They will part here never to meet again.

Spirit Franchezzo continues to recount Benedetto's story―

From time to time, Benedetto would lapse into unconsciousness, and from these states of merciful oblivion, he would awaken to find that, little by little, the earthly body was losing its hold on the spirit and crumbling into dust. 

While it did so, he suffered the pangs of this gradual dissolution in all his nerves. 

At last the material body ceased to hold him, and Benedetto rose from the grave, but still hovered over it―tied, though no longer imprisoned, until the last link snapped, and he was free to wander earth.

His powers of hearing and seeing and feeling were feebly developed, but gradually unfolded, and he became conscious of his surroundings. 

With these powers, the passions and desires of his earthly life renewed, and also the knowledge of how he could gratify them. 

Yet again, he sought oblivion for his sorrow and bitterness in the pleasures of the senses. 

But he sought in vain―

His memory was ever-present―torturing him with the past. 

In his soul, there was a wild hunger―a fierce thirst for revenge, for power to make her suffer, as he had done, and the very intensity of his thoughts carried him to her. 

He found her as of old, surrounded by her little court of gay admirers. 

A little older, but still the same―still as heartless, still untroubled by and indifferent to his fate. 

And it maddened him to think of the sufferings he had brought on himself for the love of this woman.

His thoughts become merged in the one thought of how he could find means to drag her down from her position and strip her of all those things, which she prized more than love―or honour―or even the lives of her victims. 

And he succeeded, for spirits have more powers than we dream of. 

Step by step, he saw her come down from her proud position, losing first wealth, then honour, stripped of every disguise she had worn, and known for what she was―a vile temptress who played with men's souls as one plays with dice―careless how many hearts she broke―how many lives she ruined―careless alike of her husband's honour and her own fair fame, so long as she could hide her intrigues from the eyes of the world and rise a step higher in wealth and power on the body of each new victim.

And even in his darkness and misery, Benedetto hugged himself and was comforted to think it was his hands that had dragged her down and torn the mask from her beauty and worldliness. 

She wondered how it was that so many events all tended to her ruin. 

How it was that her most carefully laid schemes were thwarted―her most jealously guarded secrets found out and held up to the light of day. 

She began to tremble at what each day might bring. 

It was as though some unseen agency whose toils she could not escape was at work to crush her, and she thought of Benedetto and his last threats that if she drove him to despair he would send himself to Hell and drag her with him. 

She had thought then he meant to murder her perhaps, and when she heard he had shot himself and was dead, she felt relieved, and soon forgot him, save when some event would recall him to her mind for a moment. 

And now she was always thinking of him, and she began to shudder with fear lest he should rise from his grave and haunt her.

And all the time, Benedetto's spirit stood beside her, whispering in her ears and telling her that this was his revenge come to him at last. 

He whispered to her of the past and of that love that had seemed so sweet and that had turned to bitter burning hate, consuming him as with Hell's fire whose flames should scorch her soul also and drive her to a despair as great as his.

And her mind felt this haunting presence even while her bodily eyes could see nothing. 

In vain she fled to society―to all places where there were crowds of people to escape―the haunting presence was with her everywhere―day by day it grew more distinct, more real―a something from which there was no escape.

One evening, in the dim grey of twilight, she saw him with his wild menacing eyes, his fierce, passionate hate expressing itself in every line of his face, in every gesture of his form. 

The shock was too much for her overwrought nerves and she fell dead on the floor. 

And Benedetto knew that he had killed her―the brand of Cain was stamped on his brow.

A horror seizes him―

He loathed the deed he had done. 

He had intended to kill her, and when the spirit left the body to drag it down with him and to haunt and torment it forever, so that on neither side of the grave should she know rest. 

But now his only thought was to escape the horror of his success, for all good was not dead in this man, and the shock, which had killed the Marchesa had awakened him to the true nature of his revengeful feelings. 

He fled from the earth-plane―down and down to this city of Hell―a fit dwelling-place for him.

 

I found him here, said Faithful Friend, and was able to help the now repentant man and to show him how he might best undo the wrong he has done. 

He awaits her now so that he may ask her to forgive him and that he may forgive her himself. 

She has also been drawn to this sphere, for her own life was very guilty, and it is in this counterpart of that city, which saw the history of their earthly love that they would meet again, and that was why he awaited her on this bridge where in the past she had so often met him. 

And will she meet him soon?

Yes, very soon, and this man's sojourn in this sphere will be over, and he will be free to pass to a higher one where his troubled spirit will know a season of rest before it mounts the stony pathway of progression.

Will she, too, leave here with him?

No, oh no! She will be helped to progress, but their paths will lie widely asunder. 

There was no true affinity between them―only passion and pride and wounded self-love. 

They will part here never to meet again.

They now drew near Benedetto, and as Spirit Franchezzo touched him on the shoulder, he started and turned round, but did not recognise him.  

Then Spirit Franchezzo made himself known, and said how he should rejoice to renew their early friendship in those higher spheres in which he hoped they would both soon meet again. 

Spirit Franchezzo told him briefly that he, too, had sinned and suffered and was working his way upwards now.  

Benedetto seemed glad to see him and wrung his hand with much emotion when they parted, leaving him still seated on the bridge, waiting for his last interview with her who had been once so dear to him and who was now but a painful memory.