.As she went past the mirror on the mantlepiece, she had not been able to see her own reflection……With a scream of anguish she turned towards us and realised that she could not see her own shadow……

Then, while piteous sobs burst from her breast, we had to tell her everything that had happened, while Marc, kneeling beside her chair, tried in vain to calm her distress.He loved her visible, he would love her invisible.It was enough to rend the heart.

Later in the evening the Doctor insisted that Myra should go up to his wife's room.Better far for her mother to be near her, to hear her speak.

A few days elapsed.What our reassurances could not do, time did;Myra resigned herself to it.Thanks to her spiritual strength, our everyday life at last seemed to resume its former course.She showed us that she was there by speaking to one of us.I can still hear her saying.

‘My dear friends, I'm here……Do you want anything?I'll get it for you……Dear Henri, what are you looking for……That book you left on the table……Here it is……Your paper?It's fallen down beside you.‘Father, this is the time when I usually kiss you……Haralan, why are you looking at me so sadly……I keep on telling you that I'm always smiling, so why distress yourself……And you, my dear Marc, here are my two hands……Take them……Do you want to come out into the garden……Give me your arm, Henri, and we'll find plenty to talk about.’

The dear, adorable creature did not want any change to be made in the life of the family.She and Marc spent long hours together, and she never stopped murmuring encouraging words in his ear.She tried to console him, declaring that she was full of confidence in the future, that one day her invisibility would end……But did she really hope for this?

One change, and one alone, was however made in our everyday life.Myra, realising that in such conditions her presence amongst us would be painful, never came to take her place with us at table.But when the meal was over she would come down to the drawing-room.We could hear her opening and shutting the door and saying, ‘Here I am, my friends, I'm here!'and she did not leave us until it was time to go back to her room, after having wished us good-night.

I need hardly say that as Myra Roderich's disappearance had made such a stir in the town, her reappearance—I can think of no other word—produced one even greater.Expressions of sympathy came in from everywhere, and visitors flocked to her home.

Myra had given up her walks through the streets of Ragz, and went out only in a closed vehicle, accompanied by one of the family.But above all she preferred to sit in the garden, in the midst of those whom she loved, and to whom, morally at any rate, she had been completely restored.

Meanwhile M.Stepark the Governor, and myself kept on subjecting old Hermann to a series of questionings as numerous as they were ineffective.We could get nothing out of him that would be any use in our present sad cir-cumstances.

Events having proved his sincerity as regards the presumed kidnapping of Myra, nobody troubled any more about this, but might he not have been entrusted with the secrets of his dead master?Or was he in possession of Otto Storitz'formula?

Each of us, however, persisted in tormenting the unfortunate Hermann in a thousand ways, in the chimerical hope of tearing out of him a secret which, no doubt, he did not possess.

The day at last came when we realised the futility of our efforts, and as, on the whole, no crime could be adduced against Hermann which would have justified his being brought to trial, it was decided to set him free.

But fate had decided that the poor devil should not profit by that long-delayed forbearance.On the very morning when his jailer went to him to set him free, the man was found dead in his cell, struck down, as an autopsy later showed, by an embolism.

Thus our last hope had vanished.Thus it was made clear to us that the secret of Wilhelm Storitz would remain for ever unknown.

In the papers we had seized from the house of the Boulevard Tékéli and handed in at the Town Hall nothing was found, after a minute examination, but vague formulae, with annotations both chemical and physical and absolutely incomprehensible.They led us nowhere.Impossible to deduce anything from this farrago, let alone to reconstruct the composition of that diabolical substance of which Wilhelm Storitz had made so criminal a misuse.

Just as his executioner had appeared out of nothingness when he fell stabbed to the heart by Haralan's sword, so the hapless Myra would never appear to our gaze until she was stretched on her death-bed.

During the morning of 24th June, my brother came to find me.He seemed relatively much calmer.

‘My dear Henri, 'he told me, ‘I want you to have a share in the decision I've come to.I think you'll approve of it.'

‘Never doubt it, 'I replied, ‘and you can speak with confidence.I know that you'll only have been listening to the voice of reason.'

‘The voices of reason and love, Henri.Myra is only partly my wife.Our wedding still lacks its religious consecration, because the ceremony was interrupted before the sacramental words could be pronounced.That's brought about a position which I mean to bring to an end, for Myra's sake and for the sake of her family and everybody else.'

I grasped my brother's hand as I replied, ‘I understand you, Marc, and I can't think of anything that would put any obstacle in your way……'

‘That would be monstrous, 'Marc declared.‘If the priest cannot see Myra, at least he can hear her declare that she will take me for her husband as I will take her for my wife.I cannot imagine that the ecclesiastical authorities would raise any difficulty.'

‘No, my dear Mare, no, and I'll undertake to make all the arrangements.'

It was at first the priest at the Cathedral to whom that I turned, then to the Arch-Priest who had officiated at that nuptial mass which had been interrupted by an unprecedented profanation.The venerable old man assured me that the case had already been looked into, and that the Archbishop of Ragz had given a favourable decision.Invisible though she might be, there was no doubt that the bride was alive, and that she was therefore open to receive the sacrament of marriage.

The banns having been published some time ago, there was nothing to stop the date of the ceremony being fixed for 2nd July.

On the previous night Myra reminded me, as she had done once before already:‘It's for tomorrow, Henri.Don't forget!'

Like the first, this second marriage was celebrated in the St.Michael Cathedral, and under the same conditions.The same witnesses, the same friends and guests invited by the Roderich family, the same influx of the people.

That there was in their minds rather more curiosity than before, I grant it, and that curiosity can be understood and forgiven.No doubt, too, there was among those present certain misgivings which time alone could overcome.Yes, Wilhelm Storitz was dead, yes, his servant Hermann was dead no less.Yet no doubt more than one of them wondered if this second nuptial mass would not be interrupted like the first, if fresh wonders would not once more trouble the wedding ceremony.

Here was the engaged couple in the choir of the Catherdal Myra's chair seemed to be empty.Yet she was in it, nonetheless.

Marc was standing up and turning towards her.He could not see her, but he felt that she was beside him.He took her by the hand, as though to demonstrate her presence before the altar.

Behind them were the witnesses, the Judge Neumann, Captain Haralan, Lieut.Armgard and myself;then Dr.and Madame Roderich, the poor mother on her knees, imploring the Almighty to work a miracle on her daughter's behalf.All around thronged their friends, the notabilities of the town, filling the great nave, and the aisles swarming with people.

The bells clanged out their peals, and the organ pipes responded joyfully.

The Archpriest and his acolytes had arrived.The service began, its ceremonies proceeding to the chanting of the choir.At the offertory, Marc could be seen leading Myra to the first step of the altar and bringing her back, after her offering had fallen into the deacon's almspurse.

The mass over, the old priest turned towards the congregation.

‘Myra Roderich, are you there?'he asked.

‘I am here.'Myra replied.

Then he turned to Marc.

‘Marc Vidal, do you agree to take Myra Roderich, present here, as your wife?'

‘Yes, 'my brother replied.

‘Myra Roderich, do you agree to take Marc Vidal, present here, as your husband?'

‘Yes, 'Myra spoke in a voice which everybody could hear.

‘Marc Vidal and Myra Roderich, 'the Archpriest declared, ‘I pronounce you united by the sacrament of marriage.'

After the ceremony, the crowd hurried to line the route which the newly-married couple was to follow.There was nothing of the confused uproar usual in such circumstances.All kept silent, craning their necks, in the absurd hope of seeing something.Nobody wanted to give up his place, yet nobody wanted to be in front……They were all at the same time urged on by curiosity and held back by a mysterious fear.

Between that twofold hedge of the somewhat uneasy crowd, the husband and wife, with their witnesses and their friends, went into the sacristy.There, on the registers in the vestry, to the signature of Marc Vidal there was added a name, that of Myra Roderich, a name traced by a hand which nobody could see, by a hand which nobody would ever see!