Hi there,

First of let me tell you that I am not a native speaker. Thus, unlike you, as much as I would want it, I cannot feel the semantic "hue" of the resulting sentences and my phrases might sound harsher than intended.

Secondly, although I am not a fan of the "Terms of endearment" paradigm, I was extremely pleased with your "smooth as silk" technique constructing a temporary confluence and then diverting the narrative flow into a different stylistic direction.

Now as far as an enigmatic hint is concerned... This is it...

But his oddest trait of all was that he was known to blurt out the word "Phantom!" without warning or apparent cause at socially unacceptable times, such as at funerals and civic association meetings. These outbursts, although fairly rare, were always followed by prolific periods of musical composition.

It was after these periods of mad music-making that he and his wife Elsie would work together on yet another rug.

So what this is pointing to? - a number of different things...

1. Each outburst was followed by a period of intense composing that involved Edgar only as creation is a lonely and exhausting process.
2. After he sort of expelled all the "music" out of himself, he needed to relax and interrupt his loneliness with a collective activity, when he could feel unity with someone else.

This was the cornerstone of the entire @owasco’s write up and that’s where the subsequent actions were expected to develop. Why is this enigmatic? From my point of view whatever happened in Edgar’s mind while he exclaimed “Phantom” was extremely interesting and worth theorizing and developing. If you recall the movie Amadeus, Salieri referred to moments like this as “as if he (Mozart) was taking a dictation (from God).”

Instead, what you’ve done, you completely diverted from this development shifting into entirely different characters.

Why do you have to know everything?" he replied. "What can I tell you? If you could hear my heart, you'd know your name is branded on my soul. Elsie, my light, my love, I do not require a reason and a why and a wherefore; I am content with the not-knowing. I am. It's that simple! I am."

Surely, Edgar knew what has happened, considering (again) that after those outbursts he intensely composed music. What did it have to do with his love for Else? Mozart also loved his wife Constanze, but his musical inspiration by far didn’t come from her.

So what you did in your continuation, you substituted @owasco’s developed characters with two completely different characters and wrote an entirely new story, which was attractive in its own right. Yet it wasn’t a continuation of her story. On the stylistic level, you’ve done this very elegantly, and yet noticeable to a trained eye.

Cheers!