'I i AN IMMORTAL SOUL W. H. MALLOCK AN IMMORTAL SOUL BY W. H. MALLOCK AUTHOR OF ' A ROMANCE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ' " A HUMAN DOCUMENT " ETC. HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON MC MVI I I Copyright, 1908, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All rights reserved. Published October, 1908. STACK ANNEX PR AN IMMORTAL SOUL BOOK I AN IMMORTAL SOUL CHAPTER I THE deep-sunken, earthy lane, just wide enough for the passage of a cart, climbed upward in zigzags between the pastures and ploughlands of the hill. With the wisps of hay and straw caught in the brambles which hung over it, and the primroses which in wavering lines illuminated the slopes below them, it might have been a little artery wandering into the very heart of Arcadian England. As a matter of fact, it stopped short at a rough gate which committed the pedestrian to a foot-path and a rising field. The field was studded with gorse bushes, of which those on the higher levels showed their prickles and their blossoms against the sky. The afternoon sun of a mild March was shining, almost as warm and brilliant as the suns of the south of France, when a well-dressed man, with a brown Tyrolean hat, and a pearl in each of the shirt-cuffs which emerged from the Scotch homespun of his sleeves, made his way up the lane as though he were an exploring stranger. During the course of his leisurely ascent, however, though the quarter of the sky facing him was still clear and cloudless, he noticed that a curious dimness was creeping over the objects round him, and he presently looked back to discover the cause of so abrupt a change. The scene which met his eyes was singular. The hill- side commanded a blue expanse of sea, which a crescent of coast, extending for some forty miles and curving 3 AN IMMORTAL SOUL along the distant horizon into a vanishing horn of mist, embraced as an enormous bay. A succession of red headlands was still brightly illuminated, but the surface of the waves was disappearing under volumes of thick, low-lying vapor, which, having charged the foot of the hill already, was advancing up the lane like the smoke of burning weeds. The invasion was so impetuous that the stranger, when he had reached the gate, was no longer in sunshine, but in a gray, diaphanous twilight, as if he had climbed up the magic bean-stalk into some visionary and incalculable world. He was soon tempted to think that he had done this in reality. Having surmounted the gate, he paused and again looked round him. He was a man who had passed the prime but not the vigor of life. His mustache, indeed, and an imperial which gave him a slightly foreign ap- pearance, showed a few threads of silver; but the lines round his clear gray eyes spoke less of age than ex- perience; and there was an unimpaired vitality in the smile, not displeasingly cynical, which lurked in the corners of his mouth as he watched the proceedings of the weather. He had hardly resumed his way when there was a new development of the unexpected. This was a vague sound, startling in the general silence. When first his ears grew aware of it he ascribed it to a flock of birds twittering so he supposed in the hedge which the foot-path skirted. But on turning to look for them he soon found out his error. It happened that the hedge close to him was broken into an oval gap; and through this, as through the frame of a picture, he saw before him a spectacle of a whimsically surprising kind. He saw, softened by the mist and moving in colored groups, a number of girls perhaps twenty engaged in the game of hockey. Half of them wore coquettish little caps of scarlet; the other half, similar caps of gleaming turquoise-blue. They were otherwise dressed variously, and in skirts of different lengths, their ages varying, apparently, from twelve up to seventeen. 4 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Their movements had the grace of performers in an operatic ballet; and presently the stranger, who was standing amused and motionless, began to distinguish the inflections of their voices, and now and then a word. The young ladies spoke he soon realized this no less daintily than they moved. If they formed a school, as no doubt they did, it was plainly a school of the class which advertisements call "select." Gradually, from the many figures, he began to pick out several whose exploits he found himself following with a sort of per- sonal interest. One in particular became before long his heroine. Her carriage and the contour of her slim and flexible form struck him as more mature than the carriage and contours of the rest. She swung round, whenever the occasion required, with a charming mixt- ure of abandonment and absolute self-possession which suggested that she would be a perfect dancer. Though the game seemed to excite her, she nevertheless played it with a certain air of condescension; and while the hands of many of the players were bare, and shone like pink roses, this girl was gloved fastidiously, and seemed finished from head to foot. The stranger had begun to speculate, beguiled by an idle curiosity, as to what she could be doing there with associates in many ways so different from herself; but his thoughts had not strayed far when the performance showed signs of ending, and, not without some regret, he abruptly resumed his walk. He had not, however, proceeded for more than a hundred yards when the foot- path brought him to the open gate of the hockey-field, and the same idle curiosity brought him to a halt once more. On the bars of the gate hung a number of the young ladies' coats, emitting a shimmer from their vari- ously colored silk linings; and the young ladies them- selves were by this time coming toward them. The small girls came up first, under the charge of a maternal mistress, whose pleasant face was prim with all the correctnesses; and a scuffle ensued with refrac- 5 AN IMMORTAL SOUL tory sleeves and collars, which was followed by much re- arrangement of tangled and floating hair. The elder girls came more slowly, the stranger's heroine among the last. Her face, her figure, her bearing, now he saw them at closer quarters, struck him as even more mature than he had at first been tempted to imagine; but he pres- ently realized that the impression thus produced on him was due, partly at all events, to some change in the girl herself. Her movements had lost, not indeed their grace, but their elasticity. The mere act of walking seemed to have become an effort to her, and she was, moreover, noticeably pale; and, had it not been for a certain singularity in her expression, he would have sup- posed that she had overtired herself and was possibly on the verge of fainting. But watching her more narrowly, as two assiduous companions were investing her in some long and very elegant garment, he was confirmed in the conviction, which at first was hardly credible to him, that what was affecting her was not fatigue, but terror. What there could be to terrify her it passed his wit to conjecture, but the undoubted fact remained. With her lips slightly parted and her eyes wide open and fixed, she was the image of one who is waiting for the approach of some dreaded danger. The incident was so curious and inexplicable that he had quite forgotten to question his right to a prolonged observation of it, when the girl's eyes, to his embarrassment, suddenly met his own. In hers, however, he detected, with a surprise that was like a shock, not embarrassment, but relief, and he could al- most have fancied recognition. A second glance on his part convinced him that she was a total stranger, and, fearing that he might be misleading her into taking him for somebody else, he was turning sharply away when a singular event arrested him. From somewhere beyond the mist came a rumble of distant thunder. The effect on the girl was instantaneous. She gripped the arm of the companion who was standing next her, and ex- claimed, with a gasp: "It is coming this way! I feel 6 AN IMMORTAL SOUL it!" Her cheeks were by this time bloodless and her body was trembling visibly. The other girl did what she could to calm her, but, obviously frightened by the unmanageable fright of her friend, she called out with a nervous laugh to the mis- tress : "Oh, Miss Hazel, please come here come quick! Nest thinks that the thunder is going to gobble her up." The mistress at once responded. The situation seem- ed to alarm her, but she did not seem unprepared for it, and she hastened toward the sufferer with an air of drastic maternity, provoking, as the stranger did not fail to notice, a cautious giggling among the younger members of her flock, who observed to one another that "the Nut was exactly like a clucking old hen." "My dear Miss Vivian," she ejaculated, "what is all this about, pray? Don't tell me you're worrying about a silly little bit of thunder. If you want to worry about anything, you ought to be worrying about the rain, which indeed is commencing now. Run back with us, if you don't want to be drenched, and we'll send you to your home afterward, dry and comfortable, in a cab. My dear, don't think about the thunder. It's miles away miles, miles." "It's not," said the girl, vehemently. "It's close, and it's coming closer. Look there's a man over th^re. A man will know; I'll ask him." The words were still on her lips when another clap was audible ; and the stranger had hardly time to realize what was happening when he found that this young lady, who a moment ago had been a vision for him, was grasp- ing one of his hands as a drowning man grasps a rope, was asking him with her lips if the storm were near or far, and beseeching him with her eyes to protect her against its vague malignity. " You wouldn't," she add- ed, " think me an idiot if you knew how my heart was beating." Many men, if appealed to in this astonishing way by 7 AN IMMORTAL SOUL a highly ornamental school-girl, in the sight of all her school-fellows, might have made the situation ridiculous at once for himself and her. The stranger, however, showed himself perfectly equal to the occasion. He did not even betray surprise. His expression, as he looked at her, was indicative of grave amusement, touched, but touched so subtly that she alone could be conscious of it, with the sympathy of a man familiar with the ways of women. "I can only hope," he said, "that your heart will never beat for anything which is likely to trouble you more than to-day's thunder. I know," he continued, "about thunder-storms better, perhaps, than most peo- ple, and I'll answer for the conduct of this one." His manner had abruptly altered, the reason being his perception of the near presence of Miss Hazel, who, rigid with scandalized anxiety, was preparing to inter- rupt the interview. Miss Hazel, it was evident from every line about her compressed lips, was one of that sisterhood whose con- ception of all indecorum is apt to be embodied in the person of the unintroduced male, and who always carry about with them a sheathed stiletto of rudeness, ready to repel the insult of attentions that never come. Un- spoken disapproval, which would have expressed itself in rudeness presently, was gathering its forces in her naturally benignant eyes when all her aggressive prep- arations were frustrated by the stranger's action. Dis- engaging his hand from the girl's with a sort of con- fidential brusquerie, he turned to the guardian goddess, who found herself, instead of attacking him, obeying a gesture on his part which invited her to a private con- ference. There was a courteous self-possession in his manner which made rudeness impossible, but it opened the door for her to an explanation which suited her purpose equally. "I am," she said, with refrigerating dignity, " quite unaware whom I have the privilege of addressing, but, 8 AN IMMORTAL SOUL whoever you may be, I must apologize to you for the strangeness of that young lady. This is Miss Aldritch's school. All the girls belong to the very first families in the land. Two of those little ones are, indeed, daugh- ters of noblemen. So I must tell you that Miss Vivian who only comes to us for her German, and is residing here with her aunt, a lady of title deserves to be ex- cused on account of her peculiar health. The slightest nervous shock and a thunder-storm appears to upset her more than anything else may, so her doctors say, produce some serious crisis. If, therefore," Miss Hazel continued, "since Miss Vivian seems to think that gentlemen must understand thunder-storms, you could inform her in my hearing that there really is not the least danger, we can get her back to the school without any grave mischief, and then we can send her to her home, which unfortunately is in another direction." "Yes, yes," said the stranger, unbuttoning his coat and beginning to feel for something secreted in an in- ternal pocket. " I've a sister who suffers from thunder in very much the same way. Perhaps if you'll look at my card it will justify you in letting me help you to better purpose than I could do by merely giving an opinion about the weather. In this part of the world my name is sufficiently familiar, though I have myself been absent for something like twenty years." Miss Hazel inspected the card with the screwed-up eyes of an inquisitor, but no sooner had she deciphered it than her face underwent a change, which would, had she only been a housekeeper, have been the prelude to a respectful courtesy. "Oh, indeed!" she exclaimed. "Sir Rawlin, forgive my stupidity. I ought to have known you by your photographs. The papers here have been full of them." "I may at all events thank them," he said, "for pro- viding me with a proof of my identity. And now, madam, if you are good enough to think me trustworthy, what I would venture to propose is this: that I should 9 AN IMMORTAL SOUL see Miss Vivian is that her name ? safe to her own door myself, and leave you free to attend to your other charges, who had better be off at once, for the drizzle has begun already." Miss Hazel's face was by this time beaming with grati- fication and relief. "Miss Vivian, my dear," she said, "do you hear what this gentleman proposes? This is Sir Rawlin Stantor. We all of us know his name, and we hope he will soon be member for our part of the county. He offers, with most obliging kindness, to accompany you straight home. Sir Rawlin Stantor Miss Wynn Vivian. Miss Wynn Vivian Sir Rawlin Stantor. Lady Susannah will be perfectly satisfied if I trust you to his discretion." The girl signified her acquiescence in words that were hardly distinguishable, but her face, though it still was pale, lit up as her eyes caught those of her promised escort. "Well, then," Miss Hazel continued, addressing the rest of her flock, "it is high time that we were moving. So now, step out briskly, and be careful where you're going in the mist." Miss Hazel's allusion to the mist was very far from being uncalled for. A puff of wind had so thickened it about the path which she and her little company now proceeded to take that they were very soon invisible from the spot where they had been lately standing, while the two who were left behind could now hardly distinguish any objects but each other. CHAPTER II THE young girl and this strange protector of hers, whom she had never seen before, found themselves absolutely alone together in what seemed to be a bound- less solitude. For the moment they could do nothing but remain patiently where they were, while isolating vapor floated and soaked around them. "Thank Heaven, they're gone!" she said, with a deep sigh of relief. " How good of you to take compassion on me! I shall soon be better now. All the same, I am not feeling very firm on my feet yet. Will you let me stay quiet for a moment, and will you help me to steady myself ? It's my nerves are upset, not me. I'm not a fool in reality." Her figure, as she spoke, wavered a little, and, waiting for no permission, she quietly took possession of his arm, as though the fog were a ballroom and she, tired with dancing, were giving herself to the care of a favorite and familiar partner. A passer-by who had come upon them might have taken them for a pair of lovers. Here was a situation which Miss Hazel had not fore- seen. The man's demeanor, however, could she have witnessed it, would have done much to relieve her. Allowing the girl to rest her weight on him as frankly as inclination prompted her, he first talked a little about thunder-storms and human nerves a subject which he treated lightly and then went on to ask her a few natural questions as to where her home was situated and the relations with whom she lived. The conversa- tion which thus resulted had evidently the effect of calming her. Her present home, she told him, was a II AN IMMORTAL SOUL something like a mile away. She was living there as a supposed invalid, though she resented the term herself, with an aunt and three cousins. The aunt, it appeared, was a Lady Susannah Lipscombe. The family name of the cousins two boys and a sister was Arundel. Her lips, as she spoke of these matters, betrayed a certain sense of amusement. "One of the boys," she went on, "is Oswald. The other is Mr. Hugo. The sister is Nina. She's ever so many years older. Oswald writes poetry, and is going, by-and-by, to be a diplomat. Nina keeps hens. But you'll see what they're like yourself, for, of course, when we get back, you will have to come in to tea." The man, meanwhile, in spite of his seeming detach- ment, had been watching her curiously, with a critical and increasing interest. The piquancy of her face, with its astonishingly delicate skin, produced an impression on him of something more formed and decided than is usually met with in the faces of young girls; while the well-controlled modulations of her voice, her unhesitat- ing choice of words, and the accent of mundane experi- ence which betrayed itself in her mention of her relations, all made him feel that a woman rather than a girl was leaning on him a feeling which was subtly accentuated by the various details of her dress. Her outer garment, which was white, with red collar and cuffs, could, as was obvious to even his obtuse male mind, have come only from a master among ladies' tailors. It was equally obvious that a pearl which nestled at her throat was more valuable than similar ornaments generally worn by girls ; and a movement of the gloved and slenderly propor- tioned hand, which lay on his arm unflinchingly, let slip into sight a bracelet with a curious device in diamonds a miniature dove half hidden in something that might have passed for a saucer, if it had not been that under it twinkled the word "Nest." She was silent for a time, when she had given her account of her family, and her fingers began to trifle 12 AN IMMORTAL SOUL with the folds of her companion's sleeve, as though she were considering the pattern of it. " I ought," she said, "to apologize for taking up your time like this. Are you sure you don't mind my drag- ging you, I don't know how far, out of your way?" She looked up at him with appeal between her long eye- lashes. "Yes," he replied, laughing, "I think I may say I'm sure. ... Is this nature or art ?" the man could not avoid asking himself. "If it is art," he reflected, "she is a finished coquette already." Her eyes were once more cast down, and her lashes made a dark shade on the returning color of her cheek. "You," she said, slowly, in a tone of meditative con- tent, " are a strong and very restful person. It's getting clearer at last. In a minute I shall be up to walking. To be supported by you has given me confidence." Surprised at length out of his carefully guarded re- serve by the tone of this culminating utterance, the man laid his hand on hers. "My dear," he exclaimed, "thank you." Then he abruptly recovered himself and drew a little away from her. " Tell me," he said. He paused, and she saw that he was slightly smiling. " Tell me " and he spoke with a sort of teasing slowness " do I give you more con- fidence than the 'Nut'?" She snatched her hand from his arm and broke into an amused laugh. "How on earth," she said, "did you know that she was called that?" He solved the mystery, and they both of them laughed once more. " Ah," she said, "the mist is clearing. If you're ready to start, I am. We can see the path quite plainly. It runs between those bushes. But wait, please, for one moment. See, there's a gleam of sunshine. My cousin, Mr. Hugo, who's a man of science, or a boy of science, or a baby of science, says that the world was all made out of 13 AN IMMORTAL SOUL vapor. You might think he was right now. Bush after bush, tree after tree, is being born again. Do let us wait and watch." Her words, indeed, were not inapplicable to what was actually happening. Through the mist, which was now being dissipated almost as rapidly as it had been formed, the shapes of remoter objects were, one after one, re- appearing. The gorse bushes grew distinct again, and then in the quarter toward which their path would take them loomed, a little way off, the darkness of a wood of fir-trees. On all sides the opaque whiteness was turning to a transparent silver, through which it became grad- ually manifest that the gorse-field formed the highest portion of a great promontory or peninsula, several miles in length and possibly two in breadth, the ground de- scending indistinctly in three directions toward the sea, and the sea itself in places growing faintly visible also. Then, through the straight trunks and the blotted foliage of the wood, certain chalk-white surfaces showed them- selves, too definite in their outline to be remnants of the retreating mist. What these were was not at first ap- parent, but presently, as the air grew clearer, they turned into the walls of villas. Then as the pair, beginning their walk, drew near them the wood was seen to over- hang a gulf of subjacent landscape, in whose depths houses innumerable rose out of mysterious gardens, and spires and crescents were glimmering on the steepness of lower hills; while the promontory on its landward side revealed, beyond fields and hedgerows, a line of buildings, which crossed it from sea to sea, and imprisoned a whole region of country within the cordon of a bewildering town. Such, when viewed from the heights of this primitive rural oasis, was Southquay, of all the watering-places in Britain, and perhaps in Europe, the most remarkable for the charm of its situation, and at one time for its social brilliance. Sir Rawlin and Miss Vivian, having looked at the AN IMMORTAL SOUL panorama long enough, abandoned their desultory pace and began to step out in earnest. "When I was a boy," he said, "all the world used to come here Russian princes, dethroned French emperors, great singers, beautiful American heiresses, and a third of fashionable London. Every day, at every corner, there were chances of unimaginable meetings. The whole place to me, in those days, seemed a world of romance and wonder. I had not seen it, till yesterday, for more than twenty years. The link that binds me to it now is, I fear, not romantic." "Yes," she asked "yes? And what sort of link is that?" " I have," he said, " so you told me, been lucky enough to inspire you with confidence in me. I had better ex- plain to you who it is you confide in. Miss Hazel rec- ognized my name, and I think your aunt will find that it at least guarantees my respectability; but to you it can have meant nothing. Well, down on the Parade, where I dare say you often walk, you have perhaps noticed an exceedingly inartistic statue. It is meant to represent my father. My father owned, and I now own instead of him, most of the land on which this town is built. For that reason I have been invited to stand here as a parliamentary candidate. If you introduce me to your friends, they will have no difficulty in identifying me." She looked up at him quickly, and astonished him more than ever by taking one of his bare hands, which were firm and finely formed, in hers. "You have certainly helped me," she said, "to ex- plain you to my aunt Susannah; but I myself may I tell you this? felt confidence in you the moment I heard your voice, and especially when I saw your hands. I'm sure that hands must, in some ways, tell one much more than faces. There are certain people whom I like more than like whom I would be guided by, and who are ever so far above me; but if I shake hands with them I shudder as if I had touched a toad," 15 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Sir Rawlin was once more startled out of the reserve which he had been so judiciously cultivating. "Your own hands," he said, "naturally make you fastidious. Is that your name which I see on your bracelet Nest? It's a Welsh name, isn't it? It's a pretty name, an interesting name Nest." He articulated this last word in a way which left it doubtful whether he was merely considering its qualities or was actually addressing his companion by it. In either case he gave no offence. Nevertheless, immedi- ately afterward, Miss Vivian, with a demure smile, light- ly disengaged herself from all visible contact with him, and was walking by his side with a decorum of which even a Miss Hazel would have approved. The reason of this movement on her part was of a very obvious kind. They had, during the course of their conversation, been slowly descending the hill under cov- er of a belt of trees which stretched downward from the wood like the thin tentacle of an octopus; but their path ending in some steps, had at this moment thrust them into a thoroughfare bordered with gas-lamps and enlivened with the desultory passage of pedestrians, cabs, and carriages. A little way off was a cab-stand and a row of meek Bath-chairs, and close to these rose a large, elaborate church, from which a scanty congregation, mostly of the female sex, was being played into the open air by a faintly audible voluntary. "That," said the girl, with a note of gravity in her voice, "as of course you know, is All Saints'." Sir Rawlin surveyed the building. " And so All Saints'," he exclaimed, "has grown into that cathedral! In my time it was like a corn exchange ornamented with stucco pinnacles. But I ought to know it, for there is the old vicarage the same old, sleepy, opulent-looking villa, with the same shrubberies hiding it in dignified and assured seclusion. And there are the elms, too. I'm glad they have spared the elms. And between the vicarage and the church there used to be a gravelled 16 AN IMMORTAL SOUL space, something like a cathedral close, with some school buildings at the end of it and a circle of turf in the middle." " Look in there," said the girl. " It's just as you de- scribe it still, except that the schools were rebuilt, I think, a year ago. Mr. Barton did most of that; and the church is only just finishec 1 . If you admire the out- side, you'd admire the inside more. You never heard such an organ or such an exquisite choir. Come in and see. It won't take us a moment." As she spoke they were nearing the western door. When they reached it she turned to enter, casting at him over her shoulder a glance which bade him follow her and which seemed unused to refusals. He obeyed, and, walking behind her, he was presently in the gloom within a gloom which was faintly pungent with the odor of haunting incense. The performance of the or- ganist was over. No solitary loiterer was visible in the hushed obscurity. Arch and pillar were mysterious, and the windows were like dusty jewel-work. Sir Raw- lin was impressed by the building far more than he ex- pected to be. In the distant chancel an altar, dark with embroidered purple, lifted its pale candles and its com- pany of glimmering candlesticks. High above it the genius of Anglo-Catholicism had hung a lighted lamp, which here could only suggest the absence of the con- secrated host, just as in Roman sanctuaries such lamps denote its presence. The girl made a deep genuflection, with the easy yet solemn grace of one to whom the act was habitual; and then, touching her companion, said to him, in a low whisper: "Go up and see the reredos." The touch on his arm became a gentle push, which, though he was hardly aware of it, thrilled him with a sense of intimacy. He went forward perfunctorily, not- ing on the walls as he did so what must certainly be the stations of the cross, and proceeded, having reached the chancel, to scrutinize its medley of embroideries, brass, 17 AN IMMORTAL SOUL and alabaster. These objects, though pretentious, were very far from tawdry. They seemed to communicate to the air a suggestion of austere plaintiveness, as though a viewless Magdalen were watching there, with the spikenard of her broken heart ready for the Divine Lover. Sir Rawlin turned round to see how Miss Vivian was demeaning herself, but found that she had not followed him ; and presently, retracing his steps between the pale congregated chairs, he came on her kneeling by a pillar not far from the door. The daintiness of her white- gloved hands and of the half-seen cheek that rested on them, her red hockey-cap worn with a little capricious tilt, and the faultless folds with which her coat accentu- ated the grace of her attitude all these mundane nice- ties, contrasted and yet perversely in harmony with her air of absorbed devotion, invested her, for the man who contemplated her, with a new ambiguous charm, as though she represented all the passion which drives women to confessionals, and the passion which they bring there to confess; and this latent contrast pre- mature in one so young was reimpressed on him by the quick and unembarrassed movement with which she rose from her knees as soon as he was standing close to her, and by her eyes, which seemed with their welcome to be taking renewed possession of him. " I'm so glad you saw it," she said. " We'll go out by the other door. It takes us into the place which you called the cathedral close. Our shortest way is by a lit- tle path near the school-house." As they came forth into the daylight a cawing of rooks saluted them. Miss Vivian led the way toward an ag- gregation of parti-colored brick buildings whose pointed arches looked raw under the boughs of the old elm-trees ; and Sir Rawlin, engaged in observing them, did not at first perceive that the opening of a narrow path, toward which his guide was conducting him, was beset by some mature ladies grouped, like magnetized articles, round the person of a. tall cleric. This personage was address- 18 AN IMMORTAL SOUL ing them with an air of reserved affability, when, hap- pening to turn his head and catch sight of Miss Vivian, he began bidding his auditors an almost abrupt adieu, and with evident purpose in his eyes hastened toward the new-comer. Even had she wished to do so she could not have avoided stopping. Sir Rawlin at once moved on a few paces, and then turned round and watched him, not much pleased by the interruption. The cleric, whose age appeared to be about five-and-thirty, was, as his critic recognized, a man of striking appearance. His general expression was intellectual, but his eyes were those of a mystic, while his mouth suggested command and a possible acerbity of temper. Acerbity, however, was, at all events for the present, in complete abeyance. Standing close to the girl, he spoke to her in confidential and possessive undertones, to which her own manner in replying showed that she thought them natural. Sir Rawlin was conscious of something like impatient dis- approval, which was slightly, though but slightly, miti- gated when he saw that it was the young lady herself who at length put an end to the conference with a hasty extension of her hand and a still more hasty withdrawal of it. "Please," said the cleric, calling after her, "tell Lady Susannah that I may be able to put in an appearance for a minute or two, after all." "Who," asked Sir Rawlin, when Miss Vivian was at his side once more, "was the reverend gentleman, your friend?" With a quick movement the girl beat her palms to- gether. She seemed to be brushing away some speck of dirt from her gloves. "He's a wonderful man," she said, gravely. "Every one admires and looks up to him, but he's one of those people whom I don't much care about shaking hands with. That is Mr. Barton. He is, as a fact, only the principal curate here, but the vicar is an invalid, and Mr. Barton manages everything. He has money of his own, AN IMMORTAL SOUL and he has helped about finishing the church. He gave the reredos, and he lives on dry toast himself. When he preaches the church is crowded, and he has written books about Church music and liturgies. My aunt asked him to give me a few hints about singing. His own voice is beautiful; it hardly sounds like a man's. And those boys those cousins of mine who were brought up by an infidel tutor, try to be witty by laugh- ing at him, when they only show how silly they are. But don't let us talk of Mr. Barton; he's quite outside ordinary life. Shall I tell you something more about ourselves? For very soon you'll be in the heart of our family circle." "Do," said Sir Rawlin, quite willing to change the subject. "I'm particularly curious to hear about the mysterious Mr. Hugo." In Miss Vivian's answering laugh there was the same note of amusement which his ears had detected in it when he made his allusion to the Nut. "Mr. Hugo," she said, "is the youngest; but we call him Mr. Hugo because the servants do. He reads Dar- win, and nasty little chemical hand-books, and seriously pretends to think that we once used to be monkeys. Oswald is happy in thinking that he has eyes like Byron's, and that his heart is being always broken. But at the same time he's amusing, and he means to die an am- bassador. Aren't boys odd? Then you will see Nina, who's a dear, when once you get over the fact that she never can keep her hair straight, and won't let my maid touch it for all the world. She manages all the house- keeping, and she's really very religious, though she reads Darwin also, and sometimes helps Mr. Hugo to make slides for his microscope by squirting blue ink into bits of raw liver and kidney. My beloved aunt Susannah is a light among the old Southquay cats. She's goodness itself, and gives half her money to the cler- gy. Well, there's our household, and as for our house which calls itself Cliff's End look! It's at 20 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the bottom of this valley, all alone, behind those woods." The little path near the church had led them straight into sloping meadows secreted among high hedgerows. Primroses clustered by the gates. Cattle were being driven home; and an ancient, thatched farm-house re- vealed itself, flanked by orchards. Having followed a thin brown track through this world of primitive quiet, Sir Rawlin and Miss Vivian were now descending toward a road which wound between the opposing hill-sides, and finally brought them to a lodge with pointed windows, having for its background a steep jungle of evergreens. They turned in at the gate, and found themselves on a long approach, which mounted the slope obliquely be- tween hedges of clipped laurel, and ended in a wheel- marked space, with the porch of the house fronting them. Two closed flies were just moving away. "Look!" exclaimed Miss Vivian. "When I asked you to come in, I'd quite forgotten that Aunt Susannah has some of those cats at tea to-day. Have you the courage to face them? But no I'll tell you what. We'll go to the school -room first, by the side door from the garden ; and I'll take you in to my aunt as soon as the ground is clear." Passing through an aperture in a bank of shrubs and rock-work, they came out on a garden which seemed literally to overhang the sea, the house revealing itself as an old-fashioned stuccoed villa, with gables and clus- tering chimneys, and a large protruding wing, the whole being sheltered at the back by a grove of enormous ilex- trees. It was to a door in this wing that Miss Vivian led her friend, keeping as far as possible out of sight of the main windows. CHAPTER III THE two, on entering, found themselves in a small, dim lobby, into which, through the thin crevice left by a door ajar, a sound of voices penetrated from some room within. The girl took her friend's arm in a manner which invited him to listen. The voices were two in number, and the words uttered by each were cal- culated to arrest attention. "Peter," said the first voice "oh, my love, thou art fair! Thou hast dove's eyes within thy locks. Sit there on your altar and accept of our evening sacrifice." "James," said the second voice "darling James, come here ! Why does my Jemmie go about pretending to be a dog when he knows quite well that he really is a beautiful brown lizard?" "Wait!" Miss Vivian whispered. "I'll go in and an- nounce you." He heard her entrance greeted by exclamations of "Nest!" which were followed first by a murmur and then by a short silence. Then the door reopened, and Miss Vivian's voice said: "Come!" The next moment he was in a room, large, low, en- cumbered with untidy tables, and surrounded with cup- boards and bookcases, which had just begun to flicker in the firelight. From a chair by one of the tables, which was laden with a substantial tea, a lady with a smiling and rather eager face had risen, and was freeing herself from the embraces of a brown, oblong dachshund. Two boys, or youths, were in the act of rising also ; while en- throned and purring loudly on a large box against the wall a magnificent Angora cat, with a dish of scraps bc- 22 AN IMMORTAL SOUL fore it, was wiping a whiskered cheek with a large, but- tery paw. Miss Vivian introduced her friend without any at- tempt at ceremony. "Here is Nina," she said; "here is Oswald; and that over there is Mr. Hugo." The three exhibited a sense of having somehow been taken at unawares. Mr. Hugo in particular assumed a gloomy sedateness. He looked older than his years, and he had dark, solemn eyes; but his face, when he smiled, became almost like a baby's. His brother, who had an air of the world about him, and who was, moreover, very well dressed, justified Miss Vivian's description of him by an expression which was intended to be melancholy, but which struggled at the corners of his mouth with the forces of lurking mischief. For him the recovery of his self-possession was the work of a moment only; and there was something in Sir Rawlin's manner which so immediately accommodated itself to the situation that the others were soon in the way of being equally at their ease also. This happy result was completed, while Miss Arundel was providing him with some tea, by an ob- servation on his part, the effects of which were perfectly magical. "Your cat," he said, "sits there as if he were an Egyptian deity." " He is a deity," said Oswald, reading sympathy in the guest's face. " We prefer him to the bull of Mithra at least, for purposes of home worship. That box is his altar. Those little scraps of tea-cake are the remains of his burnt-offerings. We've been reciting his evening office, which is taken from the Song of Solomon." Miss Nina went over to the altar and began stroking the cat's fur. "He must," she said, "have been sacri- ficing a mouse to his own self in the garden, for he's left half his tea-cake, yet his beautiful sides are bulging. Oh, Mr. Hugo, how dreadful! Do come here and look! He's been gnawing the kidney which we injected with green ink for your microscope." 23 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Ignoring the scuffle which ensued, Oswald glanced at Miss Vivian with a cautiously dawning smile. "The real reason," he said, gravely, "why he partly rejects our offerings is that he has been catching mice in Mr. Barton's church, and has there learned to demand from us a more advanced ritual. He wants us to intone, and he would like processions, and a banner or two. I have," he went on, " been making a sketch of the sort of thing he wants " ; and he handed a sheet of paper to Sir Rawlin, which had been lying half concealed among the tea-things. On it was a robed priest, strutting with up- turned eyes, and bearing a banner whose device was a yawning cat. The cleverness of the drawing was ex- traordinary. Sir Rawlin at once recognized the features of Mr. Barton. Miss Vivian approached and looked over Sir Rawlin 's shoulder. "Oswald," she exclaimed, making a snatch at the picture, " if you're silly and irreverent, I'll never be in love with you again ! Sir Rawlin, don't encourage him." At this moment an odd little pink-cheeked butler, with the intimate smile of long family service, appeared at the door, inquiring if they wished for lights. "Berry," said Miss Vivian, "who's left in the draw- ing-room? Go, like a dear. Just peep in and tell me." "For the time being, miss," he replied, "there's no one. A good few have come and gone, but her ladyship is expecting more." "Then in that case," said Miss Vivian to her friend, " I'll avail myself of the lucid interval, and prepare Aunt Susannah for your advent." She had hardly left the room when a new sensation was created by a sound between a cough and a hiss which came from under a sofa. "Oh," cried Miss Arundel, "it's Peter! I'm sure he's going to be sick. I hope he will be, the darling. I must carry him from the room at once." Mr. Hugo assured her that "the chromosomes were 24 AN IMMORTAL SOUL not toxic." The cat, however, was hastily caught, and deported in Miss Arundel's arms; accordingly, Sir Raw- lin found himself alone with the two boys. Mr. Hugo by this time had retreated to a table in the window, and was contemplating in ostentatious seclusion a microscope and several saucers, on which were lying lumps of raw animal matter. His demeanor being obviously a mute plea for attention, Sir Rawlin approached the table, whereupon Mr. Hugo informed him that the microscope was of unusual power, and would reveal at that moment, if only the light permitted, a wonderful section of the heart of a diseased jackdaw. Then, casually pointing to a number of stoppered bottles "Those," he said, "contain sterilized gelatine. As soon as I can get a little radium I am going to produce life." "And you," said Sir Rawlin to Oswald, "create life in another way. That sketch was uncommonly clever. I have just seen the gentleman depicted. Have you anything else you could show me?" The boy, with hesitating pleasure, brought forth a large portfolio. Its contents were mostly caricatures, but among these were some water-colors which caught Sir Rawlin's eye fanciful sketches of scenes evidently meant to be Oriental, and peopled with lovers whose birthplace was the pages of Moore or Byron. "You've a fine imagination," said Sir Rawlin. "Have you ever been in the East?" "No," said Oswald. "Have you?" "Yes," said Sir Rawlin, smiling. "I have been there for many years." The boy, who had been seated, pushed back his chair and rose. "I beg you to forgive me," he said, with a polished and yet ingenuous courtesy, "but just now my cousin's account of your kindness to her hardly left me time to realize who you were. I was reading only yes- terday about your connection with the Persian Treaty, and your book of travels is up -stairs by my bed now." 25 AN IMMORTAL SOUL He blushed and checked himself, as though fearing he had said too much. "My book," said Sir Rawlin, laying a kindly hand on his shoulder, "would, if it could only speak, try to tell you how it alued your compliment." The return of Miss Vivian prevented his adding more. "Aunt Susannah, being Scotch," she began, "has nine hundred and ninety-nine cousins. She's persuaded that you are the thousandth, and is quite eager to tell you so. But wheels were crunching up the drive as I slipped back through the hall, and it will shorten your sufferings if you wait here a little longer. Then I'll commit you to Berry, for I daren't venture again into the lion's den myself." The girl's eyes were sparkling. The air of the room when she entered seemed to quicken with a new vitality, and Mr. Hugo stole back to the tea-table, nibbled a sponge-cake, and smiled at her. "Oswald," she exclaimed, catching sight of the port- folio, "when you're not silly you're clever. Do some pictures for Sir Rawlin of the people he'll meet in the drawing-room . ' ' Sir Rawlin seconded the request, and the artist hast- ened to comply, the others, in amused expectation, watch- ing the movements of his pencil. "Well," he said, "we'll begin with Miss Mittens, the authoress of Withered Bents. Her head is always down like that, and her eyes are always up, and her hands are always crossed on her buckle, when they're not holding a teacup. And here is Miss Greendale, the authoress of Love in a Basque Village. Her eyes roll with a gentle ogle, and she gesticulates with her hands sweetly, in- stead of folding them. I don't know for certain that either of them will be there to-day, but I can promise Sir Rawlin this one, if she hasn't come and gone already. This is Mrs. Morriston Campbell only I'm not making her nearly fat and vulgar enough." "Don't," said Mr. Hugo, "forget to put in her wart." 26 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "She once," Oswald continued, "knew a royal prin- cess at Bordighera, who graciously made use of her carriage every other day for a month, and she has never thought or talked about anything else since. She sits swelling in a chair like that, as if she were a kind of Sinai and every beast of a common person who ap- proached her deserved to die. She's simply apoplectic with pomposity. Here's old Mrs. Summerfield. She's really a lady. Sir Rawlin will know her at once by her wig and her poke-bonnet. These" and the artist here drew a number of blank ovals "must be held to repre- sent the widows of old Southquay incumbents. What shall I do now? Oh yes. Nest, watch this." Under his pencil, as he spoke, a figure began to grow, drawn from the feet upward, and revealing gradually a long, clerical coat; but it ended at the collar, headless. " I am not worthy," he murmured, "to depict the all-sacred countenance." "Oswald," exclaimed Miss Vivian, "you're an idiot!" Before Sir Rawlin could realize what had become of her, she had reached a corner of the room in which stood an object not previously noticed by him. It was a gramo- phone, which began forthwith to emit a well-known air from "Carmen." "Oswald," she said, "listen," and she sang a few words with the instrument. "Si je t'aime, prends garde a toi." Oswald refused to look. "Do," he said, "stop that horrible grating thing." The girl did so. "Sir Rawlin," she said, "you had better come along with me. I won't, as I told you, go back into the drawing-room myself, but we'll get hold of Berry, and he shall be lord chamberlain." The two disappeared accordingly. "My dear Nest," said Oswald, when she re-entered, "you're no doubt very much a young lady of the world, but you ought, when you go to pick up your German at Miss Aldritch's, to take lessons in the art of introducing people. I never gathered from what you said perhaps you didn't know 3 27 AN IMMORTAL SOUL yourself that your gallant knight-errant, who delivered you from the jaws of the thunder, is our greatest Asiatic diplomatist. That's what they call him in the Times.' 1 Sir Rawlin, meanwhile, had been ushered into a long, faded drawing-room, where his hostess, who met him at the door, had been evidently looking out for his arrival. She had trustful eyes alight in a bony face of fifty, and her speech, slightly plaintive in its intonations, suggested the habitual attitude of a Christian and well-born lady toward a world where all husbands die, and not all die as wealthy as they deserve to do. "Sir Rawlin," she said, "this is really pleasant. I knew most of your mother's family. I shouldn't won- der if we were related. Thank you, a thousand times, for your kindness to my poor little pretty niece. If you could stay till these people are gone, I should like to ask, and also to tell you, one or two things about her. I know you've had school-room tea, but will you look on at ours?" Still talking, they slowly approached a group, con- sisting of some dozen persons, at the farther end of the room. Sir Rawlin could hardly help laughing, it so closely resembled that which Oswald's sketch had repre- sented. Mrs. Summerfield and Mrs. Morriston Camp- bell he recognized at the first glance, and then the back of Mr. Barton inclining itself toward some bonneted lis- teners. His hostess having looked about to discover an appropriate seat for him, he was presently conscious that his own name was being murmured in connection with that of Mrs. Morriston Campbell. Mrs. Morriston Camp- bell, however, altogether failed to catch it, and, having acknowledged his bow in consequence with a freezing royal stare, was putting him in his place with a few languid syllables, when old Mrs. Summerfield saved her from further trouble. "Did I hear some one say," she asked, "that this is Sir Rawlin Stantor? Sir Rawlin, I'm too blind to see you, but I knew your dear father well, and I'm afraid I 28 AN IMMORTAL SOUL must add your grandfather. Yes, and Lady Emily, too. Lady Emily was my oldest friend. We went to- gether to our first drawing-room. I do hope you're going to stand for us, and keep out those shocking Radi- cals shocking quite shocking who want to ruin the country." Mrs. Morriston Campbell listened, her mouth and eyes wide open, and with a sudden readjustment of her features was getting herself into position to recapture the angel whom she had sent away unawares, when Lady Susannah rendered the attempt fruitless by saying to Sir Rawlin: " I don't want to interrupt you, but there's somebody here who has to go in a minute, and who has a particular reason for wanting to make your acquaint- ance." The person referred to proved to be none other than Mr. Barton. Sir Rawlin, whose prepossessions were not very favorable to the priest, and who fancied that he had detected in him certain drawing-room affectations as a tea-drinker, was now impressed by him in a way which he had not at all anticipated. Mr. Barton's eyes were still the eyes of a mystic, and the smile which he bestow- ed on his hostess was a little oversweet and finikin, but his manner, when he addressed Sir Rawlin, was courte- ous, alert, and dignified, and the mystical eyes acquired an expression of dry judgment. "I am glad," he said, "Sir Rawlin, to have this op- portunity of meeting you. If, as I presume, it is your object, before committing yourself, to see what the state of affairs in this constituency really is, I could give you some useful information which you won't get from the party agents. The fact is that at Southquay as you, after your long absence, have had probably no means of realizing the strictly Church vote is a very important factor; and I think I should be in a position to tell you very much better than the agents can what the numeri- cal value of the Church vote is, and also the precious grounds on which it would be withheld or given. If I 29 AN IMMORTAL SOUL might call on you, or if you cared to call on me, I could show you in half an hour or so very much how the land lies." " That," said Sir Rawlin, " is just what I want to get at. The party agent is coming to see me after break- fast to-morrow morning, and if I should find you at home between twelve and one I would come on straight to you, with a view to completing my education." Mr. Barton declared himself delighted with this ar- rangement. He explained where his house was situ- ated, and having hastily surveyed the room, as if look- ing in vain for somebody, declared that, being a busy man, he was unable to remain longer. Mr. Barton's departure was a signal for other leave- takings. Mrs. Morriston Campbell, indeed, showed a tendency to outstay the rest, in the hope of inducing Sir Rawlin to do her the honor of dining with her; but, finding him not responsive, fired a parting shot at him by saying to Lady Susannah, in making her last adieus: "The dear princess, from whom I had a long and such a sweet letter this morning, particularly asked to be remembered to you. Is not she wonderful ? She never forgets friends." "And now," said Lady Susannah, when she and Sir Rawlin were left alone together, "sit down there and be comfortable. I want you to tell me what it was that really happened. The thunder seemed to me nothing. What did my niece do? Did she look as if she were going to faint, or did she seem hysterical ? Or what ?" "No, no," said Sir Rawlin. "There was thunder in the air, no doubt, while she was still playing hockey, but she never felt it at all till the excitement of the game was over. When the actual thunder came well, if I hadn't been there, and able to reassure her, she might have fainted. That's possible. For ten minutes or so her nerves were more or less unstrung. But she quickly recovered herself much more quickly than my sister would have done, who, whenever it thunders, goes and 30 AN IMMORTAL SOUL hides in the coal-cellar. As a matter of fact, she showed singular self-control, and I should judge from her be- havior that by this time she can hardly recall what was the matter with her." "You relieve me," said Lady Susannah, "immensely. To tell you the truth, this young lady is the cause of very great anxiety. In most respects she seems perfectly well, but her nerves were upset somehow by a serious attack of influenza, and ever since then any over-excite- ment has been apt to produce a breakdown of one kind or another. On one occasion she was unconscious for an hour. A thunder-storm was the cause in that case, so you see why I'm so much relieved by what you tell me about this afternoon. I hope it shows that she really is getting stronger. But there's one thing which I've often thought myself and the doctors say so too, and what you said about the hockey reminds me of it that what she wants most of all is to have her mind steadily in- terested. This hockey is good in its way; and then she's been studying German. But still I'm afraid that there is not very much to interest her. She's oddly old for her years, and she looks on the boys as children; and I can't help fancying at times that she feels very much alone. Nina and I poor child ! are not exactly companions for her. Of course there is Mr. Barton, who has given her some advice about her singing; but naturally he is dif- ferent. And there again there's a difficulty of just the opposite kind. There can, I think, be no objection to my telling you about it." Sir Rawlin, with a quickened interest, begged Lady Susannah to proceed. "Well," she said, "the case is this. My niece, though you mightn't think it, has strong religious feelings, but she was brought up abroad, under not very fortunate circumstances, and it appears that she has never been confirmed. There is to be a confirmation here at Whit- suntide, and at her own earnest wish Mr. Barton has begun to prepare her for it. That in itself is just as one AN IMMORTAL SOUL would pray it might be; but I can't help fearing that her over-emotional nature may get troubled about the matter in a way that her body cannot yet stand." "What," asked Sir Rawlin, "suggests to you this particular danger?" "Oh," said Lady Susannah, "little trifles which one can't help observing sometimes. For instance, she's fond of sketching; and she sits sometimes under some fir-trees just outside the garden making studies of the rocks and waves. Well, I've found her there once or twice, and she seemed to be in a kind of dream. I've one of the sketches here. I keep it locked up in a drawer. You'll see why, when I show it to you. There's nothing in the sketch itself, but just look at the back." On the back of the drawing which Lady Susannah committed to him were a few faintly pencilled lines of what seemed to be an attempted poem. With some difficulty he deciphered the following words : "Olives gleaming And the lamp of Mary beaming Where the lone shrine fronts the sea. Hesper, star of waves and twilights, What is this that I remember, Lost 'twixt Mary's lamp and thee?" "Doesn't that," said Lady Susannah, as Sir Rawlin returned the paper, "strike you as rather morbid? If she were quite well otherwise, one wouldn't think any- thing about it." "She must," said Sir Rawlin, after a pause, and with- out disputing this criticism, "be a very interesting girl. But surely in a place like Southquay, where, though it's not what it once was, all sorts of people are constantly coming and going, it would be possible for her sometimes to see a little society that would interest her and keep her from indulging in feelings well, ' morbid ' is perhaps the right name for them." "I believe," said Lady Susannah, "that you're a very 32 AN IMMORTAL SOUL sensible person. But I myself go nowhere now. I know none of these charming people, and my own acquaint- ances, as you may have seen, are hardly very interesting to a girl. Still, I might try. I might get up a little luncheon-party. My cousin George Carlton, who knows everybody, is coming to me in a few days. Anyhow, Sir Rawlin, you must let me tell you this. I can see that this meeting with yourself has been a real stimulus and pleasure to her. You, at all events, if you're not too busy, will, I hope, come and see us again." Sir Rawlin replied that in a day or two he would do so with the utmost pleasure, and he and Lady Susannah parted on the best of terms. His immediate experi- ences of Cliff's End, however, were not quite completed yet. He realized, when he was in the hall, that he had left his hat and stick in the school-room; but just as the butler was preparing to go and fetch them a rustle of skirts was heard to proceed from somewhere, and Miss Vivian appeared with the missing articles in her hand. "All right, Berry," she said, "I'll let Sir Rawlin out. I was waiting to give you these. Look! Do you see how dark it is? I will show you your way down the drive. You didn't want to go, did you, without saying good-bye to me? No!" she exclaimed, taking his arm as they emerged into the mild obscurity, " you mustn't go that way, or you'll fall over a thousand flower-pots. It's lucky I was here to warn you. And now we're alone, tell me how did you get on with Aunt Susan- nah?" His answer appeared to satisfy her. "And Nina and Oswald and Mr. Hugo," she continued "what did you think of them? They're dears, now the boys are no longer in love with me. For the first three weeks I was here, if ever I whispered with Oswald, Mr. Hugo looked as if he would have liked to throw his mi- croscope at him, so I soon had to stop all that. I must show you one day the poem Mr. Hugo wrote to me, in which he compared my eyes to lenses. But tell me this: When I took you into the school -room, did you 33 AN IMMORTAL SOUL think that I'd brought you into a regular home for lu- natics?" "My dear," said Sir Rawlin, "I thought them all de- lightful. I should like, if I could, to help on Oswald in his profession. But here we are at the gates. Thank you for your escort, and good-bye." She took hold of the lapels of his coat. He could feel, though he could hardly see, her eyes through the dark- ness looking at him. He knew that, like her eyes, her lips also were lifted. He took her by both her hands, but otherwise he kept his distance. "Must you go?" she said. "Well, I suppose you must. I hope you'll come and see me again. Will you do that, or won't you?" His voice, he found to his surprise, was less under his control than his body was. "Nest," he said, "yes, of course I will. I've settled it all with your aunt. I hope to see you again very soon indeed. You talk of hope. Your life is all before you. You have made me forget that mine is a Pandora's box which has not even hope left in it." "Don't you hope," she retorted and he divined that she was half smiling "don't you hope to become a member of Parliament?" " I have one thing left in the box," he said, "but it is not hope. It's work to work while it is called to-day to take the next step, or to refrain from taking it. I am refraining from something now." He walked away hardly conscious of the manner in which he had just addressed her, but touched with the sort of embarrassment which a man is apt to experience who, having patted a lost dog, is followed by it to his own door. CHAPTER IV THOUGH Sir Rawlin Stantor was the owner of most of the soil of South quay, his father and his grand- father had so burdened the estate by their extravagance that the income which he personally drew from it had been little more than sufficient for his ease as a bachelor, in his original profession of diplomacy. His affairs, in- deed, by this time showed some signs of improvement; otherwise he could not have contemplated the expense of a parliamentary contest. But the old home of his family in the neighborhood of Southquay was let, and his present quarters were in a well-knowa^private hotel, occupying the centre of an imposing ancr secluded cres- cent, which looked across its private gardens on a minia- ture bay below. His sitting-room with its high walls, whose expanses of watered paper were ornamented with huge engrav- ings of the coronation of Queen Victoria, derived next morning, when he entered it, an aspect of habitation and brightness from the warm spring sunshine, from several bowls of flowers, and a bachelor breakfast which was glimmering near the fire. He himself, however, pre- sented to this agreeable scene a face overclouded with indications of some pensive annoyance. Early in life he had been involved by a worthless woman in an entanglement which had injured for the time both his reputation and prospects. His own con- duct and character had been subsequently more than vindicated; and he had every excuse for supposing, with the rash wisdom of twenty-five, that he knew wom- en far too well to be ever again moved by them. When 35 AN IMMORTAL SOUL he was beginning his career at Paris as a good-looking boyish attach^, the black-eyed wife of the minister of some South- American republic, being anxious to extort a divorce from her legal lord and master, pitched on him as an instrument suitable for involving her in the req- uisite indiscretion. She contrived to make him com- promise her at some hotel, though, so far as he was con- cerned, in a purely platonic fashion, by inducing him to listen in her bedroom to a tale of her wrongs and sor- rows. A duel with the husband followed, in which Sir Rawlin, though a precocious pistol-shot, acted so strange- ly that his friends even were doubtful of his courage. Their doubts were intensified when, as a final prepara- tion for the encounter, he took from his pocket a brandy- flask, set it at the foot of a tree, and said: "When the shooting's over, whether I'm hit or no, go for that flask and bring it to me." The shots were duly fired. He was himself grazed in the shoulder, and his own ball was in the middle of the silver brandy-flask. "I despise a coward," he said; "that's why I'm fool enough to be here. My flask will show you that I despise duelling more." The real facts of the case were not known for a year. Meanwhile the boy had to give up his pro- fession, and was taken as a private friend by a dis- tinguished diplomat to Constantinople. At the Em- bassy there he was kept in touch with political life, and acquired a remarkable knowledge of the languages and literature of the East. He subsequently travelled in India and the less-known parts of Persia, and at length in the latter country, with distinction, and under his old chief, he filled for many years the post of secretary at Teheran. Social successes were his reward rather than political advancement. Good-looking, and possessing a temperament of the kind that attracts women, women distinguished and beautiful had made many attempts to cure him of the ill opinion of their sex resulting from his first experience of it. One of them had succeeded so far that he and she together enjoyed the rapture 36 AN IMMORTAL SOUL of the illusion that the world was well lost for love an illusion shipwrecked by its consequences, and unfortu- nate both for him and her. Other incidents, similar to but less serious than this, had failed to provide him with more than those passing distractions which leave little behind them but disappointment, and end in ex- hausting the fountains of the expectation which is the life-blood of romance. Finally, in his attitude toward women, he had arrived at a half-humorous cynicism, humanized by a respect for them as creatures who were capable of receiving injuries, although in his own case they could no longer inflict them, and whom he felt him- self, for his own part, incapable of ever again injuring. But now all of a sudden this assured calm had been broken, and that by an incident of seemingly the most trivial kind. Had he not allowed himself such was the tenor of his thoughts to indulge in a sentimentality with regard to a mere child which the subtlest fascina- tions of womanhood had for years failed to awaken in him? And had he not allowed himself to encourage an outburst of sentiment on this child's part, to which serious response of his own was of course out of the ques- tion ? He possibly might, so he told himself, be making a mountain out of a mole-hill; but his conscience, un- suspected by himself, had a secret ally in his vanity which flattered him, as under similar circumstances it would have flattered many sensible men, with a renewed sense of his aptitude in pleasing the other sex, and thus stood in the way of his regarding himself too lightly as guiltless on the ground that he lacked the qualities re- quired to make him guilty. The moral result of all these searchings of heart was a self-reproachful pity for one so young, who had with so pathetic a readiness put it in his power to injure her, and a resolve that, when he met her again, he would so readjust his conduct as to place himself clearly before her in the guise of a mere interested friend. This resolution left him sufficiently satisfied to enable 37 AN IMMORTAL SOUL him, aided by the prospect of two impending business interviews, to dismiss the subject altogether from his mind. These interviews were for him, indeed, of ur- gent practical importance. One was to be with the representative of a wealthy order of monks recently ex- pelled from France, who desired to purchase a site from him for the erection of an enormous monastery. The other was to be with the secretary of the Conservative Association of Southquay, who was to give him a gen- eral account of the position of affairs in the constitu- ency. The former of these gentlemen, true to the appointed minute, arrived before Sir Rawlin had quite finished his toast a solicitor with a grave aspect worthy of his clerical clients. "What is wanted," he explained, "is twenty acres at the top of Watbury Hill the locality which has already been indicated to you; and I am authorized to offer you a thousand pounds an acre. This, as my clients are aware, is something over the market value; but if your acceptance is prompt they are not disposed to haggle." The offer, indeed, was one which considerably ex- ceeded his expectations; and when his visitor, after an hour's discussion of details, left him alone with the mat- ter practically settled, Sir Rawlin felt that he had solved the serious financial difficulties which would otherwise have made the wisdom of his contesting the constitu- ency doubtful. He was therefore able to welcome his next visitor, the secretary of the Conservative Associa- tion, in a spirit of confidence which agreeably surprised himself. The general upshot of the secretary's information was this: that the electors of the Southquay division, with the exception of some eight hundred, were permanently separable into two equal bodies, each of which, con- sisting of some five thousand persons, supported on prin- ciple the Conservative and the Liberal candidate re- spectively, the result being dependent on the action of 38 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the eight hundred remaining, who had, so the secretary observed, no principles at all, and would consequently be the only body with which a candidate need much concern himself. These arbiters of destiny, he proceed- ed, would be swayed by a variety of considerations, such, for example, as the amount which might be got out of the candidate, personally, as a patron of local institu- tions and a customer of local tradesmen. " You see, Sir Rawlin." he said, " a gentleman in your position can do a great deal in a place like this impos- sible for a carpet-bagger. You'll forgive me for throw- ing out a few hints; and I'll leave these lists and notes with you, that you may go over them at your leisure." "By- the- way," said Sir Rawlin, when the agent rose to go, " there's one little thing more. You spoke just now of the dissenters. From what I happened to hear yesterday, it appears that the purely Church party are also a power in the constituency. Mr. Barton, who told me this, promised me some detailed information. Do you know this Mr. Barton, or what kind of man he is?" The secretary, who was bowing himself out and had reached the doorway, paused. "I don't know Mr. Barton," he said "not, so to speak, personally. But he's a masterful man, what- ever he is. He fills All Saints' with his preaching, and, besides that, he's a man of means. He gave two thou- sand pounds toward doing the church up. He gives to the poor, too, though they say he fairly frightens some of them, he looks for all the world so exactly like a for- eign priest. He has a quarrel on, by-the-way, with the president of the Scientific Institute, who has dug up some old bones in a cave which is close to All Saints', and asked leave to exhibit them temporarily in one of the parish rooms. The old vicar would have given his consent if it hadn't been for Mr. Barton, who said that the exhibition of the bones was going to be made an excuse for getting a German atheist over from Berlin 39 AN IMMORTAL SOUL to lecture on them. A surprising number of people not all women, by any means have been sticking up for him. He must by this time know his own lot pretty thoroughly. Yes, Sir Rawlin, if he'll only tell you what he knows, I should say you couldn't do better than pick the Reverend Mr. Barton's brains." Sir Rawlin, when the secretary was gone, glanced at the lists which had been left with him; but, despite all his late self-criticism, between these documents and his eyes a flower-like image of youth obtruded its distract- ing spell. He moved across the room to a sideboard, and took from it three volumes which he had asked for the previous evening volumes belonging to the hotel. They were a Peerage, a Landed Gentry, and a British Biographical Annual. Beginning with the two former, he set himself to find three names. These names were Lipscombe, Vivian, and Arundel. The Arundels of Cliff's End he had no difficulty in identifying as belong- ing to an old family well-known in the county, and he was amused to find that, among their many relations, most of them respectably provincial, they counted that dazzling luminary of the fashionable world Lady Con- way. Their father had been a dean; their mother had been a Miss Lipscombe, whose brother had married Su- sannah, daughter of the Earl of Peebles, who was some- how or other connected with the dazzling Lady Conway also. Thus far all was simple; but when he came to the Vivians, though a male Vivian was recorded as the husband of a female Arundel, no Vivian young lady was discoverable among the mass of bewildering entries who either bore the somewhat unfamiliar name of Nest or could even by courtesy be numbered among Lady Su- sannah's kindred. There was, however, a Captain Rhys Wynn Vivian, born between fifty and sixty years ago, of whom it was merely stated that he had served in the Second Life Guards, that at an unnamed date he had married an unnamed lady, and that by her he had had issue who were treated with a similar reticence. This 40 AN IMMORTAL SOUL man, thought Sir Rawlin vaguely associating his name with some ancient scandal might, perhaps, be Miss Vivian's father, perhaps he might not; but as there was no deciding the question he closed the Landed Gentry, and taking up the Biographical Annual proceeded to turn its pages with the desultory manner of one who is looking for something which he knows he will not dis- cover. Presently he lit upon an entry which caused him to give a slight start and to hold the book in a position which would enable him to see more clearly. What he read was as follows: "Barton, Theophilus, the Reverend. Second son of Oliver Boyne Barton, Esquire, of Belfast, and Augusta, daughter of the Revd. J. Fitzgerald, Canon of Canterbury. Educated at Rugby and Cambridge. For many years previous to taking orders, Mr. Barton was lecturer on religious art and architecture at the Universities of Belfast, Liverpool, and Manchester. Has travelled much in Spain, Italy, and the East. Author of Our Lady in Byzantine Art, The Liturgy of the Church of Edessa, The Farce of Scientific Scepticism, A History of the Pointed Arch, The Redeemer in Ancient Prophecy, The Immanence of Catholic Unity, The Uncompanioned Pilgrimage; or, Notes on Christian Mysticism." In addition to these items of information, Sir Rawlin learned further that Mr. Barton had taken priest's or- ders about eight years ago, that he had been chaplain to the Father Superior of one Anglican confraternity, that he was still secretary to another the Brotherhood of the Hidden Union and that, after some years' ex- perience of parish work elsewhere, he had undertaken his present duties at Southquay. Sir Rawlin was still meditating over this account of a man, the first sight of whom had roused in him a curiosity not quite amicable, when he was interrupted by the entrance of a waiter, and the announcement of a third visitor, whom Sir Rawlin's gesture of surprise showed to be quite unexpected, and whose superior im- portance to his predecessors was made sufficiently evi- 41 AN IMMORTAL SOUL dent by the pompous manner in which the door was thrown and held open to admit him. The new-comer was a personage of striking aspect. In his sedate move- ments and in the expression of his powerful face there was something of that aloofness which old age, and old age only, brings to those who have played commanding parts in life. No one, indeed, could have supposed him to be less than seventy-five; but his carefully trimmed and curling hair was abundant and unstreaked with gray, and, despite their wrinkled lids, his eyes were so alive and luminous that, besides being unconjecturably old, he seemed also to be unconjecturably young. His form was very fittingly muffled in a magnificent sable overcoat; and a finely shaped hand, ornamented with a large turquoise, held a gold-headed cane, on which now and then he leaned. "Good Heavens!" exclaimed Sir Rawlin, going for- ward to meet him. "What talisman has brought you here, or what enchanted horse? I imagined you on your travels still brooding, perhaps, over the lost glories of Sidon or camping on the plains of Troy, and trying in the dead of night, like Apollonius of Tyana, to raise the ghost of Achilles." "Free me from this burden," said the traveller, un- buttoning his heavy furs. "No, my dear Rawlin, I've tried to raise one ghost only : that is the ghost of health ; and with the help of my friend and most fascinating companion, Dr. Thistlewood, I have not only raised it, but compelled it to remain with me in the flesh. Did you ever meet him ? He's the only man I know of who has deliberately taken to medicine as the true route to philosophy. I always tell him that when he uses his stethoscope he is listening for the heart-beats, not of his patients, but of the universe. If I had to choose my own career over again I'd be a doctor a doctor like Thistlewood, who can pick his patients, travel to find them, collect them, house them, compare them, and never need think of fees, except those that are forced 42 AN IMMORTAL SOUL on him. If you've not met him, you must meet him. You'll find that you never knew what a doctor was like before. But I didn't come this morning to talk about Dr. Thistlewood. I came because I just heard at the hotel where I've been staying for a night or two that you had just arrived yourself, and that there is a ques- tion of your standing for this constituency. Well, I was one of your trustees, so I'm privileged to speak plainly. Elections, my dear Rawlin, even in these days, cost something I only wish they cost more and what I want to tell you is that, if you felt it unwise to burden the estate with the expense of a contest, you would be giving me one of the best of pleasures yet possible for me by allowing me to consider such expenses as my affair, not yours." " I would," said Sir Rawlin, "have accepted your offer with gratitude if I had not had a windfall this morning of twenty thousand pounds. Read that memorandum and congratulate me. If the Protestants attack me, I can tell them that I have spoiled the Egyptians." "I congratulate you," said the traveller, as he handed back the paper, "though the bounty of the Church has left me out in the cold. And now, what do you say? I've a carriage at the door, which will take me presently to the station, but there's half an hour to spare. Shall we drive, and enjoy the morning a morning worthy of Naples? Or, better still, shall we walk up through the gardens, and send the carriage round to meet us on the road above?" Sir Rawlin assented to this latter proposal with alac- rity, as the course of the walk suggested lay, he said, in the very direction in which a business appointment would, in any case, take him presently. The road to which the traveller had alluded, known as the New Drive, was one of the most beautiful and most peculiar features of Southquay. High above the hotel, at the back of which were wooded cliffs, it fol- lowed the folds and protrusions of the steep hills for a 4 43 AN IMMORTAL SOUL mile or so. Above it were fir woods. From its edge down to the sea descended exotic evergreens inter- spersed with natural brushwood, among which scram- bled a number of labyrinthine pathways; and slowly up one of these pathways the two companions climbed. The traveller, who was for his years a surprisingly vigorous walker, was now free, since the purpose of his visit was accomplished, to return to the subject of Dr. Thistlewood, and also to explain the reason of his own presence in Southquay. Southquay, he said, with which he had been long familiar, had been recommended to him as possessing the best spring climate in England for one who, like himself, had just returned from warmer regions. He proposed accordingly to take a house there for a month or two, and have Dr. Thistlewood as his guest, if one which would suit both of them could be got ready in time an arrangement, he added, which would possibly have the result of Dr. Thistlewood's con- tinuing the tenancy of the house himself, and using it as one of the private homes or hospitals, of which he had several, for the treatment of selected patients. "I suppose," continued the traveller, "you know his history and the source of his great fortune. His mother was an American heiress. His nominal father was an Englishman the last, I believe, of an old but decayed family an officer in the Austrian army. His real father was undoubtedly the Archduke Francis. Well, so far as his own medical practice is concerned, one new feature which he has been able to introduce is this : Many doc- tors will treat poor patients for nothing. Dr. Thistle- wood will always, if necessary, pay them liberally for being treated." "Dr. Thistlewood," said Sir Rawlin, "is evidently a most benevolent man." " He is," replied the traveller. " He is as benevolent to sufferers as St. Francis. But among Dr. Thistle- wood's motives kindness is merely an incident. 'My patients," he says ' especially the most simple and igno- 44 AN IMMORTAL SOUL rant of them give me much more knowledge than I can ever give them in care or even in cure as a return for it. Brother Ignorance,' he says he's a great reader of St. Francis 'it is from you I learn half my science.'" Sir Rawlin turned to his companion with an air of somewhat quickened interest. "I should," he said, "like to meet him." "You shall," said the traveller, "if you stay on here, as I hope you will. But here we are at our summit. Italy, my dear fellow, Italy! Those two rocks there might be the Isles of the Sirens." The views from the New Drive, on the asphalt pave- ment of which they were by this time standing, were indeed of a kind unequalled in Northern Europe. The restless waters, through layers of headlong foliage, show- ed their blue surface growing milky as they murmured on the beach below. Here and there on the blueness was a white or a ruddy sail and the oval of a boat's deck. Two island rocks shone each in its fringe of foam. The traveller leaned on the railing by which the edge of the footway was protected, and contemplated the scene in silence. Gray cliffs in the distance, with furze- dotted downs above them, landward slopes darkened with clinging copses, the near greens of the macrocarpas, Irish yews, and the tops of laurel, crowding the gardens from whose depths he had just climbed, the cloudless ultramarine of the sky, the bloom and glitter of the sea, fanned by the faintest and mildest of all spring breezes, the light-hearted sparkle of the foam where the brine was whispering to the rocks to him and to his com- panion likewise made it seem as though all the world were singing. "Why, with this at their doors," he said, "should Englishmen go to Naples ? All Europe came to look at this in days which you and I remember. Who comes here now? Let us walk on. The answer is here be- fore us." By a slight gesture of the hand he indicated the in- 45 AN IMMORTAL SOUL frequent pedestrians and occupants of shabby flies, to whom the New Drive was apparently at that moment abandoned. In some of the flies nondescript men lounged, who were exchanging jokes with the drivers. In others were shapeless bundles of female cloaks and wrappings, surmounted by appropriate faces, whose as- pect was either blank or peevish. The male pedestrians, though sufficiently well dressed, seemed to wear their leisure-like clothes that did not fit them. Some of them spat, or nudged each other as they went along, or en- livened their conversation by throwing a stone aimless- ly. The females were models of decorum, most of them embodiments of maidenly middle-age, who produced on the passing observer no other impression than that of a vague briskness or equally vague dejection. " If the sirens," said the traveller, presently, "still in- habit their islands, they are evidently not in the habit of making trips to the shore. These people," he con- tinued, "some of them, are no doubt invalids. Well, we don't grudge them the healing of rest and nature because they are not personally interesting either to you or me. Indeed, even to us they are interesting in a cer- tain sense. The sorrows of the unattractive are speci- mens of all sorrow, a drop from the universal reservoir, just as beauty and charm are, whether those of a woman or a flower. Still, the most ferocious humanitarian will hardly blame us for regretting that we have not here a few examples of the flower-like women as well. Look," he said, taking Sir Rawlin's arm. " Beyond this dip in the ground, where the road disappears round the corner, you can see two women like black shadows against the sky. You can't mistake them. They are going to sit down on a bench. Well, merely from the way in which they move, you can see that those women are some- thing quite different from the others. As for the others watch them, group after group. They almost para- lyze one's power of believing that an attractive woman is possible." 46 AN IMMORTAL SOUL The Drive had by this time turned away from the sea. Below it was a deep valley, rural with fields and hedge- rows, and the hill opposite ran out to a promontory on which, among thickets of ilex, was a cluster of white gables. Sir Rawlin had recognized them already; and there was something in his companion's tone a subtle suggestion of far-off romance and gallantry which brought back to him under a new aspect his own ad- ventures of yesterday. His self-reproaches with regard to them began to renew their sting; but this was ac- companied by a surprisingly bright reblossoming of the thought that romance and he had not yet quite parted company. "I can," he said, "give you a better proof than your own that the sirens in this part of the world do come ashore occasionally. I found one in a sea-fog yester- day, on the top of a high hill. She has her home for the time in that house which is facing us. Her toilet must have been designed by Fragonard. She might be a shepherdess on a fan ; and she ought to have a jewelled crook, and be leading a lamb by a rose-colored ribbon. We might, if we had a pair of glasses here, be able to see her little red cap among the bushes." They had both stopped in their walk and were looking toward Cliff's End. The traveller's face was by this time all attention, and Sir Rawlin proceeded to describe the events of the previous day, disguising by the levity of his manner both the interest and the trouble which they had not ceased to excite in him. " I envy you," said his companion, when the story had reached its close. "When I come back from London you must introduce me. Lady Susannah yes I must have seen her when she was a plain girl. My dear fel- low," he went on, "there are two passions and politics is not one of them through which we approach the secret which alone makes life valuable: the passion for woman and the deeper passion for knowledge. Only this last remains mine. Both may still be yours." 47 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "You are wrong," said Sir Rawlin, conscious of re- draping himself in the toga of his true character. " When men have loved and recovered from love a sufficient number of times, they find that any fresh experience of it, even if they should be tempted to wish for this, would be only folly for themselves and only cruelty for others. But, to turn to a subject a little more interesting than myself, we are coming to your own two ladies, whose distinction was so evident to you from a distance. The near one, at all events for I can't see the other is, I regret it for your sake, not very well turned out." This last observation, which was made in a discreetly subdued voice, was hardly out of his mouth when the subject of it made a gesture in his direction which was not unlike a bow. In some surprise he glanced at her for a second time. The gesture was repeated, and he recognized Miss Nina Arundel. She rose to meet him, and as she did so the figure of her companion revealed itself. It was that of Miss Nest Vivian. Her hat was trimmed with sable. On her breast was a bunch of violets. Her face, rather pale, was like ivory that had been rubbed with rose-leaves. Sir Rawlin was acutely conscious that, were he some- what younger, he would be blushing. He glanced tow- ard her with a certain sense of shyness, almost afraid of the feeling which she might possibly display on seeing him. She, however, unlike her cousin, betrayed abso- lutely no consciousness of his presence. She remained, indeed, to all appearance, absorbed in the contempla- tion of her muff till Miss Arundel, slightly stooping tow- ard her, said: "Nest, here's Sir Rawlin Stantor." Then she at once looked up, and her smile and the inclination of her head were so civil in their complete self-possession that a stranger might have thought them encouraging. But she did not extend her hand, and there was in her ex- pression and movements no trace whatever of any recol- 48 AN IMMORTAL SOUL lected intimacy it seemed, indeed, hardly any of any recollected acquaintance. Sir Rawlin's feelings for a moment were beyond his own powers of analysis. That which was uppermost was a feeling of his own folly in having wasted his valuable scruples on an impudent little minx like this, who ac- tually presumed to treat him as some smart young lady in London might treat a casual partner in whose arms she had waltzed at Cairo. His next feeling was that he was shaking himself free from all thoughts of her, as though they were unwelcome substances which had ac- cidentally settled on his coat. Meanwhile he was con- scious that Miss Arundel was addressing him with much friendliness. "My cousin," she was saying, "has tired herself by coming too fast uphill. Sir Rawlin, my aunt is so pleased to have met you. She has written you a letter this morning, which Nest and I have been posting; and she hopes very much that she will soon see you again." Sir Rawlin was not a man who was easily put out of countenance. He made Miss Arundel a cordial though curt response; he raised his hat with a conventional smile to Miss Vivian; and, declaring that his engage- ments would not allow him to delay, he hastened to re- join his companion, who had walked on slowly before him. "Your eyes," he said, with a dry laugh, "are much better than mine. One of those two ladies of yours is my beautiful shepherdess herself. Of course she's a mere child." The traveller, who had been watching the meeting, cast a parting glance behind him. "I was sure of it," he said, striking the ground with his stick. " I commend your judgment and envy you your good-fortune. For years I've seen nothing like her. God bless me, you talk of her as a child! A girl like that is never a child. At fifteen she has in her the eternal charm of womanhood, and my dear fellow, 49 AN IMMORTAL SOUL take care of the horses unless her digestion fails her, she will never be an old woman. Well, here's the car- riage. Are you coming with me ? Or shall I leave you free to go back to the shepherdess ?" "I'm coming on with you," said Sir Rawlin. "Will you put me down near the church with the gray spire ? I've no time this morning for any shepherdess of hearts. My business lies with a shepherd of souls and votes." CHAPTER V 1"^HE house, of which, as a lodger, Mr. Barton oc- cupied the whole, was close to the church, and coeval with the new school buildings. With its pointed arches of raw red and white bricks, it wore the aspect of a miniature modern vicarage. It opened on the gravelled precinct which Sir Rawlin had crossed yes- terday, and which now in the brilliant sunlight was checkered with the shadows of the tall, leafless elms. The actual vicarage, with its shrubberies, its ample, low- lying roofs, and its comfortable stucco, discolored by the weather of sixty years, facing Mr. Barton's door, formed one side of the enclosure; and before its pillared porch, at the moment of Sir Rawlin's approach, was a little group, the central object of which was an old-fashioned Bath-chair. In this was an old man with a delicate and scholarly face, while a matronly lady, not much younger than himself, was administering something to him which appeared to be a glass of wine, and a footman with silver buttons was adjusting the leather apron. Sir Rawlin felt that here must be the same old vicar who had been celebrated as a translator of St. Chrysostom some thirty years ago. It was a peaceful scene, per- vaded by that atmosphere of spiritual united with world- ly dignity which the English Establishment has alone known how to generate. The rooks cawed overhead and the bells of the gray tower chimed the hour of noon. Having passed through the stillness, which these sounds alone broke, to the door of Mr. Barton's resi- dence, Sir Rawlin pressed the button of a modern elec- tric bell. In another moment an obliging maid was in- AN IMMORTAL SOUL forming him that Mr. Barton was out, but would very shortly return, and had begged, with many apologies, that Sir Rawlin would step in and wait for him. The visitor was accordingly taken through a clean-smelling, distempered passage, with a tiled floor and a dado of varnished pitch-pine, and shown into a room whose mellow and scholastic aspect was, in a house so new, at once pleasant and surprising. Up to two-thirds of their height the walls were lined with book-shelves, the re- maining space being occupied with engravings of re- ligious pictures and a number of very large photographs representing ecclesiastical buildings. The floor was cov- ered with a matting of dusky green, hard in texture but very delicate in color, and the whole of the wide window was blocked by an enormous writing-table. Gradually other details forced themselves on Sir Rawlin's notice. Hung by wires from the top moulding of the book-shelves and hiding many of the books were some antique colored plaques representing, in high relief, heads of Italian saints in meditation or in acts of ecstasy. On the writing-table was a tall crucifix, some docketed bundles of what evidently were business letters, and a something which seemed at first to be a broken ormolu ink-stand, but which proved, on nearer inspection, to be a small and curious censer. More interesting, how- ever, than any other objects were the books, many of them ragged in aspect, most of them bearing signs of use. They were very various in character. There were government blue-books, text-books of logic and history, and travellers' guide-books, interspersed with Italian poets. There were learned treatises on Pompeii and the Roman Forum, on the schools of mediaeval painters, and the development of Christian architecture. There was a copy of Plato's Banquet, translated and bound in vellum, an Imitation of Christ, The Interior Castle of St. Theresa, The Spiritual Combat, The Dark Night of the Soul, and between a Keats and Shelley was The Little Flowers of St. Francis. There were four lives of St. Ignatius, the 52 AN IMMORTAL SOUL works of St. Thomas Aquinas, and a treatise by an English Jesuit called The Collapse of Darwinism. Be- sides these, in noticeably handsome bindings, were some large illustrated volumes dealing with Christian ritual and symbolism; and on a small table were some others, costly in appearance, and evidently quite new, one of which, lying open, displayed an exquisite reproduction of a picture of a virginal and blue-robed saint from whose worn face time had fallen, and who was knowing the abyss of ecstasy as she was kissed by the Divine Bridegroom. Such were the typical features of the priest's library which caught Sir Rawlin's eye, and gave him a strange impression, as though he were being surrounded by the thoughts, the struggles, and the secret emotions of the man. Above the chimney-piece was a drawing of a boy dressed like a chorister, on the margin of which were pencilled the words " In Memoriam," together with two lines borrowed from a well-known hymn: " Brother, thou art gone before me, And thy saintly soul is flown." Under this portrait was a photograph of a monument to Mr. Barton's mother. On the margin of this also there was a pencilled word. It was "Dilectissima." Sir Rawlin was still engaged in contemplating these objects when steps were heard outside, and Mr. Barton, habited in a cassock, entered. "Sir Rawlin," he exclaimed, "I trust you will forgive me for my lateness when I tell you that I've just been waiting to administer the last sacraments to an unfort- unate, dying woman waiting, alas! in vain. She had, with a view to allaying some poor momentary distress, been literally so drugged by one of these godless doc- tors that she died before my very eyes without recover- ing consciousness. However, what's done is done. I shall remember her at mass next Sunday. Pray, Sir Rawlin, sit down, and let us proceed to business." Mr. 53 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Barton's manner, despite his somewhat high-pitched voice, had now become that of a shrewd man of affairs. "We have," he said, producing a paper on which some figures were scribbled "we have among the voters in the Division seven hundred and forty communicants, whose votes would be determined primarily by the candidate's attitude toward the Church. Apart from Church matters, we should most of us be on your side the Conservative. But let us make no bones about it with us the Church comes first and all other considera- tions second. And now let me tell you what, politically, our claims for the Church are." Sir Rawlin declaring that this was just what he wished to learn, Mr. Barton, slightly shrugging his shoulders, proceeded to observe that the Church her distinguish- ing note being the possession of apostolic orders was of necessity one or other of two things. She was a prod- uct of human delusion or the custodian of supernatural truth. If she were the former, she should be suppressed. If she were the latter, she should be supreme. In especial for politically this was the most urgent ques- tion the Church must, as the intellectual mother of the nation, be placed at no disadvantage in endeavoring to maintain and extend her rightful influence over the young, protecting them, on the one hand, from the aberrations of dissent and heresy, and, on the other, from that shallow materialism, scarcely less deadly, which now was aiming, under the specious name of science, at loosening the primary bonds of all social morality, and owed such success as it had to this un- acknowledged cause. "If," said Mr. Barton, in con- clusion, " the Secular Arm will be her servant, so much the better for all. If not, let us do without it. Briefly, Sir Rawlin, the thing we ask for is freedom freedom of belief, ritual, discipline, and educational action; and that's hardly a demand which, among Englishmen, ought to be so very unpopular." "Well," said Sir Rawlin, who had proved himself a 54 AN IMMORTAL SOUL most excellent listener, "if freedom is what you want for your religion, I think I may honestly say that you'll find me quite at one with you. I need not go into de- tails, but let me give you two examples of my meaning. Wherever a desire prevails to worship the sacred ele- ments, I would have the English clergy free to reserve and expose them. Wherever a belief prevails in the general necessity for confession, I would have them free to fill their aisles with confessionals." Mr. Barton, with a sigh of relief, subsided into an easier attitude, and his face assumed a more intimate and less official expression. "Sir Rawlin," he said, "it's my impression that you're a man after our own heart." "Perhaps," Sir Rawlin replied, judiciously turning the conversation to a question somewhat less direct, "my own sacerdotalism goes further even than yours, for, if we have priests at all, my own view is that they should be celibate." Mr. Barton reflected and made a slight grimace, in- dicative of hesitation rather than of substantial dis- agreement. "I am not," he said, "in favor of any general pro- hibition. I have seen among the married clergy many beautiful lives. But I pray and have worked for the growth of celibate orders, and I look on celibacy as a part of my own personal vocation." "I was only," said Sir Rawlin, "giving utterance to a sort of pious opinion which has, after all, much to say for itself. Celibacy was obligatory on all the priests of Isis, and even the fiery Tertullian, as you may perhaps recollect, declared that their chastity might be a lesson to many Christians." Mr. Barton's face lit up with a sudden brotherliness, and the last trace of a frost, which had been slowly melt- ing, disappeared. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "so you read the Fathers, do you ? How nice, now ! Yes, the Fathers there are plenty 55 AN IMMORTAL SOUL of them on my shelves. If we wish for corporate reunion, it is to them we must go back. Ah, Rome! Rome! separated from us simply by the perverse pretensions of her Vatican, and putting artificial restrictions round the treasures of her spiritual life!" "I noticed your Fathers," said Sir Rawlin, "while I waited for you. I noticed also your architectural pict- ures ; and I wanted to ask you what is that bit up there, with the buttresses and the three windows ? The arches are Norman, but the ornamentation is early English." Mr. Barton rose with alacrity and turned to the pict- ure indicated. "Dear, dear," he said, "this is nicer still! You're a student of architecture also. Fancy your noticing that! I hope you'll allow me to show you our own church some day. Well, that bit is a part of the cathedral at Kirkwall beautiful, huge, red cathe- dral, looking out from its narrow isthmus over its two seas. Changes in architectural style reached the Ork- neys so slowly that, though Kirkwall Cathedral took four hundred years to build, we find the round Norman arch surviving there to the very last, though the details of ornamentation had changed. Next to that picture, if all this is not boring you, is another queer example of very much the same thing. It's the church built by the Goths at Narranco, in the north of Spain. Do you make out what the Christian builders have been doing? They've been actually copying some of the details of a Roman temple. Do you see how they've placed the altar? Delightfully quaint, isn't it? But, my dear Sir Rawlin, aren't we rather straying from our muttons our political muttons, I mean? Or may we suppose that we understand each other? I think we may; but I should just like to ask you one thing. Please sit down again and be comfortable. There has been a rather tire- some business going on here lately. We have in South- quay what they call a scientific institute. This, in the old days, was all very well in its way; but for the last five years it began before I came here the trustees of 56 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the institute and the trustees of the local museum have been putting their heads together, and have started in the museum building a succession of lectures which are not scientific, although they profess to be so. I don't know that the lecturers ever openly attack revelation, but they deal with history, even sacred history, and with natural history also indeed, with everything, just as though revelation did not exist. Well, after all, this might not have done much harm, for I believe that at these lectures the attendance was refreshingly poor ; but within these last two years, as you very likely know, some old bones have been discovered in a cavern close to the church here; and last Christmas there was a specially precious discovery the vertebrae of a mam- moth and some chipped pieces of flint. Possibly the mammoth had been gnawing them. This has not yet transpired. Anyhow, the long and short of it is that I have encountered a storm of abuse, because, acting for my vicar, I've refused the use of a little hall of ours to a conference of scientific free-thinkers, who want to ex- hibit these remains merely for they can have no other possible object merely as an excuse for another of their childish attacks upon the Bible. Now, you would wish, I hope, that the Church should be mistress of her own buildings, and free to refuse the use of them for any purpose which she condemns." "I think," said Sir Rawlin, "that to expect a body like the Church to lend its buildings to people who want to undermine its principles is like asking the House of Commons to lend its cellars to Guy Fawkes." "Capital!" exclaimed Mr. Barton. "Capital! I'm de- lighted to hear you say so. In one way, of course," he continued, with a shrug of his shoulders, "it's not a bad thing to allow this so-called science to expose itself to sensible people by proclaiming its own absurdities, but it's not the business of the Church to provide it with the means of doing so, and the remedy has its dan- gers. You know those two boys at Cliff's End Lady 57 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Susannah's nephews. I don't believe that at bottom there's very much harm in either of them, but they are both infected even the youngest one with this cant of what they call science, and what is really the old materialism in its crudest and absurdest form. The younger one little jackanapes! actually said in my hearing that faith was an affection of the nerves, and that the human conscience was so much cellular tissue. One doesn't so much blame them as those from whom they pick this up. The chatter of those boys is really not more absurd than what a certain class of professors are gravely preaching to-day to artisans who are hardly worse educated than themselves. Well, Sir Rawlin, as for you, I felt sure of your answer. You'd have the Church the mistress of her own buildings. I believe that, if you consent to stand, the Church party will vote solidly for you. And now, what say you to a cigarette ? Let me offer you my one luxury ; and may I ask you to give me your opinion on a matter of a different kind? I have in this parcel some books which have been sent me as samples of binding. Which of the bindings do you prefer? The books are little manuals which I'm going to give to my confirmation classes." " I should think," said Sir Rawlin, "that the red would keep cleaner than the white. I can't help seeing the price. For one-and-fourpence they're astonishing. But surely may I look at that other? the purple one with gilt edges you can't get a thing like that for the same money?" Mr. Barton, exhibiting some slight trace of reluctance, produced the book in question a masterpiece of sub- dued daintiness. "No," he said, "I'm afraid one can't. And even if one could well, one doesn't wish to be snobbish, and a respecter of persons; but, as you said just now, the poorer children it's not their fault do make their things piggy: so one can't treat everybody in exactly the same way. This little book I think it's as pretty as 58 AN IMMORTAL SOUL could be is, to tell you the truth, designed for the young lady with whom I saw you walking yesterday. She is among those whom I am about to prepare for confirmation, and she will, of course, take care of it. A beautiful nature that, unless I am much mistaken; though I gather that her religious education has been terribly neglected in some ways. By-the-way, let me show you another thing which I got for her, and which I think will help her. She has a curious natural sym- pathy with where did I put this, now? ah, there, lying open on the little table a curious sympathy with the Catholic conception of religion. Here the book is. It is called The Visions of the Saints. The letter-press is very simple. What I want you to notice are the pictures. These modern processes aren't they per- fectly marvellous? Did you ever see anything more like actual miniatures? That's St. Angela of Foligno, with our Lord coming to her through the rose-bushes. Isn't the little robin sweet? Look how one or two of its little red feathers are rumpled. That's our Lord giving the aromatic gum to St. Gertrude, in order that her breath might be no less sweet to Him than her prayers. That one again I should like you to examine that through a magnifying-glass. Our Lord's dress, as He kisses St. Sylvia's hair do you notice the gold and the red lines in the border? You can see that the gold line is a piece of stiff braid, applique. And between the folds of the robe do you make out what that is? It's the face of St. Francis, which we saw painted on our Lord's breast. But I mustn't bore you any longer with this. Perhaps you'd like to take a look round my crib." The suggestion being accepted, he led the way into a smaller room. " Here," he said, " is my inner den my cell." The floor was of bare, stained boards. The only furniture was a couple of hard oak chairs, monastic in pattern, but affecting no antiquity; a small table with a stool before it, apparently used for kneeling; and a desk 5 59 AN IMMORTAL SOUL supporting a rosary, some devotional books, and a man- uscript, the window which lit it opening on a neat lit- tle patch of garden. The only decoration on the white- washed walls was a crucifix, the figure being of the cheapest plaster. " I always think," said Mr. Barton, seeing that Sir Rawlin noticed it, "that there's something rather jolly in a poor, common thing like that. I like to feel that I use in my own devotions nothing not in reach of the poorest. I allow myself an old Spanish one a really fine work of art in my library. Across the passage is my refectory. Would you like to have a peep at that ? Not large, is it? I can just cram in three people at a pinch. Generally there is only one. And now, if you must go, good-bye. As soon as your own plans are settled, we might arrange a little practical work together. I've done some work, both as a canvasser and an or- ganizer, in more than one election already." As soon as Mr. Barton was alone he became a changed man. The expression which had accompanied his use of such artificially familiar words as " nice " and " sweet " and "crib," or of "jolly," in its school-boy sense, alto- gether disappeared. The priest came out in his face; the receiver of calls faded. Returning to his library with eyes absorbed and solemn, he sat down by the writing-table, his chin resting heavily on his hand. Mr. Barton possessed one of those aesthetic and emo- tional temperaments which, closely connected as they are with the higher developments of sanctity, are known to be often the source of hopeless and unnamed corrup- tion; but from such a result he was saved by certain snows of the spirit, which made any kind of corruption in his own case impossible ; and he had gone through life with the gait of an untempted Galahad. His eyes for a moment rested on the picture of the clear-faced chorister one of his old school friends and he thought of the November walks during which, on their return to chapel, they had seen among the amethyst 60 AN IMMORTAL SOUL of the sunset the battlements of the New Jerusalem. Then his attention strayed to the photograph of the monument of his mother his mother, the only woman whose kiss he had ever known, and through whom alone womanhood, as opposed to manhood, had ever made to him any distinct appeal. Then little by little his thoughts took a new direction. They went back to the Sundays of last Advent the period when, in connection with various charities, his acquaintance with Lady Susannah and her family had first ripened into intimacy. It was then that he ac- quired the habit of walking with her and Miss Arundel, after morning service on Sunday, to Cliff's End for lunch- eon. Those charming Christian women the sense of rest and refreshment they produced in him was jarred by nothing but the presence of the two boys, who troubled him at moments by exciting in him a stir of impatient pity. The fields and the orchards, through which their Sunday path lay, were idyllic for him with gracious memories. At last a morning had come it was the morning of Christmas Day when, awaiting him at the side door, together with his two accustomed friends, was a third figure which was new to him that of a graceful girl, dressed with a delicacy which appealed to his sense of color a girl in whom natural vivacity seemed to con- tend with lassitude, and who looked at him, the moment he met her, with instinctively sympathetic eyes. They had all gone back together through the fields, to eat Lady Susannah's turkey, carrying with them pleasant rec- ollections of arches red with holly - berries. And this girl, somewhat to his surprise, had contentedly walked beside him, as though it were a privilege to listen to him, even when he spoke most seriously. After luncheon, at her aunt's request, she had sung, and he had given her, with the precision of an expert, a few friendly hints re- lating to the management of her voice. His intimacy thenceforward with the family at Cliff's End had ripened. He had soon begun to discuss the 61 AN IMMORTAL SOUL girl with her aunt, and had been deeply touched by the little which he was able to gather as to her circumstances. "Her father," Lady Susannah had said "she isn't my own niece really was in old days a great friend of mine ; but for ever so many years he has been obliged to live abroad, and I have not seen him since his marriage. This child will have quite a fortune. Her rooms have been fitted up with things of her own here, which, I hope, means that I may be allowed to keep her indefinitely. But if she doesn't get stronger or, at all events, if there's a serious relapse she's to be sent back to her parents, and I've promised to take in her sister or her half- sister. That is really the relationship. There is some difficulty, it seems, in having both at home together. I can't tell why, still I have my suspicions. Mr. Barton," she had added, with a somewhat trembling voice, "this is in the strictest confidence it will help you to under- stand things which are too painful to be dwelled upon I can't help thinking that the other one may be not legitimate. Poor child, that's not her fault, if it is so. But, Mr. Barton, help me to keep Nest here. Encourage her to sing. Anything that interests her is good for her, so long as it's not exciting. And then, though I can see that she's religious, I doubt if she's had much instruction. She told me she hadn't been confirmed, and could there- fore not take the sacrament." Mr. Barton had felt, as he listened to this account, that his own first impressions with regard to the girl were justified. Her eyes had at once appealed to him ; he now knew the reason why. They were eyes looking for something which they had not yet found. The world had given her of its best, but the world could not give her peace. Here was a lamb bleating for the pastures that alone could satisfy, and the Divine Will had led her to him, that he might be to her as the good shepherd. He had accordingly, at first with a distant kindliness, won the confidence which she was not slow to give him by advising her further about her singing. Finally, 6a AN IMMORTAL SOUL with much tact, he had approached the subject of con- firmation, and the response he met with went to his heart at once. He had opened, so it seemed to him, a well of profound emotion. He had unsealed a sacred fountain. And this emotion, accompanied as it was with charms and graces essentially feminine, and to him absolutely novel, had soon caused him to regard her with an almost paternal solicitude, sharply distinguished from and yet not wholly incomparable to those high and equal friendships and that passion of filial worship which, apart from religious fervor, had been the deepest of his past experiences. His formal preparation, both of her and his other charges, for the confirmation was not to begin till after his return from London, where his presence would be shortly demanded by important ecclesiastical business; but he had lent her, and had been delighted to find that she read with interest and intelligence, some simple books on the history and general teaching of the Church ; and meanwhile he had no desire to hasten matters. In the quiet family circle, in which alone he knew her, he felt that she was, except for her health, safe. He found comfort even in something which otherwise at times perplexed him a maturity in her bearing, her manner, her social judgments incongruous with her spiritual sim- plicity, for herein he discerned a security for her against the influence of her boy cousins. Indeed, he had often told himself that she, with her worldly aplomb, instead of being influenced by them, would laugh them out of their absurd follies. All this was passing through his mind now, and, as he thought of her, filled him with a new accession of tenderness. Taking up the little manual he designed for her, he touched its violet binding lightly and rever- ently with his lips. " Through her," he said to himself, " it has, by God's grace, been given to me to see better into the needs of all childhood." This reflection was still filling his mind when his maid 63 AN IMMORTAL SOUL appeared at the door and informed him that his lunch was ready. "Mrs. Curtis says, sir," she added, "that, according to your orders, she hasn't sent up nothing but sardines; but I was to mention that, if you wished it, she could do you a nice chop." "Thank you," said Mr. Barton, laughing. "A sar- dine will be quite enough"; and before betaking him- self to his banquet he remained for a few moments on his knees. CHAPTER VI AS for Sir Rawlin, he too, like Mr. Barton, when left to himself again, became a different man. Having paid a mental tribute to many of Mr. Barton's quali- ties, and indeed to his general character, which, despite certain trivial mannerisms, had surprised, interested, and impressed him, he became a prey to reflections less agreeable to the self-esteem of a man of the world, a philosopher, and a prospective statesman. Miss Viv- ian's behavior to him on the Drive forced itself on his thoughts afresh, and caused him more annoyance than he was at all willing to recognize. This mere child, this companion of romping school-girls, this future member of a confirmation class, had not merely presumed to re- duce him to the condition of an affronted boy, but had shown him that the situation which he had resolved so solemnly to avoid was actually nothing more than a ludicrous imagination of his own. No doubt by way of compensation she had removed the ground of his self- reproaches a fact for which he found himself hardly so grateful as he might have been. But this was not enough. Before he reached his hotel he had determined that, if he met her again, he would with the utmost good-humor put her in her proper place, and that her acquaintance should in no case figure among the inter- ests of his stay in Southquay. When he entered the hotel, however, her image was again obtruded on him. Lying on the luncheon-table was the letter from Lady Susannah, which Miss Arundel had mentioned as on the way to him. It consisted of 65 AN IMMORTAL SOUL a cordial request that he would lunch with her that day week. "So, you see," she added, "I am following your advice already, and I hope our young lady will benefit by it. I shall have George Carlton with me, and am asking a few friends also." He accepted the invitation with a pleasure which he was not overcareful to analyze, and he was meanwhile so absorbed by practical busi- ness that the very existence of Cliff's End and its in- mates was as often as not forgotten by him. Thus the week went by and the appointed day ar- rived. The luncheon-hour was half-past one ; and Lady Susannah, some twenty minutes earlier, decorated with a locket which she reserved for great occasions, was alter- nately knitting and fidgeting in a shabby little green boudoir, when she heard a sharp pull being given to the front-door bell. The butler, a moment later, ushered in Mr. Barton. "Dear Mr. Barton," said Lady Susannah, "how good of you to have come early, as I asked you!" "On the contrary," said Mr. Barton, in his accent of mundane affability, "it's so dear of you to have bidden me at all." " Sit down, please," said Lady Susannah, as she snatch- ed rather nervously at her knitting. "I want to say a word or two to you about my niece, Nest." Mr. Barton's drawing-room smile at once left his lips. His face became grave and anxious. "Well," he said, "tell me. I am listening." "You know," his hostess proceeded, "how easily things upset her a clap of thunder, or any mental ex- citement. Still, on the whole you must have noticed this yourself, seeing her as you do at intervals she has for the last month or so been steadily getting better, and for the first day or two after her fright in the hockey- field that's just eight days ago she was brighter and stronger than I'd ever seen her before. But since then she has somehow or other gone back again. She's list- less, and hardly eats; and what I specially wished to 66 AN IMMORTAL SOUL tell you is this: I've just discovered by accident that she's taken to stealing away and spending hours by her- self in your church. Now I myself should be just as sorry as you would to do anything which might inter- fere with her healthy religious impulses; but you know better than I do that such impulses may become exag- gerated, and I'm sure, from a doctor's letter which her father sent me when she came here, that anything of that kind would in her case be most injurious." "I should doubt." said Mr. Barton, dryly, "whether doctors were specially qualified to advise candidates for confirmation. And yet well, all things considered, it is possible, quite possible, that in this special case they may be right. You would wish me to speak to her, would you? I will do so gladly. With a little gentle- ness, I am sure I can put things straight." "Dear Mr. Barton," said Lady Susannah, "I'm sure you can. May I tell you what I feel myself? For, of course, I see her every day. My own feeling is that be- sides physical exercise, like the hockey, which was your suggestion, we ought to provide her with some healthy general interests some society beyond that of her cousins." "Certainly," said Mr. Barton, with alacrity; "there I am quite at one with you." "Well," resumed Lady Susannah, "that's one of the reasons why I'm giving my little party. My cousin, George Carlton, always makes things amusing. And Sir Rawlin is coming, too. The other day his conversa- tion really seemed to wake Nest up. I wish in South- quay we'd a few more people like him." Mr. Barton smiled, and, resuming his mundane man- ner, noiselessly clapped his hands. "Hear! hear!" he said. "Sir Rawlin is a charming man. A man of his age, with his wide knowledge and experience, is precisely the kind of person it would do your niece good to meet certain to interest without any risk of exciting her. If you'll leave me to speak to her " 67 AN IMMORTAL SOUL But his speech was here cut short by the quick open- ing of a door, and Miss Vivian herself was before them pale and slim and silken in the daintiest of Parisian blouses. "My dearest and best of aunts," she said, "Nina is dying to speak to you about the flowers. I beg your pardon. Oh, Mr. Barton, it's you, is it? I very much hope I'm not interrupting business." "I'll come this moment," said Lady Susannah, rising. "And you, my dear, meanwhile will you stay here with Mr. Barton to entertain him?" Mr. Barton's temperament gave him one great ad- vantage, in respect both of wisdom and dignity, as a spiritual director of women. Women, though their com- pany was congenial to him, pleased him mainly on ac- count of their grace and sensitiveness, and appealed to him because he discerned in them a peculiar need for guidance. He could, therefore, treat them with a sym- pathy which never lapsed into sentiment, and, in the special feeling which Miss Vivian by this time had ex- cited in him, he was absolutely unconscious of anything but the solicitude of a jealous parent. " I've been much concerned," he began, " to hear from Lady Susannah that you have, for the last few days, not been seeming quite so vigorous as we could wish." "Fancy my aunt speaking to you about my absurd little ups and downs," replied the girl, with a languid laugh. " We all have them. But don't go and tell me, I entreat you, that I'm looking like an invalid to-day." "My dear child," said Mr. Barton, gravely, yet with a touch of subdued playfulness, " I'm not a medicine- man, so I won't tell you anything of the kind; but I am anxious to say a word or two to you personally, which I have just been saying about you to your aunt. It has come to my knowledge, though I have not seen it my- self, that you have during the last few days been spend- ing many hours in church. You won't accuse me of wishing to discourage religious meditation, but what I 68 AN IMMORTAL SOUL wish to say to you is this: you and I and all of us are essentially immortal souls, and these bodies of ours are merely their perishable instruments. Still, so long as we remain on God's earth, it is only by using these in- struments that we can play our appointed parts; and if they show signs of weakness we must not rashly over- strain them, even in our ardor to work for divine things. We should be breaking the spades that God has given us, instead of keeping them to till His vineyard." "Yes, yes," said Miss Vivian, looking down at her bracelet, "I can see the sense of that." "Well," Mr. Barton continued, "as I was just now saying to your aunt, what we want is to see you recover- ing the equable tone and cheerfulness which anybody at your age, with a good, clear conscience, ought to have; and we think your aunt in this entirely agrees with me that what would be good for you is not physical recreation only, like the hockey, but the stimulus also of a little pleasant society. I think we might venture to say a little social distraction, such, for instance, as the conversation, which would take you out of yourself, of your aunt's friend, Sir Rawlin Stantor." "I'm afraid," said Miss Vivian, "that a man so ex- perienced as Sir Rawlin will not want to add to his ex- periences that of wasting his time on me. Hark! the door-bell. They're beginning to come already. I must rush up to my room to finish myself. Mr. Barton, thank you very much. I'm apt to get morbid, and then I go all to pieces. You sha'n't see me do that at luncheon to-day, anyhow." Some ten minutes after this conversation had ended Sir Rawlin, a trifle late, was entering Lady Susannah's hall, and a sound from somewhere, like the cawing of a small rookery, suggested the general character of the company he was about to meet. Nearly every one, as soon as he found himself in the drawing-room, seemed to be talking with an odd and exaggerated industry, as though bent on making the utmost of an opportunity 69 AN IMMORTAL SOUL that rarely came. The hero of the moment appeared to be a little elderly dandy with a very dark wig and a feminine note in his voice, who was delighting a circle near the fireplace with a sort of dictatorial facetiousness. His hands glistened with rings, he called Lady Susan- nah "Dear thing," and on realizing Sir Rawlin's presence skipped forward to greet him with a gesture of elegant recognition. Sir Rawlin assured himself, by appealing to Oswald Arundel, that this was Mr. George Carlton. " Mrs. Morriston Campbell," the boy went on, confidentially, " has just discovered that he has a little post about court, and is now swallowing his witticisms as if they were so much manna. Shall I tell you who some of the others are? Those two ladies talking to Mr. Barton are the authoresses. The fresh-colored parson with the high, bald forehead, who looks pink with luncheon before he has begun to eat, is Mr. Robinson. The girl in the cor- ner, with crushed-strawberry cheeks, is Elvira, a love of Mr. Hugo's, who goes to school at Miss Aldritch's, and that monster near the window do look at him is Colonel O' Brian, her father." Sir Rawlin's own desire was rather to discover Miss Vivian, but, failing to see her anywhere, he consented to examine the Colonel. Colonel O'Brian, though the widowed parent of seven upstanding daughters, one of whom had married the son of an Irish peer, was one of the most striking dancers at the public balls of South- quay. With his flourishing mustache and startling Nor- folk jacket, he had a buoyant air of conquest over every- thing fair and feminine; and he was plainly engaged now in a search for some fitting victim. Sir Rawlin's attention, however, was presently called elsewhere by Mr. Carlton, who beset him with good wishes for his suc- cess in his parliamentary candidature, and who went on to observe delicately, in a tone of shocked distress, that he had "always thought Radicalism so dreadfully in- sincere and selfish. Why," he said, "can't the people 70 AN IMMORTAL SOUL keep in their proper places and leave us in ours ? That's what I can't make out. So meddlesome, and so unneces- sary." But just as he was diverging from this impor- tant question to compliment Lady Susannah on the stitch of a piece of knitting, Sir Rawlin's ear was caught by a light laugh, and, turning round, he perceived that Miss Vivian was at last present, and was seemingly hap- py in the toils of the enterprising Colonel. The Colonel's very back was eloquent of enviable success ; and he was asking her, in tones indicative of a mutual understand- ing, how it was that he had never met her at any of that winter's dances, when the door was opened, the announcement of luncheon came, and a movement with- out formality took place to the dining-room. The guests, whose positions at the table were marked out for them by their names, had, while Mr. Robinson said a cheerful grace by request, settled themselves and unfolded their napkins, before Sir Rawlin discovered that Miss Vivian was seated next him. In the drawing- room he had merely exchanged with her a perfunctory salute from a distance, and now she was again monopo- lized by the Colonel, who was her other neighbor. To this arrangement, moreover, she herself seemed a will- ing party, for, having curtly thanked Sir Rawlin, who moved to give her more room, she forthwith turned away from him, and surrendered herself to the familiari- ties of his rival. Such behavior exceeded what Sir Rawlin had thought possible, and he naturally deter- mined to pay her no further attention. Mr. Barton, who was seated opposite, noticed Miss Vivian's conduct, and noticed it with surprised anxiety. His social taste was superior to the society in which he had been brought up. Though he was no connoisseur in flirtations, the demeanor of the Colonel shocked him; and Miss Vivian's conduct in tolerating, still more in en- couraging it, annoyed him as though she were inflicting some meaningless disfigurement on herself. When he had spoken to her about social interests he had not AN IMMORTAL SOUL thought of things like this. Placed at a distance from her though he was, he resolved that as soon as possible he would do her the salutary service of disengaging her attention from its present unworthy object. The nat- ural turn of the conversation at last gave him his op- portunity by introducing a topic which was quite be- yond the Colonel's grasp. "We have," said Mr. Robinson, taking advantage of a general silence, "been talking down here about churches. Barton, we'll appeal to you. You're a pun- dit in such matters. What should you say, in an archi- tectural sense, was the most interesting church exist- ing?" Mr. Barton felt at once that Miss Vivian's eyes were on him. "I think," he said, judicially, after a mo- ment's reflection, "that, if we put aside the question of size, I should give my vote to St. Ephraim's of the Forty Pillars." Mr. Robinson put his hand to his ear. "I didn't," he said, "quite catch the name. In which diocese is that?" "It was built," said Mr. Barton, "by Guy, Count of Cilicia. It lies forty-five miles northeast of Tarsus." Mr. Robinson, with a slight grimace, let the sacred subject drop ; and another was forthwith started which seemed of more poignant interest. This was the cele- brated Lord Cotswold, diplomatist, statesman, and writer on scientific philosophy, not wholly disregarded by those even who called him a charlatan, but at one time much criticised as a notoriously irregular husband. It was now being rumored that he had taken a house at Southquay, though nobody quite knew which, and was shortly going to occupy it with a large party of friends. Mrs. Morriston Campbell, with an air of su- perior knowledge, declared that Lord Cotswold was of course quite out of society, and was somewhat taken aback when the courtly Mr. George Carlton, in a voice which arrested everybody, said to Lady Susannah: 72 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "You remember, dear Susie, Lord Cotswold married a cousin of ours a thoroughly fourth sort of cousin and treated her quite too abominably went off with the scullery-maid or the mangling-maid so shocking all blue and soapsuds. It killed poor Maria of appen- dicitis twenty -five years afterward. I always say it was through Maria that appendicitis came into our family." While Lady Susannah, among a chorus of applausive titters, was gurgling, "George, George, you really you really mustn't. Isn't he too dreadful ?" Mr. Barton ob- served that Miss Vivian was studying her empty plate and quite ignoring the Colonel, who was saying to her, with confidential knowingness: "Hush! you and I mustn't talk about Lord Cots- wold. He's a very fie-fie gentleman very hoity-toity, too. I met his lordship at dinner once at the Viceregal at Dublin." This last observation was so obviously meant to be public that Mr. Barton lost no time in replying to it. "Who," he said, "may I ask you, was lord-lieuten- ant then? I, too, am a native of the distressful country myself." The Colonel was delighted to answer; and Miss Viv- ian, as Mr. Barton noticed, relapsed once more into a seemingly apathetic silence. Suddenly Sir Rawlin was conscious that a low voice, which might have been addressed to the table-cloth, was saying, close beside him: "Why have you never been to see me I mean us again?" He started and turned toward her, but his eyes met only a pale and half-averted cheek. "See you!" he repeated. "Why, you surely can't have forgotten it. I did see you. I saw you with ex- treme plainness, on the very morning after the day on which I first met you." "You saw me!" she exclaimed, with a momentary 73 AN IMMORTAL SOUL glance at him through her eyelashes. "You saw me? When where ?" "On the New Drive," he answered, "when I was walking by with a friend. I was longing to stop and talk with you, but you wouldn't even shake hands with me. You looked me up and down, and simply refused to speak." A light seemed to be dawning on her. "Are you tell- ing me the truth?" she asked, in a tone which was still doubtful, but from which the reserve was melting. "That must have been the day when I tired myself running uphill and went half to sleep at the top Nina says for a minute or two. It's all my tiresome nerves. In the mist do you remember? you saw what a fool they made of me. You weren't angry with me then. I wonder if you feel that you are going to forgive me now?" She did not look at him as she spoke, but, at a very slight angle, her head had been inclined toward him, as though she were waiting for him to confess to her in some faint accent audible to herself alone. "There is nothing to forgive," he said, seemingly ab- sorbed in his bread crumbs; "but even if there were, I should forgive you." No ordinary observer would have imagined that they had exchanged a word. Presently Sir Rawlin's arm was aware of a hand laid on it, whose momentary contact was charged with ap- peal and intimacy, and a voice which seemed whisper- ing a confidence to him was saying: "I want some water." They looked into each other's eyes, as though they had planned a meeting. They were once more all they had been on the day on which they had first met. Mr. Barton, meanwhile, having perceived in a gen- eral way that Sir Rawlin at last had supplanted the ob- jectionable Colonel, had contentedly turned his atten- tion in other directions, and might hardly have been tempted to observe Miss Vivian again if Mr. Robinson, 74 AN IMMORTAL SOUL in a voice expressing broadness of mind, had not re- ferred to the newly found Southquay mammoth, for the purpose of a lecture on whose remains Mr. Barton had refused his hall. Hereupon Oswald Arundel, with an excellent imitation of guilelessness, took occasion to ob- serve that the cavern in which the bones had been found must be directly under the foundations of Mr. Barton's own abode. "Did you ever yourself see," he added, "one of these monstrous skeletons complete?" Mr. Barton turned on him with the sharpness of a sarcastic school-master who unfortunately was without a berth. " No," he said, " I never did. But I once saw a giraffe. That was quite big enough for me." The boy, with a covert smile, glanced in the direction of Miss Vivian. Mr. Barton glanced anxiously in the same direction also, to assure himself that she gave no signs of sympathy with her profane cousin. He saw in her no signs of consciousness that her cousin existed, but he saw in her something else which consigned mam- moths to oblivion. The almost ostentatious levity which had distressed him in her conversation with Colonel O'Brian was gone, but there was something in her demeanor now which disturbed him far more deeply. What it was he did not know, but he felt his back turn cold, and somewhere or other over his skin ran little trickles of perspiration. With ears preternaturally sharp- ened, he could catch more or less what it was that Sir Rawlin was saying to her. Sir Rawlin's manner was precisely what he was sure it would be the manner of an experienced man who was entertaining a clever child. Their topics, moreover, so he gathered, were common- place, even trifling. But why, this being so, did she lis- ten with such strange attention? She rarely looked at her companion, but her cheek was still slightly inclined toward him, as though messages were reaching her ears fraught with clandestine meanings, and withdrawing 75 AN IMMORTAL SOUL her into some world beyond Mr. Barton's reach. Once, indeed, she caught his eyes and smiled at him, but the smile seemed to reach him across some intervening water, as though she were a passenger leaning on the bulwarks of a ship, which already, with her own con- sent, was carrying her away forever from him. For the rest of the meal he was almost completely silent; and afterward, having managed to outstay all the rest of the company, he said to her, in a manner so constrained that she hardly recognized it as his own: "Will you take a turn with me out-of-doors? I have something more to say to you." With a docile gravity the girl acquiesced at once. She seemed willing at that moment to do anything that would please anybody. "Would you like," she said, "to wait for me at the garden door? I'll run up and put my things on, and be down in a few minutes." CHAPTER VII MR. BARTON, pacing the path on which the garden door opened, was too much absorbed in his thoughts to be impatient because he was kept waiting. Less than an hour ago he had felt that this spiritual child of his was nearer to himself than to any other human being that all her deepest aspirations had submitted them- selves to his quiet guidance. She now seemed so far off that he doubted whether his cry could reach her. What had produced the change? What reasonable explana- tion could he give of it ? It never occurred to him for a moment to regard Sir Rawlin Stantor as having, in any personal sense, come between him and her. The dis- turbing factor was not Sir Rawlin himself, but some mysterious order of interests which he suggested to the girl's nature, and which exhibited that nature under new and alien aspects. Mr. Barton was still struggling with these reflections, which inflicted on him a pang of baf- fling spiritual jealousy, when the sound of a door roused him, and, turning round in his walk, he saw her on the path awaiting him. Her aspect added to his trouble. She was transfig- ured from head to foot by a walking-dress and by gray- blue furs. All trace of the lassitude which he had no- ticed in her before luncheon had gone from her. In every poise and movement of her body was a certain elusive lightness which suggested a challenge to life, a provocation to its delaying secrets. Her arched feet seemed somehow to be coquetting with the very ground she walked on. He perceived, however, as he drew near 77 AN IMMORTAL SOUL her, that a soft, expectant seriousness rose into her eyes to greet him. "At last," he said, attempting to make his voice con- ventional "at last I can talk again to you." The girl stared at him, as though the pain in his face was a riddle to her. " Have I," she said, " been so very, very long ? I couldn't get at my maid; but as soon as she came I raced. I'm very, very sorry. Mr. Barton, are you angry with me ?" "Angry!" said Mr. Barton. "If I'm angry with any- body, it's with myself. I hope those smart boots of yours are thick enough for a rough walk. Let us go by the cliffs. We shall be alone there." There was a brusque authority in his voice which startled but did not displease her. She liked it incom- parably better than his tone when he talked about a "medicine-man." She went with him in obedient si- lence, wondering what was about to happen. He did not speak till they had left the garden behind them and had gone some way on the unfrequented path beyond. At length he began in a hoarse, ill-modulated under- tone. "I have," he said, "been haunted for the last two hours by a feeling that, when I talked to you be- fore luncheon, I may have led you to mistake my meaning. Will you bear with me if, in all friendship, I try to explain myself a little better?" " Please do," said the girl, gently. " I am always very anxious to listen to you." "Perhaps," he resumed, in a voice more nearly nor- mal, "I could make what I mean clearer if you'd let me tell you what I take to be your own peculiar gifts and responsibilities great responsibilities gifts so pre- cious and beautiful. Will you allow me to do that?" Miss Vivian nodded permission. The request was of a kind which women do not often refuse. "Well, then," said Mr. Barton, "if you won't mind my starting with one or two very trite observations, the composite nature of each of us, to speak roughly, has 78 AN IMMORTAL SOUL three parts. In the first place, we have those surface qualities which come out in the give-and-take of our common daily intercourse. Then under these come those deeper gifts of the mind and heart which relate to artistic beauty, to the world of human knowledge, and to the ordinary human affections. And, lastly, at the root of all, comes that part of us in virtue of which we turn to God. All these parts of us are essential to us in our present life; but the first and the second are good only in proportion as they minister to the third. In a general way all this, of course, is obvious. And now, shall I go on to your own case in particular? As to your surface qualities," he continued, " I need not say that you've a charm and a temper which make the sur- face virtues easy to you. What I want to bring home to you is and you must allow me to speak quite plain- ly that you are endowed to a degree still rarer with those mental, artistic, and emotional qualities also, of which I was just now speaking. To all that appeal which beauty makes to us through our human senses you are far more sensitive than most women, though very likely you may not know this." Mr. Barton glanced anxiously at his companion, to see how his words affected her. Her face was averted, but a flush was visible on her cheek, and, he thought, a trace of moisture. "You read Shelley," he went on. "You remember how Shelley describes the love of one poor human soul for another. 'The desire of the moth for the star' that was what Shelley called it, and all our deepest and highest feelings for beauty are desires of the same kind. All the fair things of this fair world of the senses even its ideal affections make their deepest appeal to us by awakening some desire which they themselves cannot satisfy, but which carries us upward and onward to a far-off star beyond." The girl turned to him with a quick, comprehending smile. "I will quote Shelley, too," she said. 79 AN IMMORTAL SOUL " ' Wouldst thou me ?' And I replied, ' No, not thee." " "You have," said Mr. Barton, "penetrated to the very heart of my meaning. Well, that being so, I can easily make you understand the kind of advice which I wanted to give you before luncheon. Instead of dis- tressing your nerves, as I think you may have been tempted to do by brooding too much over what separated you from the Divine Nature, I was advising you for the moment to exercise those natural faculties which, if exercised rightly, unite you to it : for God is the Supreme Beauty and the Supreme Intellect, as well as the Supreme Holiness. Enjoy friendships and interesting pursuits and beauty; but enjoy them only because, and only in so far as, each of them carries you onward to a something be- yond itself to that power, that purity, that love, of which it is the symbol or the faint reflection, and to which, under God, it is my great desire to guide you." "I understand you," said Miss Vivian. "I under- stand every word. I'm only afraid you flatter me too highly." "If," said Mr. Barton, quickly, "you think I am in- clined to flatter you, you must give me the benefit of your misconception, and not think me captious or unfair if I venture on a word of criticism. At luncheon to-day, sitting opposite to you as I was, I could not help from time to time observing you, and it seemed to me I'm thinking, of course, only of the earlier part of the time I don't refer to the latter." Mr. Barton here exhibit- ed some signs of hesitation. "I mean," he proceeded, "the time when you seemed, if you'll let me say so, to be paying an attention to somebody which was dispropor- tionate to the merits of his conversation. You were hardly doing justice on that occasion either to yourself or to my advice to you." "I'm sorry," said Miss Vivian, gravely, but with an air of considerable relief, "that you noticed a silly thing 80 AN IMMORTAL SOUL like that; but I had to talk to the man, and I couldn't help drawing him out a little. All the same, you are quite right ; and you are kind in having found fault with me." "My dear child," said Mr. Barton, "your extraor- dinary quickness in appreciating shades of meaning makes it easy to talk to you. If what you did had been done by many other girls, I should probably not have noticed it; but you have exceptional gifts, and these bring with them exceptional responsibilities especially at this time when you are, of your own free-will, about to prepare yourself for the reception of a great sacra- ment. And that reminds me. Before I begin my reg- ular talks about confirmation, which I hope to do as soon as I return from London, may I ask you to read the little manual which I sent you some days ago ? I am glad that you liked the binding. I am glad also that the Visions of the Saints pleased you." "Oh," exclaimed the girl, "that is beautiful! I've not thanked you half enough for it. I look at it every morning. All the faces in it do you remember the martyrs in paradise with their eyes fixed on the Lamb? seem to be full of that very longing for the beyond which you were speaking about just now. It's like nothing else in the world." Mr. Barton, instead of making any immediate reply, began putting his hand into one of his great-coat pockets. "I want you," he said, at length, "in addition to that book, to let me add another, not so ornamental, but still, I hope, it may be useful to you. It's a very little book indeed, written or compiled by myself. I only got it this morning, and I brought it with me, meaning to give it to you. Will you take it ? You can carry it in your muff." "How good of you!" said Miss Vivian, simply. "Yes, you see my muff will hold it." "May the reading of that book," said Mr. Barton, gravely, "be blessed to you. It is not a book for all. 8z AN IMMORTAL SOUL But I haven't quite done yet. I should like to offer you one little gift more. We were talking just now about the senses. Let us take the sense of hearing. You, being musical, know that there are musics of many kinds, some of which secularize the emotions, while others sanctify them. With all the things of sense the case is much the same. Take smells, for instance. To me the smell of wall-flowers always brings back my child- hood and the mother at whose knees I said the first prayers I can remember. Another case in point is the peculiar smell of incense. That smell, as a matter of general experience, has, though we can't tell why, a special religious suggestiveness." "How true that is!" said Miss Vivian. "The smell of incense touches one like an organ." "I have," Mr. Barton went on, "found, when the worries of business made it difficult for me to turn my mind to prayer, or to the writing of a sermon, that the burning of a few grains of incense was very effective in surrounding me with the required atmosphere. I have, therefore, besides the book, brought this packet of in- cense for you, which you might use in the same way. There, take it. It will go into your muff, too. It has been formally blessed in the manner enjoined by our ancient Church, so treat it reverently. Don't burn it for fun. Try it, and if it doesn't help you, send me back what remains of it. And now," said Mr. Barton, suddenly stopping short and facing her, " I must take you no farther. I have much to do, and I leave to-night for London. Let us turn. I'll come with you as far as the field-path which will take me home over the hill." Both of them silent, they began to retrace their steps. Miss Vivian, with a pensive smile, readjusted the pack- ages in her muff. Mr. Barton's lifted eyes were fixed intently on the sky. At last, without turning to her, he spoke. " When I am alone," he said, " in the bare room which I shall occupy, I shall always think of you and pray for 82 AN IMMORTAL SOUL you. When we go to meet God through death, we go to meet Him alone. When we go to meet Him in life, we must each of us go alone also ; but we are not alone, even in the human sense, if another soul, whom we have helped, is going on the same journey. And now, here is my path. Here we must say good-bye. In a fort- night's time, or less, I hope to be back again ; and mean- while you'll remember, will you, what I've been trying to say to-day? Whatever you may find beautiful, in- teresting, pleasure-giving in the life around you in things, in men, in women let your heart fix itself on such of these things only as do not hinder it from giving itself to that Heart of Hearts, in the love of which we both may share, and in which nothing can come between us. My child, good-bye, good-bye. You'll give me your hand, won't you, in token that you recognize me as a friend?" For the girl, this last request, natural and inevitable as it was, had in it something of a faintly unwelcome in- congruity; but, ashamed of a lurking wish to avoid the parting ceremony, she complied with a frank, almost with a tender, grace; and the look which he cast back at her, as he took the path up the hill-side, was grave with a grateful happiness. As for her, her face which, during the walk, had been that of one in contact with some being of a different order, relaxed its expression somewhat as soon as she found herself alone; and presently, hearing her cousins' voices in the garden, she lingered for some minutes on the cliff till the sounds had died away, and then stole back to the house, where she hid herself in her own sitting-room. Relatively to the means that had been available for gratifying the girl's taste, it was not a room that ex- hibited any very great extravagance; but it formed a curious contrast to Lady Susannah's threadbare boudoir. Delicate gilt brackets with china on them, and land- scapes in which stone-pines, villas, palms, and olives 83 AN IMMORTAL SOUL shone green and white and gray against blue Mediter- ranean backgrounds, gave a gay aspect to the surfaces of the pale silk-like wall-paper. The large bow-window was enlivened with flowered chintz curtains ; and chintz- covered chairs matching them were thrown into pleasant relief by the pile of soft red carpet. Books delicately bound stood in small cases on the tables. A chair shap- ed like a prie-dieu secluded itself in one corner. In an- other a half-finished water-color displayed itself con- spicuously on an easel; and on a stool in the window were some drawing-blocks and an artist's case of colors. From her muff, which she tossed aside, she produced Mr. Barton's packages. The incense it had been placed in a tin box made for lozenges claimed her at- tention first. Having deposited an ember of wood in a brass saucer that was on the chimney-piece, she sprinkled the red glow with a few grains of the compound. A faint fragrance rose from it, which she sniffed like a child experimenting with a new toy. Then, as if satis- fied with the result, she seated herself near the window and turned to Mr. Barton's book. It was a small, slim volume bound in leather that smelled of cedar. The title of it was The Secret Way. She opened it at random, and the first passage on which her eyes lit startled her. She had several times during her late walk with Mr. Barton sought relief for her feelings by looking away from him at the sea. The sea had been blue and shin- ing. Her eyes had rested themselves on the sails whose whiteness was going down where the two firmaments touched each other; and her mind had been filled with something of that saddening yet pleasurable exultation which, in most sensitive natures, is produced by the same spectacle. The words in Mr. Barton's book at which the pages opened were these: "This expanse of waves lying against the far-off sky, and those ships with their dying sails, trouble us who watch them with a vague feeling that they are beautiful. But in what does this beauty consist ? It does not consist in mere water, or mere 84 AN IMMORTAL SOUL light, or mere squares and triangles of canvas, or even in all three combined. It consists in a suggestion to the soul, not in impressions on the senses. Our souls, stirred by the imagina- tion, long to follow those ships; for to us it seems that they are going to some better country to some land of the heart's desire. But in the lands where the journeys of these ships end the heart is not satisfied. Sorrow will come down and meet them as soon as they touch the quays. So it is with all the fair things of nature. They awake in us a hunger which they themselves cannot satisfy. What, then, can satisfy it ? As Augustine says, ' He only, by whom all these things were made.'" Miss Vivian turned the page, and the same train of thought repeated itself: "My heart spoke to my heart, and said to it, ' What desirest thou?' At dawn in the garden I desire the scented rose of the earth. In the evening I desire the shining rose of the sky. My heart, thou dost not contemplate these things in vain, but thou dost desire them in vain; for all these things are without thee, and can never be thine. Rather desire that which is in them and in thee also. This will not leave thee hungering. This will enthrall and fill thee, till thou sayest, ' Spouse of my soul, I faint; I can endure no more.'" The book dropped from her hands. Outside a flush was beginning to mantle in the west. Across a reach of water a promontory with houses and a few lights on it was turning into a blur of purple; and the evening was opening up its faint, illimitable distances. She rose, went again to the fireplace, reopened the bag of incense, and repeated her former experiment on a bolder and larger scale. A blue smoke shot up from the glowing embers copiously. She lifted the brass saucer, and, wav- ing it to and fro, soon felt herself to be inhaling the odor of all sanctuaries. Yielding to its subtle spell, she turned almost involuntarily to her prie-dieu. The fur of her hat, as she knelt with her head bent forward, almost touched her folded hands; and between her gloves and her hat, together with the smell of the incense, stole visions of lighted chancels and mute women emerging 85 AN IMMORTAL SOUL from brown confessionals; and at last, mixed with the incense mist, a mist of another kind came to her closed eyelids from the gorse bushes on a high hill. "My heart spoke to my heart," she murmured, "and it said to me, 'What desirest thou?" 1 Half an hour later she had descended to the school- room tea. Her cousins for some days had not seen her in such high spirits; and when Oswald proposed again to minister at the cat's altar, she contented herself with seizing a book and lightly boxing his ears. BOOK II CHAPTER I IF the sequel to the luncheon-party had been satis- factory to Mr. Barton, the close of that function it- self had been not less so to Sir Rawlin. The healing of the wound which Miss Vivian had unintentionally in- flicted on his vanity had healed at the same time the disquiet of his conscience also; and in order to render his peace of mind more absolute, he had been careful to check any undue expectations on her part by letting her know that, since he had decided on contesting the constituency, some time would elapse before his many engagements would allow him to look forward to the pleasure of visiting Cliff's End again. Indeed, these preoccupations proved quite engrossing enough to rele- gate even the thought of her to the background of the candidate's mind. It remained with him, nevertheless, like a rose worn in his buttonhole, and led to certain actions the object of which was the continuance of his connection with her. Sir Rawlin's appearance in Southquay as the hope of a political party coincided with the occurrence of two other events, both of which had been already arranged without reference to himself. Both these events, in a certain sense, were social. One of them was political as well. The sacred fire of conservatism was kept alive in the constituency, not only by the association which con- cerned itself with the actual conduct of elections, but also by the local branch of a great national league, the object of which was, by means of periodical fetes, to associate Conservative principles with ideas of popular 89 AN IMMORTAL SOUL happiness. Year by year, wherever it had a branch, the league thus celebrated the birthday of the statesman whose name it bore; and that anniversary being now but a few days distant, the Bath Saloons of Southquay had, long before Sir Rawlin's arrival, been secured for the occasion by the league's local council. Some well- known members of Parliament had promised to make short speeches. Better still, a certain dazzling mar- chioness, whose praise was in the papers as the hostess of kings and princes, and whose photographs were as frequent in the shops as those of the most renowned actress, having taken a house at Southquay for a little consumptive daughter, had let it be known that she in- tended to be present also. Sir Rawlin, accordingly, was soon the recipient of a letter which urged on him that the fete would afford him an unrivalled opportunity of making a public appearance before a gathering of his future supporters. The Bath Saloons, moreover, on the night before the fete, were to be the scene of another gathering of a somewhat different kind namely, a ball, which was to be as conservatively select as the fete was to be conservatively inclusive; and this function like- wise he was specially requested to attend. Both invitations he accepted; and now, after a week of drudgery, a morning at last arrived when he sat down to his breakfast with a day before him wholly at his own disposal, and when the post had contented itself with bringing him one letter and a packet only. Having read the first and satisfied himself as to the contents of the second, he at once proceeded to scribble a hasty note. This he instructed his servant to deliver without delay, and, if possible, to bring back an answer. Meanwhile, seated by a window, with a sense of holiday in his heart, he looked down across the greenness of the crescent gar- dens at the sea, and felt the exhilaration of the spring stealing to him from a bowl of violets. He was still en- joying his reveries when the return of his servant with a small note interrupted them. The note consisted of 90 AN IMMORTAL SOUL only a single sentence, to the effect that the writer would expect him as soon as he liked to come. He armed him- self with the letter and packet which the morning's post had brought him, called for his hat and stick, and issued into the open air. All the world seemed young as the breath of the sea came up to him. He descended to the shore, along which, as the tide was low, a stretch of sand among bowlders afforded a tempting path. Less than a mile away stood Cliff's End on its promontory. With desul- tory steps he moved forward in that direction, pausing now and then to examine some pool among the rocks, in whose salt crystal sea-anemones wavered ; and at last he found himself at the foot of the gray limestone heights over which there peered a shrub or two of Lady Susan- nah's garden. The letter and the packet which he had brought with him both related to members of Lady Susannah's family. Neither of them concerned Miss Vivian. They concerned the two boys, her cousins, and represented on his part a general feeling of amity which, since the day of the luncheon-party, had been drawing him toward the whole household and enveloping his thoughts of the girl in the atmosphere of its safe inclusiveneSs. As for his present appointment, it was with Lady Susannah herself; and the hour being still a little premature for a visit, he con- ceived the idea of scrambling round the base of the promontory, and killing his superfluous time by explor- ing the coast beyond. In order, however, to accomplish the latter part of his programme, he found that it would be necessary to surmount a small intervening headland, toward which, on the farther side, the gardens of Cliff's End descended. On gaining the summit, through a crevice half masked by bushes, he was greeted by the sight of a cluster of Scotch firs, which had assumed a shape suggestive of the umbrella-pines of Italy, and seemed now to be pricking with their needles a Mediter- ranean sky. At the foot of one of the trunks, purplish i 91 AN IMMORTAL SOUL and scaling into pink, Sir Rawlin was startled by per- ceiving a medley of other colors a mass of creamy white, some star-like spots of gold, and a patch of redness like a poppy's. The whiteness was a garment enveloping a seated female figure, the spots of gold were buttons, the redness was a tilted cap. The figure was that of an artist, her head bent over a sketching-block and her eyes fixed on her handiwork under cover of her long eye- lashes. A rustle in the bushes caused her to look up, and there came to her from Sir Rawlin's lips the simple greeting: " So there you are! Please," he went on, " don't get up and disturb yourself. Let me sit down by you and watch. Don't let the color dry. Go on with the sky- line." Her beauty once more astonished him. He ceased to wonder at any of his past indiscretions. At the same time he resolved not to repeat them. Miss Vivian look- ed at him for a moment with eyes in which the light of pleasure was disturbing the languor of a dream. Then she resumed her work, but he noticed that her hand trembled and the gilt buttons on her breast slowly rose and fell. At last she said: "I can't go on; I am spoiling it. The sea should be far away as far away as heaven; but look, one would think it was coming at one through the chinks of these odious bushes." " Will you trust your brush to me ?" he said. " I can make that right in a minute or two. Your drawing and your coloring are perfect." She turned her head away, and for answer pushed the sketch toward him. With the touch of an expert he proceeded to give strength to the foreground. The gorse, the cliffs, and the brambles stood out and asserted them- selves, and the sea with its turquoise bloom went float- ing into a breezy distance. Presently she turned again to him, and, her cheek almost touching his shoulder, she peered over his arm as he worked. 92 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "It was dead," she whispered, "and you you have made it live." "Listen," he replied, in the accents of friendly com- mon-sense. " Will you let me consult you about a really serious matter ? I am going to consult your aunt about it, and I am waiting till I can decently call upon her. Oswald told me, or else you did, that, before he embarks on his profession, he is going for a time to Oxford going there next autumn. Well, it occurred to me that it might be a pleasant and useful thing for him to have a little experience of diplomatic life beforehand; so I wrote to Sir Frank Paston, our ambassador at Constan- tinople, to ask him if he would care to have a charming boy as a guest, or an extra secretary, or whatever we like to call it, for two or three months before his Oxford discipline begins. Sir Frank is in London, and I got his reply this morning. He is delighted with the idea ; but I did not want to say anything to Oswald himself till I'd found out from your aunt whether he would be allowed to go." The girl, who had been listening attentively, now sprang to her feet. "Come!" she exclaimed. "I will take you to Aunt Susannah at once. Tell me this: are you always help- ing somebody?" Sir Rawlin laughed. "That," he said, "remains to be seen. I've something up my sleeve for you, too, if I find that your aunt approves. Meanwhile, will you give that packet to Mr. Hugo ? You shall tell me after- ward what his face was like when he opened it." Lady Susannah welcomed Sir Rawlin with a certain air of surprise which made her pleasure in seeing him only the more evident. He at once explained his mis- sion, as far as it related to Oswald, winding up with an account of his meeting with Miss Vivian under the fir- trees. "Sir Rawlin," she said, "you're a regular fairy god- mother. Tell Oswald yourself about it. Nothing in the 93 AN IMMORTAL SOUL world could be better for him. I hope that thanks don't bore you, for mine are not over yet. A little while after you first met my niece she had a sort of relapse. We thought she was going to be ill again. But this last week, in a really wonderful way, she has got back her health and spirits. You see how right you were in what you said to me about providing her with interests social in- terests, and so on. Yes, Sir Rawlin, I put it all down to you. Ever since that stupid little luncheon of mine, which was the outcome of your suggestions, Nest has been a different person." "You have given me," said Sir Rawlin, "the exact encouragement I require; for, to tell you the truth, one of my reasons for coming here was to suggest to you for her benefit two dissipations more." He then went on to mention the coming fete. He begged that Lady Susannah and Miss Vivian would keep him in counte- nance by being present at it; and, finding that his first proposal was received with sufficient favor, he proceeded to broach the second. " Besides the fete," he said, " an- other event is impending: a ball in honor of mi-careme I believe an unusually good one. Now, why should Miss Vivian not also go to that? I thought I should have found your own name down in the list of patron- esses." "Oh," said Lady Susannah, with a plaintive, depre- cating smile, " balls are not at all in my line. But, upon my word, I don't know about Nest. George Carlton, who went on into Cornwall, is coming back to us; and there isn't a dowager in London who's a safer chaperon than he is. Let us ask Nest herself; for, of course, though I was remiss enough not to say this before, you'll stay and lunch with us won't you ? and we can have it all out then." Sir Rawlin was interrupted in his acceptance of this invitation by two sudden noises in the hall that of an opening door and that of an excited voice. "Oh, Nest," called the voice it plainly proceeded 94 AN IMMORTAL SOUL from Miss Arundel "come into the school-room do! Mr. Hugo has opened his parcel, and what do you think was in it ? Sir Rawlin has had it sent from Vienna. It's a beautiful little tube of radium!" Sir Rawlin, on hearing this, leaned back in his chair and laughed. "I declare," said Lady Susannah, "you're spoiling my whole family. Ah, there's Oswald outside." She rose and tapped the window. " Tell him your news while I get ready for luncheon. Oswald, my dear, come in; here's some one who wants to speak to you." The boy came as invited, and the luncheon-bell had not rung before he looked even happier than Sir Rawlin had hoped to see him. Nor was Mr. Hugo, who was found standing in the hall when Lady Susannah con- ducted Sir Rawlin to the dining-room, in a state less en- viable than his brother's. His delight with his present was so great as to render his thanks inaudible, but his face was fossilized into a smile which his manhood was unable to subjugate. They had just seated themselves when Miss Vivian made her appearance. She hardly looked at Sir Rawlin, but her eyes were gay and shining, and her cheeks, as she slipped quietly into the vacant place beside him, colored like a pink shell. The boys showed a tendency to mask their respective exhilarations under covert witticisms at the expense of Miss Arundel's housekeeping; and Sir Rawlin, who seem- ed to have brought with him a general spirit of cheerful- ness, soon proclaimed to his neighbor the secret with which he had lately tantalized her namely, his two pro- posals relating to the fete and ball. Would anybody go to either ? And who would go to which ? All of them would go to the fete and hear Sir Rawlin speak. The future diplomatist would perhaps go to the ball. Miss Vivian would do so, certainly, if Cousin George Carlton would take her. Such was the conclusion arrived at to the satisfaction of everybody. "And now," said Sir Rawlin, "a happy thought has 95 AN IMMORTAL SOUL struck me. Among the many odd things I've become in the course of the past fortnight, one, I believe, is the president of the Southquay Golf Club. Since, as I hear, the farmer up on the hill will not allow the young ladies the use of his field any longer, why should not Miss Viv- ian let golf take the place of hockey?" "My dear Nest," said Miss Arundel, "golf would be just the thing for you. And you, Mr. Hugo, you used to play when you were at school. You might go, too; and, if you are good, you might take Elvira. Elvira is coming after luncheon. She and you might show Nest the links, at all events; though, of course, as you're not members, they won't let you into the club-house." Sir Rawlin suggested that, as his position of president probably gave him the right of introducing any friends he chose, he should go with them himself and make a trial of his new privileges. " Do," said Lady Susannah; and so that matter was settled. Miss Elvira arrived, rosy, smiling, and muscular; and when she and Mr. Hugo had started, leading the way, Sir Rawlin and Miss Vivian followed at a more leisurely pace, Oswald having meanwhile absented himself on some unexplained busi- ness of his own. Sir Rawlin set out with an unacknowledged feeling at his heart that things to-day were going at once right and wrong with him. It was all very well to tell himself that this girl was a child ; but everything distinctive of wom- anhood, which has ever troubled man or itself, seemed latent now in her eyes, in the disturbing delicacy of her intonations, and in the footsteps accompanying his own with such a docile and gay fidelity. He was, neverthe- less, tempted to reflect presently that this maturity, de- spite its dangers, was in some measure its own safe- guard. He began, by way of keeping to safe topics, with ask- ing her if she knew what had happened to the absent Oswald. "Yes," she said, laughing, "I know, though he hasn't 96 AN IMMORTAL SOUL told me. He's gone to revisit a spot where he fell in love yesterday afternoon with a beautiful being whom he en- countered when he walked with me up to Miss Aldritch's. She was coming out of the gardens of your crescent, look- ing as if the world belonged to her ; and I must say, for Oswald's credit, that she stared at him as if he belonged to her, too. It's so easy to see through boys. Ever since then he's felt that he has made a conquest, By this time he's watching the gate, and I dare say com- posing a poem about her about unkissed kisses, and ' broken ' and ' unspoken. ' " A young lady, he felt, who could talk about matters in this fashion was not devoid of qualities which would make her her own protectress. The nearest way to the golf-course was by the path which a week ago Miss Vivian had traversed with Mr. Barton, and which ran by the grove of firs under which she had sketched that morning; but farther on, where it mounted some rising ground, it was seen to skirt so closely the brink of an appalling precipice, over which Mr. Hugo and Miss Elvira now appeared to be hanging, that Miss Vivian entreated her companion to take her by the shore instead. Sir Rawlin assented with some secret reluctance. " Yes," he said, "if you like it, I'm sure that your plan is possible. Indeed, I can just remember being taken that way when a boy. There used, somewhere at the end, to be an odd old haunted house." A haunted house would be a topic even safer than the heart of Oswald. They descended to the shore accordingly, and, much to Sir Rawlin's satisfaction, another safe topic was started by the girl herself namely, the technique of painting in water-colors. What indiscretion could lurk in discussions as to lakes and carmines, cobalts and flake whites, and their several relations to the magic of seas and hills and sunsets ? And yet even pigments and their uses were not without some human interest ; for Sir Raw- 97 AN IMMORTAL SOUL lin, having touched on the methods by which various effects were producible, was naturally questioned about the purposes to which he had himself applied them ; and just as naturally his answers, deserting paints and paint- boxes, grew into descriptions of the scenes he had tried to capture Eastern evenings descending over plains where tents and camels shared the solitude with the mounds of Mesopotamian cities ; primitive water-wheels whose pitchers might have ministered to the flocks of Abraham; apparitions of appalling palaces lost in for- gotten deserts, and castles of crusading counts at whose portals were stone lions, and whose halls and fountained courts the boldest sheik of the Hauran had never dared to enter, deeming them the abode of demons. A walk of half a mile, beguiled by descriptions such as these, brought them from the beach to a cart-track which, issuing from a disused quarry, hugged the base of the cliffs, and to which they were obliged to betake themselves. Following this, and presently turning a corner, they were confronted by a curious spectacle. To Miss Vivian it was new and startling. It came back to Sir Rawlin as a vision half remembered. Before them was a sequestered creek, which was bordered on the farther side, not by cliffs, but by a gradual and wooded slope ; and at the bottom of this, and almost touched by the sea, was an isolated and extensive habitation of a laughably fantastic character. It consisted of a circular structure surmounted by grotesque battlements, pierced with horseshoe windows, spiked with stucco minarets, and flanked by two long annexes of the same style as the centre. In front of it was a terrace with walls, the bases of which were green with sea-weed, and which alone, to all appearance, saved the whole from being washed away. "Ah," said Sir Rawlin, "there it is! That's the old haunted house. It used, I think, to be called the Turk- ish Castle. It was built by an Anglo-Indian, who for some reason never lived in it. We used to be told that it was full of mirrors and gorgeous gilding; but sight- 98 AN IMMORTAL SOUL seers were never admitted, and I'm sure we can neither of us wonder that it never had found a tenant." At the point where they were now standing the cart- track began to rise and a smaller track branched off from it, running down to a stunted pier, from which the stone of the quarry had been formerly transferred to lighters. A little way up the ascent the two spectators paused, and, leaning together on the bar of a broken fence, they contemplated the castle again, whose details were now more distinguishable. "Look at it," said Sir Rawlin. "Not another house in sight. One might be at the end of the world here, instead of in the heart of Southquay. The interior, we used to be told, was always kept in repair, though no one was allowed to enter it. I dare say it is so still, though the garden on the terrace in front is nothing more than a wilderness." Here he was checked by the girl, who suddenly seized his arm, and drawing herself close to him whispered, with a slight shudder: "Hush! Do you see that just down below us, on the pier?" At the end of the pier, within reach of a child's stone- throw, was a man, solitary and motionless, who, like themselves, had his eyes fixed on the castle. He was looking at it through a pair of opera-glasses. His figure, tall and striking, was shrouded in a long blue cloak, and in the easy erectness of his bearing there was a suggestion of military command. "What can he be up to?" said Miss Vivian in Sir Rawlin's ear. " He's got his watch out, as though he were timing something. I call this most uncanny." They continued to observe in silence, till Sir Rawlin, in a whisper like her own, called her attention to an ob- ject on the parapet of the sea-wall opposite. "At first," he said, "I thought it was a man, but it isn't; it's a kind of scarecrow. And now good Heav- ens! what's this? Is this a ghost or a woman ?" 99 While he was speaking a curious thing had happened. A figure, seemingly female, had emerged from some por- tion of the desolate pile of buildings, and rapidly flitting toward the object which Sir Rawlin had called a scare- crow, administered a violent and apparently murderous push to it, sending it headlong into the water, on which it remained floating. Then the moving apparition hur- riedly retraced its steps and was lost to sight behind a turret in which the sea-wall terminated. At the same time the cloaked watcher put his opera-glasses into his pocket and turned round to quit the pier. Sir Rawlin and Miss Vivian could now see his face. It was one, as they both felt, which it would not be easy to forget. Clean-shaven, except for a slight mustache and imperial, it might have been the face of an ambas- sador, a foreign general, or even an aristocratic con- spirator. It was certainly un-English, and the quiet and possessive confidence with which the man surveyed the scene invested him with an air which Englishmen regard as insolent when any one but an Englishman ex- hibits it out of his own country. "If we walk on slowly," said Sir Rawlin, "he will presently catch us up, and then we can see him better." This expectation was not, however, verified by events. The man, seemingly lost in his own thoughts, and wear- ing a slight smile, picked his way down the sloping side of the pier, by which, as they now perceived, a small boat was rocking; and presently with vigorous strokes he was pulling himself toward the building opposite. The last they saw of him was that, close to the sea-wall, he was drawing the floating figure into his little craft with a boat-hook. Full of speculation as to the meaning of these mys- terious proceedings, and the possible character of their no less mysterious hero, Sir Rawlin and Miss Vivian made their way to the golf-ground, where, in taking a short route to the club-house, they only just, by in- stinctive and mutual consent, contrived to avoid at- 100 AN IMMORTAL SOUL tracting the observation of Colonel O'Brian. The Colo- nel, in monumental stockings, the pattern of which would have been legible at a distance of five hundred yards, was luckily occupied with a black-eyed and sal- low-faced companion, whom he was, with considerable gusto, addressing by the title of count. " What an escape !" said Miss Vivian, as they sheltered themselves behind a ridge of hillocks. " I hope I may never be submitted to a second course of his fascina- tions. We can't stop long. If he sees us with Elvira we are done for. Where is she? And where is Mr. Hugo ? Let us find them at once and be off. Ah, she is there. She sees us. She is standing at the door of the club-house." " It's all right. The pater has got us in." Such was Miss Elvira's greeting when the two others approached her. " The pater would have stopped for we told him that you were coming if he hadn't been hurried away to play a twosome with Count Giordano. Mr. Hugo and I are going to begin next week ; and now, Mr. Hugo says, let's go home to school-room tea." Sir Rawlin and Miss Vivian were delighted to get out of the Colonel's range, and the whole party returned to Cliff's End together. The following day was Sunday; and now once more Sir Rawlin, when he said good-bye to his friends, dis- covered the power of circumstances to bring about the unintended. "I don't know," said Lady Susannah, "what church you may go to; but perhaps, if you go to All Saints', we may see you after one of the services." Miss Vivian was watching him as he answered. " I shouldn't," he said, "wonder if you found me there." But not even yet were the incidents of the day over for him. The unintended met him again, when he en- tered the crescent gardens, on his way back to his hotel. It was now twilight, but the twilight was still luminous; and where two walks met he encountered a noticeable 101 AN IMMORTAL SOUL lady, the finished arrogance of whose bearing even the twilight could not obscure. He glanced at her with some curiosity, thoughts of Oswald recurring to him; and he became aware, as he did so, not only of a hand- some face, but of a face which, after a moment's scrutiny of him, became enlivened with a half-seen smile. "And so," said the lady, "it's you! You're a very uncivil man. Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you that I've been here for two whole days, dying for some one to talk to, and you haven't been once to see me." " Lady Conway !" exclaimed Sir Rawlin. " Of course I had heard that you were coming. Everybody has heard that. But I had not an idea that you had arrived." "Then I know more about you," she said, "than you know about me. I know where you lunched to-day. I might have known, had I wished to do so, exactly what you had for luncheon; and I've discovered a new cousin who, when I last saw him, was in pinafores. Oswald was very rightly of opinion that a cat may look at a queen he'll go far, will Oswald and so I saw no reason why a queen shouldn't talk to a cat. I asked him his name, and I found he was my own flesh and blood a third cousin, only two or three times removed. ' Oswald,' I said to him, when the terrible parting came, 'if we weren't within the prohibited degrees, I really think I should kiss you.' And now, my dear man, this evening I'm all alone. Shall I eat my heart out by myself, or will you eat a mutton-chop in my company, and tell me about the pretty young lady whose education you appear to have undertaken? She, I should gather, is likely to go as far as Oswald." Lady Conway was the marchioness whose brilliant and superlative patronage was to glorify the coming fete and also Sir Rawlin' s first public introduction to the constituency. CHAPTER II THE appearance of Lady Conway on the scene had been far from welcome to Sir Rawlin. It dragged him back into a world from which he had been just escaping. When, therefore, on Sunday morning he be- took himself to Mr. Barton's church through quiet fields, only agitated by the sounds of far-off bells, he had pleas- ure in feeling that he was on his way to a refuge where this keen -eyed critic would not be watching his ac- tions. The unusual beauty of the building, the magnifi- cence of the organ, the lifting power of the music at first surrounded him with an atmosphere in which present things were forgotten ; and the middle of the service had been reached before he became aware of a figure, delicate and white as a snowdrop, among the darkness of the neighboring worshippers. A hymn was in progress, and Miss Vivian was standing. Her eyes were contemplating her book; but presently, for no obvious reason, she raised them, looked across the white fur of her boa, and en- countered Sir Rawlin 's glance with an answering glance of recognition which lasted just long enough to em- phasize its abrupt withdrawal. After service he accompanied Lady Susannah's party, including the two boys, who half enjoyed church as a foil to their own enlightenment, back to Cliff's End across the sloping fields and orchards. In the course of con- versation it transpired that Mr. Hugo and Miss Elvira proposed to start again for the golf-course next morning at half-past eleven ; and before Sir Rawlin knew what his lips had spoken, he had said to Miss Vivian: " And shall you and I go there, too, as an excuse for 103 AN IMMORTAL SOUL another investigation of the enchanted castle, by-the- way?" The assent given by the eyes of the young lady in white was satisfied by her aunt, who proceeded to express a hope that Sir Rawlin would share their luncheon. "Nest," she said, "wants to show you her sketches. I dare say if you saw some more of them you could tell her where she goes wrong." "Aunt Susannah," said Miss Vivian, "please spare my blushes. I should never have ventured to make that suggestion myself; but now that the ice is broken, I'll go on to another, which is that Sir Rawlin would some day allow us to see his own." Sir Rawlin expressed a readiness to bring them his portfolio for their inspection, but declared that he must lunch at home, where a mass of correspondence claimed him. Thus did one thing lead on to another. The following morning came, and, true to his appointment, he was at Cliff's End once more. Mr. Hugo and Miss Elvira again went by the hill, Sir Rawlin and Miss Vivian by the shore; and the latter, before long, found themselves for a second time scanning the building which had roused in them so strong a curi- osity. There it was, fantastic and forlorn, as they re- membered it; but its aspect had undergone a change, as though a cloud had been partly lifted from it. Of its many blinds, some had been drawn up. Of the win- dows, some were open; and from some of the chimneys wreaths of smoke were rising. They realized also, as they had not done before, that the public road into which the cart-track brought them led to the castle gates, these being not far off; and the spirit of adventure prompted them to approach the red stone gate-posts and get what view they might of the strange precinct within. The rusty gates were open, and the portals of the mansion itself, surmounted by arabesques in stucco, were some fifty yards away. There were wheel- marks on the gravel, but the rough grass was uncared 104 AN IMMORTAL SOUL for, and the only other vegetation consisted of clumps of rosemary. Half ashamed of seeming to stand there like a pair of intruding tourists, they had become, never- theless, so absorbed in the scene before them that pres- ently they were startled by finding a man confronting them, without their having noticed his approach or being able to conjecture whence he came. Though he was not the solitary of the pier, he, too, like that personage, was enveloped in a long cloak; but his general aspect was otherwise widely different. His cloak itself differed from that of the solitary in the bold self-confidence of the patterning which striped its soft brown substance; and thrown back as it was with a somewhat rakish air, it revealed a satin scarf on whose gloss was a huge pearl set in such a manner as to mimic a human skull. His boots were perfection, his checked trousers were crease- less, and a hand which the cloak left visible bore a noticeable turquoise ring. The man was none other than Sir Rawlin's friend, the traveller. Sir Rawlin, whether he blushed or no, had a passing suspicion that he must be doing so. "What!" he exclaimed; "and so it's you, is it, who are lord of the enchanted castle ? This young lady and I were on our way to the golf - course when the fatal passion of curiosity tempted us from the right path. You know who she is already. I must tell her that you're Lord Cotswold." Miss Vivian recognized the name. She remembered, with a faint smile, the discussion of it at her aunt's table. Lord Cotswold raised his hat a sort of melo- drama in felt with an air of delightful deference. " My dear," he said, kindly, " do you see this deserted garden? You are probably the first flower that has blossomed in it for sixty years. The enchantments of my castle, like its antiquity, I fear, are skin-deep only. If Miss Vivian and Miss Vivian's family I must have known some of her relations once would not be afraid of any malign influences in it, I hope I may be allowed 105 AN IMMORTAL SOUL to exhibit it to them when its rooms are in better order. At present it is a monastery inhabited by two monks. We are waiting to break our vows till the housemaids have swept and garnished us." The girl looked at him with an expression which failed to have some spice of coquetry only because it was adapted so perfectly to the natural claims of Lord Cots- wold's age and dignity. "Nothing will persuade me," she said, "that you haven't a ghost to enliven you. I saw it myself in broad daylight on Saturday. Your brother monk at least, I suppose it was he was watching it, like a prudent man, from the other side of the water." "Ah, young lady," said Lord Cotswold, "you saw that experiment, did you? My brother monk is repeat- ing it in the house now, and I have to go in and watch it before it's over. I'm coming, by-the-way, my dear Rawlin, to hear your opening speech, and I hope this first flower of my garden will ornament your audience also. She must, therefore," he went on, "if I unwill- ingly say good-bye to her, allow me to mean by it that I am trusting to see her very soon again. I leave you, my dear, in the care of one of my most valued friends." "That's the man," said Sir Rawlin, as they turned away, "to whom in a sense I owe everything. Lord Cotswold was my chief in Persia. Some people call him a quack. They don't mean that he hasn't a keen eye for realities. They mean that he takes for realities what other people call visions. What for them are brick walls are for him battlements over which he leans and watches." The girl hung on his words, fascinated by what to her were merely their vague suggestions. "I don't know," he went on, "what your aunt will think when she hears that you have made his acquaint- ance. When we get back we must grasp our nettle and tell her. Meanwhile, I have guessed who his brother monk is. He is either the devil, or else he is Dr. Thistle- 106 AN IMMORTAL SOUL wood, with whom Lord Cotswold has just been round the world." " A doctor," said Miss Vivian, in a tone of disappointed doubt. " But what makes you think him a doctor ? He's like none of the many doctors who have had to do with me. One could fancy him giving orders to soldiers, but not to people in bed." "If he is really Dr. Thistlewood," said Sir Rawlin, " he has given orders to both. When little more than a boy he was one of Garibaldi's officers; and years later, when the cholera was raging at Naples, he turned a house of his own there a great palace into a hospital, and lived among the dead and dying. He was celebrated everywhere as a hero he and the King of Italy. If that man is Dr. Thistlewood, I should very much like to meet him." " Oh, well," said Miss Vivian, " this sounds much more promising. By-the-way, it's lucky that we sha'n't meet Colonel O' Brian. Elvira told me that her papa had gone somewhere with his Count Giordano, who looked to me like a cross between a Jew and a Greek. I never in my life saw a more disgusting creature. He actually dared to stare at me." Lady Susannah, when, by luncheon-time, the party had come safely back to her, would not permit to Sir Rawlin a second evasion of her hospitality; and he, feel- ing that he must explain to her the meeting of her niece with Lord Cotswold, could not have refused the invita- tion even had he wished to do so. Her equable reception of the news at once surprised and relieved him. It ap- peared that a note had just reached her from Lady Con- way, who, never having remembered her existence for something like twenty years, was proposing to call on her now, if only she could find time. " I think," said Lady Susannah, with as near an ap- proach to asperity as good-nature permitted in the breast of a Christian woman " I think if we are to have Maud Conway here we need hardly be afraid of Lord Cotswold." a 107 AN IMMORTAL SOUL In this way everything passed off smoothly, and Sir Rawlin found himself pledged, before he was suffered to depart, to show them next day at tea-time his collec- tion of Oriental sketches. He proved himself a man of his word. The portfolio by the time named had preceded its owner in a cab and been carried into the school-room, where a large table had been cleared for it. Another table, as before, was laden with a substantial tea; and Miss Vivian and her three cousins, together with the cat Peter and the smiling dachshund James, were awaiting the advent of the artist, who was understood to be walking. Mr. Hugo, pleasant- ly hungry, peeped under the cover of the muffin- dish. Oswald, loftily conscious of a new and hopeless passion, and also of a passion on Lady Conway's part, equally hopeless, which responded to it conscious also that, an object of dark interest to others, he would soon be breathing his sorrow to the Propontic and Hellespontic waves was in better spirits than he ever had been in before; while Miss Vivian disguised her expectancy by watching the dog James as she baffled him in his meek attempts at biting her pointed shoe. "Nest," said Mr. Hugo, indicating a sealed medicine- bottle which stood on a shelf in front of some battered school-books, " the process has begun already. In three weeks' time that bottle will be full of life." "Mr. Hugo," said Miss Vivian, not troubling to look up at him, "when you talk like that you're a goose. No, you're not you're a gosling." "So you say," retorted Mr. Hugo, rather feebly. "I suppose you think," he proceeded, being better at ex- position than repartee, " that you yourself are a sort of special creation. You're no more a special creation than that cucumber which you ate at luncheon. If ever I have any children I shall grow their heads, like cucum- bers, in glasses of different shapes. One of these will be like the head of Darwin, another like the head of the lowest type of Hottentot, and the characters of the 1 08 AN IMMORTAL SOUL children for their heads are at first quite soft will be just what I have chosen to make them. You, Nest, are merely a house built out of little bricks of plasm; and you're a chapel or a dressmaker's shop, and not a villa or a brewery, simply because your bricks have been laid in a certain way." In this bold restatement, however, of the scientific gospel, he was interrupted by the entrance of his aunt, with Sir Rawlin and Mr. Carlton following her. "My dear fellow," Mr. Carlton was saying, "your drawings will be indeed a treat. I've been always so much interested in the East all palms and rajahs so much nicer than Belgravia. I know nothing of it per- sonally but just the little bit of India so stiff and offi- cial which I saw with the prince and princess. Well, my dears," he went on, addressing the others, "here you see me back again. How those trains from Cornwall crawl! Susie, dear creature, as the maids say, I'm lit- erally dropping for my tea." Tea was dispensed accordingly, and afterward, when the portfolio was opened "Now, Nest," said Mr. Carlton, "sit by Sir Rawlin on the sofa, for this is all in your honor, and you can hand us the pictures when you've done with them." So the exhibition proceeded. The sketches were ex- plained and circulated; but, as the competition for them increased, Miss Vivian rose from her seat, and retired to the window with several of them which she studied with deep attention, casting now and again a hasty glance at the artist. Matters were in this position, the room being a general litter of water-colors, teacups, and plates, and Oswald of the Byronic eyes happened to be indulging on his knees in some furtive performances with the cat, when Lady Susannah, who had hurriedly been called away, reappeared in the doorway with somebody else talking to her. "My dear," this somebody was saying, in a voice of 109 AN IMMORTAL SOUL incisive suavity, " don't be like the farmers' wives and imprison me in the best parlor. So this is the school- room, is it? Delightful! I don't wonder it's popular." The voice was still speaking when Lady Susannah, a little discomposed, uttered to the general assembly the words: "Here is Lady Conway." A certain commotion was caused by this lady's entry. "Ah," she said, "I see two friends already Sir Rawlin and George Carlton. Susannah, you have quite a salon. And now, where are my cousins? Are you one?" she said to Miss Arundel. "Well, my dear, how are you? And you," she went on, turning Mr. Hugo round "you, I suppose, are Science. Your brother, whom I know, is Poetry, and that young lady in the window, with the drawings in her hands, is Art. Her devotion to it ap- pears extraordinary. I must go over and tell her how pretty I think her frock is." Lady Conway seemed to have been making every- thing in the room her own, until she approached Miss Vivian, when her manner slightly changed. She looked the girl up and down. She looked her inquiringly in the eyes. "If I'd known before that you were here," she said, " I'd have taken you to this ball myself. However," she added, with a smile in the direction of Mr. Carlton, " I gather that you'll be under the care of a much older woman than I am. And are those your own draw- ings that you're looking at with such flattering inter- est?" " No," said Miss Vivian, " they are some of Sir Rawlin Stantor's. He's been showing my aunt and all of us the things he did in the East." Lady Conway's only verbal reply was short; but she looked at the girl again with a sort of comprehending sympathy, which seemed to have a trace of pity in it. " Ah, my dear Oswald," she went on, " from what hole have you sprung? Have you only just appeared or have you been trying to cut me?" no AN IMMORTAL SOUL Oswald by this time had drifted quietly near her, the lover in him having by this time recovered itself from his unfortunate familiarities with the cat. Lady Con- way gave him her hand, and, as he held it in speaking silence, she glanced for an instant at Miss Vivian, her eyes alight with laughter. To this Miss Vivian respond- ed with an intelligence equal to Lady Conway's. She might have been one woman looking at another of similar years and experience. Her manner, however, of regard- ing this new acquaintance presently became more critical Lady Conway, having proceeded to make a very substan- tial tea, and having examined with an air of authority several of Sir Rawlin's drawings, approached the artist, and, laying a careless hand on his shoulder, said to him: "Look here, are you listening? Before this ball the day after to-morrow, isn't it? if it doesn't begin at tea-time, you had better come and dine again with me. Indeed, if you're not a fixture here, you might walk home with me now." Miss Vivian caught the words, and noticed the action which accompanied them. Before long it was evident that Lady Conway was going. Sir Rawlin rose, as though he must be going also, and making his way tow- ard the window "Will you," he said to the girl, "put the pictures to- gether and take care of them for me, and give them to me when I come again?" She was still examining one of them, over which she now bent more closely. "Yes, yes," she answered, without looking up. "I had wanted to ask you about some of them. But well, my questions must wait. You are walking back with that woman, aren't you? From something you said yesterday, I suppose we sha'n't meet before the ball. If she doesn't take up all your time, I dare say we may meet there. My dress will be black and white white, with black velvet bows. That will help you to in AN IMMORTAL SOUL remember me. Thank you for showing us the pictures; and so good-bye till then." She snatched her hand away from him, rose, and turning to the window looked out into the gathering twilight, while he went through his other leave-takings. CHAPTER III SIR RAWLIN, for the next two days, was again en- gaged in business, and, except in his character of a candidate, neither called on nor saw any one until, on the night of the ball, he presented himself for dinner at Lady Conway's. "I wonder," she began, when the servants had left the room " come, if you won't drink, smoke I wonder who that girl's parents are." " What girl ?" asked Sir Rawlin, as he applied a match to a cigarette. " I don't think much of you," said Lady Conway, " for asking such a stupid question. The little minx with the smart frock, who is so occupied with you and your water-colors." "Oh," said Sir Rawlin, "I think I can tell you that. The father is Captain Rhys Vivian." "To be sure," said Lady Conway, interrupting him. " He's the man who was said by his friends to suffer from a peculiar madness a kind of kleptomania which only developed itself at the card-table. Anyhow, he committed that one sin for which there is no forgiveness in this world or the next. It's odd that commentators on the Bible should have never discovered what it is. I saw him when I was a girl the admired of all admirers. Full of good-nature, they said he was. He left England and married some Belgian countess the heiress of a great chocolate-maker at least, he did so as soon as the inevitable husband died. For the sake of his beaux yeux she, of course, thought him a martyr." "Well," said Sir Rawlin, glad to continue on safe "3 AN IMMORTAL SOUL ground, " the father, you say, was good-natured. He must certainly be so to his daughter. This young lady has money. She can order whatever she likes. But it seems she's been very ill from the after-affects of in- fluenza, and is here to get back her strength. I fancy, however, that this is only part of the story. There's a half-sister, it seems, who goes by a different name so, at least, I gather from Lady Susannah and for some reason or other they don't get on together, for if this one goes back to her parents, the other is to come here in- stead of her. My own impression is that this one must be illegitimate." "Precisely," said Lady Con way. "My dear man, you're quite astute. One is the daughter of the bond- woman, the other of the free; one of the mother as a wife, the other of the mother as a mistress; and Miss Isaac, depend upon it, makes home too hot for Miss Ishmael. Or else, perhaps, this little illegitimate person can't bear being reminded that her mother was not always quite so good as she might have been; and yet she, I suspect, has something of mamma's blood in her veins, to judge by the impertinence of her frocks and by her very-much- too-pretty eyes. But what strikes me as so funny I'm thinking of poor Susannah. Yes, yes, to be sure I begin to see light now." "What," said Sir Rawlin, "are you laughing at?" " You will," replied Lady Conway, " hardly believe me if I tell you. You see what Susannah is now. She was never much better-looking. But Fate finds out all of us ; and Susannah it was a family legend had her own romance like the rest of us. This dazzling warrior was the hero of it. She must have two thousand a year, so it's quite possible that he encouraged her; and now, poor dear, she at last finds she can be of use to him. Oswald told me a thing or two; but I don't think he knew much and his memory has temporarily failed him for every- thing except myself." "Yes," said Sir Rawlin, reflectively, "boys are cu- 114 AN IMMORTAL SOUL rious creatures. Their first loves are always wom- en " Finish your sentence," said Lady Con way. " 'Women old enough to be their great-great-grandmothers.' Well, there's hope for us all. Men, in their own way, are creat- ures just as curious. My dear man," she continued, " I was on the point of preaching you a sermon, but I won't. Just wait a little, and I'll show you that I can do bet- ter. At what hour does this brilliant function begin? At ten, do you say? Then we'd better ring for coffee." The rooms in which the ball was given opened from a circular hall, where members of the committee were signalizing themselves by welcoming the more important guests. Lady Conway, the moment she emerged from the cloak-room, was beset by official gentlemen orna- mented with pink rosettes. Then the official gentlemen were reinforced by some official ladies, foremost among whom was Mrs. Morriston Campbell. " It's so good of you to come," the official ladies mur- mured an assertion which Lady Conway delighted them by contradicting flatly. "I expect," said Mrs. Morriston Campbell, oozing with abashed importance, " you'll find many people here you know. I saw Lady Grange only two minutes ago." "Where?" said Lady Conway, in alarm; and then, turning round to Sir Rawlin, " Help me," she whispered, " to escape from that most horrible of all old hags. But, wait a minute." Her eyes meanwhile had strayed, and, moving forward, she captured a young man in a dazzling waistcoat, who was patiently parading a sense of su- periority to the general company. "Captain Vansit- tart," she said, "I want to have one word with you. I've a girl coming here to-night whom I'm anxious to see enjoying herself. I want you to dance with her and get her some decent partners young and beautiful as yourself, if you think such a thing is possible. You won't regret it. Come to me by-and-by in the ball- room." AN IMMORTAL SOUL Captain Vansittart, on seeing her, was like a dead man coming to life again, and she left him proclaiming by his carriage that he had not been born in vain. "And now," she said to Sir Rawlin, "what shall we dowagers do with ourselves? I'll tell you what you should do. Don't be tied to my apron-strings, but go and make yourself agreeable to every antiquated ob- ject, male or female, that you can put a name to. Ah, here comes Oswald. Sir Rawlin, your country calls you. Oswald, my dear boy, take me into the ball-room, and tell me who some of these odd specimens are. Where," she went on, as they ensconced themselves in a bower of palm-trees " where is that pretty little cousin of yours ?" "There she goes," said Oswald. "We did the best we could for her. Her partner has just left Eton the son of a decent parson here." Lady Conway followed with her eyes a vision in black and white, whose movements were as exquisite as its millinery, and reduced the partner of its progress to a hardly distinguishable accessory. " Isn't my little charge quite too distracting and cap- tivating?" said a voice in her ear, as Mr. George Carlton seated himself. "You must bring her to me," said Lady Conway, "when this performance is finished. We'll do better for her presently." "I see some one," said Mr. Carlton, "from whom we must protect her at any price a Colonel Brian, or O'Brian, or something. He has a daughter who's a friend of hers; and poor, dear Susie, if you please, who never knew anything of the world, actually asked him to luncheon. Just watch him. He's as good as a play all mustaches and perspiration. Don't speak loud. He's over there, quite close to us, and some brother monster along with him." The Colonel, aggressively conscious of his shirt and his evening coat, was addressing his companion in au- dible and highly vivacious tones. 116 AN IMMORTAL SOUL " You don't think much of our English young ladies eh, Count ? What do you think of her my young friend who has just gone by ?" "You know her what?" exclaimed the other, with a light in his protruding eyes. "Ah, what a waist and shoulders! She's just like how do you call it ? a best girl of my own somewhere. What's her name ? Vivian ? Ah, not a name I know. And yet, if she weren't so haughty, I tell you she'd be just my style. If you really know her, mon Colonel, introduce me. Merely because I am curious, I should just like to hear her talk." " Really know her!" said the Colonel. " Wait a bit till you see me whisking her round the room." "Oswald," said Lady Conway, "do you see that tall Adonis who seems to be chewing the cud of his own past successes? It's Captain Vansittart. Tell him I want to speak to him; and bring your cousin to me the mo- ment this dance is ended. I'm determined, George, that that child shall have the sort of evening she ought to have. You don't mean to say that Susie lets her talk to a man like that?" Mr. Carlton shrugged his shoulders. "By-the way," he said, " I saw in the hall our distinguished member as is to be, quite surrounded by a posse of local bigwigs. What a handsome fellow that is!" "Yes," said Lady Conway, "he's as handsome as a man can be without looking a fool like Captain Vansit- tart; and he's not a fool at this moment, for he's fol- lowing my own advice to him." Sir Rawlin, indeed, had not only followed her advice, but the moment he saw her address herself to Captain Vansittart he had grasped her immediate intentions, and had ceased to have any doubts as to her meaning. He resented such interference as coming from a woman like her; but the fact that even to her it seemed necessary roused his own scruples into life again. He had seen the back of the girl's head in the distance, and adjacent to it Mr. Carlton's wig. He had turned sharply away. 117 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "At all events, her evening," he thought, "shall not be disturbed by me." The resolution thus formed he carried out so con- sistently that till long past midnight he did not even enter the ball-room. Fate, however, was a creditor which exacted its dues at last. The wife of the high sheriff, a buxom and lively lady, made it impossible for him, he being a good though unwilling dancer, not to do by her what she obviously considered to be his duty; and the two accordingly added themselves to the medley of revolving couples. As white shoulders and black, as trousers and skirts went by them, she had no time to notice that he had suddenly grown grave and absent. At last he was aware of the figure which he had thus far been so scrupulously avoiding. Their eyes met for a moment. Lady Conway's wisdom had faded into irrel- evant and officious folly. The dance ended, and with a dexterity perhaps some- what too pronounced he deposited his lady somewhere he was not very sure where, except that it was near a recess like a magnified bow-window, at the aperture of which, leaning against a tall red curtain, Miss Vivian stood with Captain Vansittart close to her. The young man, who had the air of completing a conquest which was at least begun, was practising attitudes indicative of a tender monopoly. " I'm awfully sorry," he was saying to her, "that I've got to be off to-morrow," and was hastening to add, " But I hope we shall meet in London," when, in the middle of this avowal, he was conscious that her attention wandered. Her eyes lit up. She moved. She evidently had forgotten his existence. " I thought," she said, advancing to meet Sir Rawlin " I thought that you were never coming. Here's a seat; or where will that passage take us? I believe I feel rather tired. Let us see if we can't rest in there." The passage, as she called it, had originally been an open arcade, running along the fagade of the building between two protruding wings, but now it was glazed in 118 AN IMMORTAL SOUL and formed a kind of corridor. At the end of it were two glass doors. Sir Rawlin pushed them open, and he and his companion found themselves in a large space, where bands had at one time played in the open air; but this, too, like the arcade, had now been enclosed by glass and been turned into a winter garden. The middle was at present occupied by a number of long rough tables, evidently prepared for a flower-show. Some chairs had been arranged for such persons as might choose to use them, but nothing else had been done to attract the company of to-night. No lamps had been lighted, and the only artificial illumination came through rose-colored curtains from the shining ball-room within. But the lamps were not missed. The whole place was white with moonlight, and the open sea was visible, flickering through the transparent walls. The whole structure might have been a glass ship afloat on the silvered waters. Here at length they seated themselves. Sir Rawlin watched her in silence; and, softened by the intervening windows, the air from " Carmen" came to them: "Si je t'aime, prends garde a toi." The ivory whiteness of her dress, emphasized at the waist and shoulders by clear- cut bands of blackness, the blackness of her long gloves, and the violets dreaming at her breast, gave her the air of a prenaturally young widow, whose vigil was at the gates of the future rather than at the grave of the past. He tried to speak, but his first attempt was a failure. Then in words, the most commonplace he was able to muster, he asked her once more how she had enjoyed her evening. " I'm looking at the sea," she answered. " I enjoy the sea much better. That same sea glitters in the Persian Gulf. The Nile and the Ganges and the Euphrates all go flowing into it. Yes, I liked the dancing, as I told you. But what does dancing come to? It makes one want the depths and gives one only the shallows. And you have seen it all all those far-off places and the ships with the odd sails and the minarets and the men 119 AN IMMORTAL SOUL with turbans. I don't want to talk. Stay by me and let me just be silent." She leaned her chin on one of her slim black hands, and again looked out over the water, lost in her own reflec- tions. Sir Rawlin was lost in reflections of his own like- wise. Memories of Lady Conway's unspoken sermon came back to him. He thought, too, of Lord Cotswold's words: "A child like that is never a child." He grew more and more conscious that, however unwelcome in some ways, the presence of a chaperon would in others be very desirable. In default of a chaperon he brought out a cigarette. A moment later he felt he had been wise in doing so. The doors had been pushed open, and some one or other had entered; but with the aid of his cigarette he managed to be so elaborately natural that he did not even turn to see who or what the intruder was, and Miss Vivian's indifference was apparently even more absolute. Sir Rawlin, indeed, was affecting to be occupied with the course of a moonlit smoke-ring when he heard a voice saying to him: "Well, I call this true seclusion. Your discovery of it is the success of the evening." Sir Rawlin looked up, and before him was Lady Con- way, with a flash in her eyes, half humorous, half up- braiding. "I'm sorry to disturb you," she went on, "but all things must have an end, even seclusion; and this young lady I speak for her cousin George must exchange the quiet of a ball for the comparative dissipation of bed. My dear," she said, turning to the girl, "your carriage has been called already, and precious Cousin George will be in hysterics if he's kept waiting." Miss Vivian, however, still comported herself as if she had heard nothing; and Lady Conway, unaccustomed to such behavior, stooped and looked curiously into her face. It was the face of one who was either asleep with her eyes open, or who else, so it seemed to Lady Conway, must have fainted in that condition. Lady Conway 120 AN IMMORTAL SOUL knew, for her knowledge in this way was extensive, that women, and especially girls with little experience, do occasionally faint under the onslaughts of male atten- tion; and her own conception of love-making being very far from transcendental, she leaped to the conclusion that Sir Rawlin, by some crude or premature liberty, had succeeded in giving a violent shock to one who had, to say the least of it, a claim on his discreet forbearance. She contemplated the girl with an expression that grad- ually became almost tender. At last she stooped again, and lightly kissed her forehead. Then turning to Sir Rawlin, she said, in a changed tone: " I hope you are satisfied with your work. What have you been trying to do to her ? But I know men. I needn't ask. It will be better for your own character hers is of no importance if she's found here with me alone. We may have to call a doctor. What muddlers you men are! You're all of a piece all of you!" Sir Rawlin was about to answer, when suddenly, with a brusque movement, Miss Vivian turned round to him and said: "Am I very absent?" " I'm afraid you are, my dear," said Lady Conway's voice behind her, " and I've come to tell you that Cousin George is particularly anxious that you should be pres- ent. You, Sir Rawlin, quick, go and find Mr. Carlton, and tell him that his young lady's caught and will be out in another minute. You may thank your stars," she added, following him for a few paces, " that nothing worse has come of this. Don't dawdle about and make any scene at parting, but drive back by yourself and wait for me on my own door-step. I've some nice little things to say to you." Not very long afterward the echoes of Sir Rawlin's crescent were roused by the rumble of a carriage, and Lady Conway was saying to her footman: " Bring some whiskey and a siphon into the dining-room, and wait up for ten minutes to let Sir Rawlin Stantor out. You 121 AN IMMORTAL SOUL see," she continued, when the dining-room door was closed, "how careful I am of that treasure, my own good name. Frederick's virginal eyes shall be satisfied that you're off the premises. And now let me tell you But come, don't stand. Sit down. Let me tell you Sir Rawlin, however, interrupted her. "Before you tell me," he said, "any single thing of any kind, let me tell you something first." She shrugged her shoulders. "Very well," she said; "tell away, then." "I know," said Sir Rawlin, looking her quietly in the face, "what you assume my conduct to have been. I won't quarrel with you for your assumptions. I will content myself with showing you that they are wrong. Listen: you found me sitting about a yard away from my companion a safe distance, as you will admit. Since we entered that place and were alone together I had not been an inch, or a fraction of an inch, nearer to her. Also I had uttered to her one single observation only, which was to the effect that I hoped she had en- joyed her evening. The condition in which you found her I was quite unaware of it myself, and it can but have lasted for a minute or two naturally makes you suspicious. Let me tell you something of which you cannot possibly be aware. Miss Vivian, ever since a serious illness, has suffered from some disorder of the nerves. I and Lord Cotswold found her some weeks ago sitting with her cousin, Miss Arundel, on one of the pub- lic benches in a state much the same as that in which she was just now. The cause on that occasion was walking too fast uphill. She did not appear to be asleep; but I spoke to her, and she did not recognize me, and a few days afterward she had no recollection of the incident. If you doubt me you can ask her cousin, her aunt, her doctor. You need, therefore " he went on, but Lady Conway stopped him. "Come," she said, "I won't ask you for references. Men lie so often that I know when they don't by con- 122 AN IMMORTAL SOUL trast. Indeed, I must admit that, when I put my precious burden into her carriage, and saw that she look- ed disappointed rather than discomposed, I began to wonder whether I might not be less right than I usually am. Have some whiskey and soda-water to show that there's no ill-feeling, and also to keep your courage up, for I haven't done with you yet. Indeed, I may tell you candidly that I've only just begun. If Frederick is scandalized we must sacrifice his salvation to yours. And now, how can I manage to make myself most odious ?" Lady Conway seemed to be struggling with conscien- tious and unwonted pains for the highest foothold avail- able on the Sinai of serious morals. At last she found it in the shape of a great general principle, enunciating it with the modesty of one who is merely laying stress on a truism. " Married women," began the preacher, " are, of course, all fair game." Her sermon having been once started, the rest became much easier. " But," she went on, trenchantly, "with unmarried girls it's different. Not being a girl myself, I can afford to take strict views for them. In love as in war, hit those of your own size. Now one thing, my dear man, is just as plain as a pike- staff : girls even girls with nerves don't faint for nothing; and, though I'll admit most handsomely that you no more thought of touching her than you would have done had she been the Ark of the Covenant, she would never have been in the state in which she was if it hadn't been how shall I put it? To make a long story short and you ought to know that yourself she's head over ears in love with you, or she will be if you don't prevent it. I saw it the other day when she was looking at those drawings of yours. Now this for you're not, at your age, going to take a bride from the school-room would, if things came to a crisis, put you in an absurd position. I'm speaking of yourself only. I shall say nothing more of her. Don't you, in all sober cynicism, think as much yourself?" o 123 AN IMMORTAL SOUL " Yes," said Sir Rawlin, rather grudgingly, " supposing you to be right, I do." " Boys," said Lady Conway, " can do anything without making themselves ridiculous, just as a child or a cat, without so much as shaking itself, can have a tumble which would, if we had it, make us cripples for life; and the most ridiculous thing which a mature man like you, so far as regards himself, can do to any woman is to raise expectations in her which he is not prepared to satisfy. We know this from the immortal Joseph ; and it's doubly true when the woman in question is a girl. It would, indeed, be a delightful thing for our distinguished Con- servative candidate to add to his other credentials the reputation in Southquay circles of breaking the heart of a chit hardly out of her short frocks, and restoring her to a condition of hysterics from which she had just es- caped. Of course, I'm exaggerating. The young lady is very much grown up. I don't want to frighten you. I want to prepare you for the consolations of reason. Love, with a girl like this, is very much like a cold: it's easily cured if the cure is applied in time. Now, the question is, what's to be the cure in your case ? As you can't go away like JEneas for that's out of the question whatever you do, don't pull her up short. That would precipitate a crisis, which is just what you want to avoid. See her as much as you please. Take a deeper and deeper interest in her. That, I suppose, is the way in which you would wish me to express myself. But listen now, for I'm going to confide to you a patent pre- scription of my own let the interest be of a kind which will gradually make her think you a bore. For example, she's coming to this fte to-morrow. As soon as your speech is over, take her to all the side-shows. Treat her as if she were an ordinary child. There's one hint; and here is a very much better one: I've just had a letter from my dear old friend Dr. Thistlewood, telling me that he's here and has consented to give a lecture at some local scientific institute. Insist on her going to that; 124 AN IMMORTAL SOUL talk to her about it afterward; and never use a word, if you can help it, of less than thirteen syllables. When you're not treating her as a child, treat her as if you hoped that some day she'd be the mistress of a high- school. I doubt if the profoundest passion in the heart of sweet seventeen would survive for many weeks a really high-minded devotion such as that. I find, when I look into your case, that your ways of salvation mul- tiply. And now, good-night. Frederick shall be tried no longer. The devil's quotations from Scripture must, if necessary, be continued in our next." CHAPTER IV 'T'HAT same night, as the late train from London 1 was slackening its pace among the outlying hills of Southquay, a man in a second-class carriage was standing bolt-upright, in order to spell out a letter by the lamp that burned above him. He was dressed in black, he was tall, and a cord was round his low-crowned hat. This man was Mr. Barton, released at last from the duties which for the past fortnight had been engrossing him. The letter was from Lady Susannah. It had only reached him that morning, and the larger part of it was taken up with a request that, as he was staying at the house of his order in Westminster, he would do some- thing or other for her at the Army and Navy Stores. Now, however, on rereading it, he had perceived for the first time that over the page there was a postscript, and this it was that absorbed him at the present moment. With some difficulty he was spelling out the following words : " You will be glad to hear that Nest, since you went away, has been very much better enjoying, amusing, and interesting herself just as we wished she should do. We have often seen Sir Rawlin, who has really been very kind, taking her and Hugo to the golf-course. She is going with us all to the Constitutional Fete to hear him make his opening speech; and to-morrow my cousin, George Carlton, is taking her to the Mid-Lent ball, where he and Lady Conway will be sure to get a few partners for her." Mr. Barton, with a sigh, thrust the letter into his pocket. "A ball!" he murmured to himself. "I had never looked forward to that. And this Lady Conway Lady Conway what has she to do with the matter?" The road from Southquay station to the town runs 126 AN IMMORTAL SOUL along a curve of shore, and clusters of house-clad hills, with all their constellated lights, were framed by the window of his closed fly as he peered through it. The lights generally lay sparse on the darkness of the noc- turnal gardens, but out on a spur of rock the Bath Saloons were blazing, and were sending shining streaks into the glass of the intervening waters. Mr. Barton's own way would take him close to this group of buildings. The road at that point was steep, and, as his vehicle was slowly laboring up it, he told the driver to drop him, saying that he would follow on foot. He stood for some minutes motionless on the blanched pavement, and stared at the buildings opposite him, from which snatches of music issued. He was not a man whom his asceticism with regard to himself had ever rendered censorious with regard to the amusements of others. He had, though he had never attended balls personally, been accustomed to accept them as incidents of ordinary social intercourse ; but now his solicitude for one particular soul caused him to regard them with a pang of desolating jealousy, as though everything most remote from the welfare of souls were incarnate in them. At last he was roused by the sound of a policeman's tread, and, aching with a vague disquiet, he unwillingly moved away. When he reached his own house, where he forced him- self to eat a mouthful or two, his mind was still in the same state of tension. Restlessly pacing to and fro in his library, he fixed his eyes on the heads of his Italian saints images of spiritual passion which were hung by wires against his book-shelves; and the expression of each face, as he contemplated it, seemed to repeat it- self in his own. Then, carrying his one light with him, he betook himself to the smaller room into which his library opened, and there, having paused in front of the bare oak table, which, as Sir Rawlin had noticed, was evidently employed as a prie-dieu, he sank down, kneel- ing on the stool which stood before it. 127 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Prayer, as commonly understood, is the preferring of some definite supplication, or, perhaps, some definite act of confession and devout resolve. With men like Mr. Barton it is a prolonged spiritual drama, more real in its opulent adventures than anything that is called reality. Before his eyes at first there was only an unfathomed darkness; but he knew the ways of that night, his in- ward gaze was patient with it, and gradually in its un- charted depth a something began to flicker. It was vague when it first showed itself, but quickly grew more distinct, till it turned into a face like a cameo, pale against its dark matrix, but it differed from a cameo in exhibiting the texture and the tints of life. Its eyes, as he scanned their depths, seemed to know and to seek him, and to penetrate him with their responding gaze. He saw in them that sorrowful knowledge of all human sorrows with which a remote Omniscience has enriched itself by stooping to man's experience. The longer he looked and he now lost count of time the expression of his face grew deeper, as though all these sorrows ac- cumulated were fulfilling themselves at the same mo- ment in a single forlorn heart. Mr. Barton's own heart seemed to him to leap forward, and to adore and also to expostulate with the condescension of the Divine Suffer- er; and at last the assaults of his love, as his spiritual teachers would have called them, began to work their wonder. They began to produce a transformation in the aspect of the Lord Himself. The agonized face softened into a sort of semi-obscurity. Then it began to reform itself, and as it reformed itself it was changed. The Christ of history, with His spasm of earthly life, had given place to the Christ that is beyond time, to the Reason eternal by which all the worlds exist, to the eternal and delectable Beauty which is the Bridegroom of the spousal soul. Just as the eyes at first had been the eyes of all sorrows, they were now the eyes of that Love, out-passioning passion, which, for those who di- rectly experience it will, as all the saints declare, so fill 128 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the soul with beatitude that sorrow has no room left for it. Mr. Barton felt as if his whole being were taking wings, and, like "the little lonely dove," as St. Francis de Sales calls the enraptured spirit, were about to mount to the bosom of the celestial Loveliness. But something held him back, and he heard a voice saying to him: " I am ready for you, Theophilus. What keeps you from me ?" Mr. Barton's head sank lower. "Lord," he heard him- self answer, " do Thou read my thoughts ; or let me speak them to myself on this wise, and Thou shalt hear me. The Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep of all His folds carried one lamb on His shoulders. One disciple was distinguished among all the rest as the beloved one. If one of the Master's disciples, a humble shepherd him- self, were to come into his Master's presence bearing a lamb likewise a lamb who might have else been lost would the Master say to him, ' Depart and come not near me, because thou hast been overheedful of that which is not I' ? Lord, even to myself I dare to breathe no more." Having said this, he felt himself transformed into one act of listening, his suspense being that of a man whose neck is beneath the guillotine ; and by-and- by it seemed to him that the divine voice answered: " My son, do not fear to look at Me. As thou art present in My heart, so let her be in thine. Bring thy lamb to Me that she may be in My heart also." CHAPTER V MR.. BARTON was in many ways a very sensible man. However high he might lift himself above the levels of ordinary existence, he felt, when he came down to them, no false shame or difficulty in resuming the moods and judgments proper to life's daily business. Accordingly, when he awoke next morning, his solici- tude with regard to Miss Vivian, although it was undimin- ished, assumed a more practical character. He recol- lected that she would in the afternoon be present at the political fete, and he resolved to attend this himself, in the hopes, not merely of meeting her, but also of ob- serving her demeanor especially, so he caught himself thinking, her demeanor toward Sir Rawlin Stantor. By three o'clock, the hour at which the fete opened, the Bath Saloons had transfigured themselves. The great ball-room was hung with flags and patriotic mottoes. Here, at half-past three, Sir Rawlin and others were to speak; and then, when the speaking was over, sight- seeing, gayety, refreshments, and all kinds of music were to give wings to the moments till eleven o'clock at night. In one of the smaller rooms Punch would delight the young. In another, a lady mesmerist would mingle mirth with mystery. In another, penny portraits would be taken by magnesium light. Flowers and vegetables would be exhibited in the winter-garden. When the party from Cliff's End arrived and were provided by a steward with chairs in the front row, the speakers were already on the platform, flanked or backed by rows of influential or ornamental personages. Among these Lady Conway, in sables, held a foremost place, her AN IMMORTAL SOUL face calm with a sort of disdainful assurance, which made the failure of any cause associated with herself seem incredible. "Yours," she said to Sir Rawlin, when the oratorical performances were over, "was a capital speech a magnificent speech. I hope you've not forgotten mine. Wait for a moment, and I'll deliver it over again to you. There is Miss Nest. Come here, my dear. Where did you get that hat ? Let me look at you. You've quite recovered, I see. Well, I took you away last night from a very great deal of wisdom; and now Sir Rawlin has been giving you such a large additional dose of it that you haven't he's afraid, and so am I taken in more than half. He's particularly anxious to explain to you what he meant about popular education, and if that is too frivolous a subject for you he'll take you to ' Punch and Judy.' ' Half an hour afterward a man with anxious eyes, who had been making his way through the crowd, which by this time was in general motion, had suddenly pushed himself forward in the direction of a tall lady. Close to the tall lady was a small and very neat gentleman who, whenever those about him collided with his im- maculate garments, was making resigned grimaces, as though he were bathing in a sea too rough for him. "My dear fellow," said Mr. Carlton, "it is really too nice to see you again. Susie, Mr. Barton is speaking to you." Mr. Barton's face was now all smiles and friendliness. Information and questions flowed from him, and at last he expressed a hope that Miss Vivian was feeling none the worse for her ball. "No," said Lady Susannah, "she was here a minute ago. She was with Sir Rawlin Stantor; but really in a crowd like this there's no keeping together." "Indeed there is not," said Mr. Barton, who with very considerable skill, was allowing three young women clutching one another by the hand to thrust him back AN IMMORTAL SOUL into independence. In another moment Lady Susannah was lost, and Mr. Barton's eyes were searching again for the object which alone interested him. But everywhere he looked in vain for it. It seemed to be eluding him like an object pursued in dreams. Sir Rawlin, meanwhile, with a sufficiently good grace, had been following Lady Conway's policy, the wisdom of which he recognized, although he resented its necessity ; and he found it in practice both easier and more pleasant than he had anticipated. He had let himself down to the level of mere good-fellowship, and his young com- panion had thus far appeared to desire no more. Noth- ing, indeed, had troubled them but a growing conscious- ness of the crowd. They would otherwise have actually entered the room where Punch was squeaking. This, however, as they saw at the door, was packed; but an- other door, not far from it, allured them by its agreeable contrast. Here, as a card announced, admission was one shilling, and the persons who entered were few and far between. Across the door were the words: " Madame Levy, the Renowned Mesmerist." "Come," said Miss Vivian, "do let us go in here. I see Cousin George in the distance. We will vanish before he catches us." Their shillings, at all events, procured them sufficient quiet. The room was large, and there were but fifty people in it. Sir Rawlin and Miss Vivian seated them- selves on one of the back benches. Madame Levy, a lady with black and apparently rather humid hair, was finishing a discourse about will-currents and vital fluids, and then invited any one the more sceptical he might be, the better to mount the platform and put her powers to the test. " I can't do every one," she said, "but if you find me fail with some my success with others will be all the more remarkable. I should like to begin with a gentle- man who disbelieves in me a gentleman with a great, strong will who will resist my influence. What! How 132 AN IMMORTAL SOUL is this? Is there no gentleman with a will so strong that he is not afraid to try me?" This appeal elicited a gentleman of Wesleyan appear- ance, who mounted the platform like a saint defying an imitation Satan. He submitted himself gallantly to Madame Levy's requirements, and five minutes later he was dancing a clumsy hornpipe, his lips grinning and his frock-coat on the ground. The shouts of merriment which greeted his return to consciousness alone made him suspect that he had not merely closed his eyes. Other voluntary victims most of them young men succeeded him, and most of them with like results. One of them smoked a pencil; another rocked a chair, tenderly watching a hat on it, as though it were a baby in a cradle; and another, like a baby himself, went crawling on all-fours. "Do you think," said Miss Vivian, unable to forbear from laughing, " that all this is really genuine, or are these people her accomplices?" "No, no," said Sir Rawlin. "It's genuine enough in its way. The old gentleman who went up first is one of my own supporters." "Then," said Miss Vivian, with a slight grimace, " I'm not sure that I like it. It makes one laugh, of course, but, after all, it's rather degrading." " That young lady is right," said a man's voice behind her a voice whose quiet authority had something slightly foreign in its emphasis. At the same moment Sir Rawlin felt a hand on his shoulder, and both of them, turning round, were aware of the presence of Lord Cots- wold, and also of some one who was standing by him the solitary watcher of the pier. "And so," said Lord Cotswold to Miss Vivian, "you won't wait for our mysteries. You are studying the black art for yourself. Rawlin, let me introduce you to Dr. Thistle wood. My dear fellow, we were late for your speech. They tell me it was quite magnificent. My distinguished friend here was very anxious to hear you." AN IMMORTAL SOUL He looked toward the place where Dr. Thistlewood had just been standing, but Dr. Thistlewood was there no longer. Without waiting for an introduction, he had slipped into a chair next Miss Vivian, and was saying to her: " I was delighted with your criticism. A show like this is an insult to human nature." His manner was the manner of a man familiar with all societies and accustomed to be a personage in all. It was especially that of a man accustomed to deal with women, though there was in it no trace of any amatory or sentimental enterprise. His eyes, as he fixed them on Miss Vivian's, gave her the impression that he was looking through her, as through a telescope, at some- thing else beyond. " Yes," he went on, in a tone of pleasant and respect- ful intimacy, " a show like this degrades " She thought he was going to say "its victims." He did not. "De- grades," he said, "in the popular mind, the commonest facts of science into a trick, or, still worse, into a miracle. It would be just as rational to give a man an emetic in public, and invite spectators either to giggle or to gape at the effects of it. Experiments of this kind are, in particular cases, sometimes necessary as tests. The other day I was testing the accuracy with which an hys- terical woman, a housemaid, carried out unlikely in- structions given her when in a state of hypnosis. I am not, I think, wrong in supposing you to be the young lady who told Lord Cotswold that she had seen me watching a ghost. Perhaps you think as half the peo- ple in this room do that what is often still called mes- merism has something to do with spirits." Miss Vivian responded in a tone of not disrespectful flippancy. "You don't, then," she said, "believe in spiritualism? I was rather fancying that you did." Dr. Thistlewood laughed. "Naturalism," he an- swered, " if you know what I mean by the word, is far fuller of wonders than what these savages of to-day call AN IMMORTAL SOUL spiritualism. The first experimenter who ever got an electric shock could only suppose that it was produced by a devil who had hidden himself in a bottle. The spiritualists of to-day reason just as he did. My dear Miss Vivian for that, I'm sure, is your name every- thing is spiritual, or nothing is. Nothing is a miracle, or else everything." Dr. Thistlewood was beginning to interest her. At the same time his words and manner produced in her an obscure uneasiness. "Now," she said, determining not to be discomposed, "you are taking me out of my depth; but in one thing at least I may agree with you without presumption. The idiotic young lady who watched you was myself and nobody else. I'm glad, for her own sake, that she caught you at nothing wrong, or you might be giving her some aqua-Toffana, to rid yourself of a disagreeable witness." " Ah, Lord Cotswold after all those years Lord Cotswold!" said a well-known voice Mr. Carlton's voice behind her, " it's a century since we met. Fancy finding you here! I do hope this distressing nonsense is over so superstitious and vulgar. Ah, here come all the family in search of the lost lamb. Susie, she's here. Don't let them make you pay. Happily, there's nothing to pay for. Come in, Mr. Barton; drive the spirits away, if they haven't all gone already. And look here, Susie why, this is quite a reunion Lord Cots- wold, I think you must have met her. He won't ask when, for fear it should have been in the year one. This is my cousin, Lady Susannah Lipscombe." Mr. Carlton, while he spoke, had, with a courtly though nervous amity, placed one hand on the astrakhan of Lord Cotswold' s cuff and another on the limp silk of Lady Susannah's, and drew the two parties together as if he proposed to marry them. He was gratified by the success of his diplomacy. Lady Susannah succumbed at once to the magic of Lord Cotswold' s manner a man- 135 AN IMMORTAL SOUL ner which seemed to render all past misdemeanors fab- ulous and was presently so far committing herself as to comment on the indisputable fact that he and she were almost next-door neighbors. Mr. Barton meanwhile had been looking about him curiously now at the mesmerist on the platform, whose performances for the time were over ; now at Lord Cots- wold and Dr. Thistlewood, wondering who they were. Dr. Thistlewood, in particular, with the careless self- confidence of his bearing, excited his close attention. That Miss Vivian should be so engrossed in the conver- sation of this striking stranger was not in itself pleasing to him. But that a stranger should be able to entertain her as well as, or even better than, Sir Rawlin, did much to relieve his mind; and while waiting to approach her, as he was now impatient to do, he found that he was able to greet Sir Rawlin himself, not, indeed, very effusively, but with a reserve that was not obtrusive. "I hear," he said, "that you've completed a remark- able sale of property." "Yes," said Sir Rawlin, without a sign of embarrass- ment. " I hope I shall have been the means of giving you some very interesting neighbors. They are Bene- dictines, and they will, unless I am misinformed, bring with them a library second only to that of the Vatican." For a single moment Mr. Barton's eyes sparkled; but before he had time for any answer other than a sarcastic cough, the affairs of the group were thrown into some confusion by a rustle of expensive materials and a new voice that accompanied it. " Now, where is the man of all men whom I most wish to see?" The words were Lady Conway's. "Ah, there the traitor is! My dear child," she went on, coming up to Miss Vivian, " you happily don't want a doctor, even after last night. I do. I bought a villa at Naples mere- ly to be near this one, and before my carpets are down the abominable creature goes." Miss Vivian, though she looked at Lady Conway with 136 AN IMMORTAL SOUL eyes of somewhat doubtful friendship, showed no in- clination to stand in her way now. She rose at once, and Mr. Barton was at once beside her. To his in- finite delight she met him with her old cordiality, and instinctively moved away with him to a spot where their words would be unheard by others. He told her that during his absence he had wished to write to her about many things, and that she and her welfare had never been out of his mind, which observations, hurried and subdued as they were, were received by her with a comprehending acknowledgment almost beyond his hopes. She, at all events, was not lost to him, and the bitterest of his anxieties being thus more or less at an end, he began to assume something of his old position as her adviser. "And so," he said, "I hear you were last night at a ball. I confess that, when we talked about a little social amusement for you, I was hardly thinking about balls, and still less was I thinking about exhibitions of such idle quackery as mesmerism." "I agree with you," replied Miss Vivian, "as I was just now saying to Sir Rawlin, that this exhibition is very stupid. But mesmerism, after all, isn't mere non- sense like spiritualism. It's merely a kind of doctoring done on a public stage." "Pardon me," returned Mr. Barton. "You have got the case upside down. The phenomena of spiritualism, though in most cases they are fraudulent, are undoubt- edly sometimes genuine, and are, as the Church recog- nizes, the work of evil spirits or spirits, to say the least of it, with whom Christians have no license to trifle. But this mesmerism is quackery pure and simple. It's curious how people who won't believe in God are the first people to believe in imaginary and as they call them occult powers of the body or the human will. Who, by-the-way, brought you here that man whom I saw you talking to?" "Do you mean," said Miss Vivian, answering one 137 AN IMMORTAL SOUL question with another " do you mean Dr. Thistlewood the man of whom Lady Conway has so very complete- ly possessed herself?" "Dr. Thistlewood!" echoed Mr. Barton. "Can that man be Dr. Thistlewood ? And do you mean to tell me that you yourself have been making his acquaintance? Yes, it undoubtedly must be. I recognize him from his pictures in the newspapers. Do you know who Dr. Thistlewood is? One of the most notorious sceptics in Europe, and, I can well believe, one of the most super- stitious also. And is that Lady Conway the woman whom one always reads about ? How has all this hap- pened? How do you come to be knowing people like these? And the other man, with a fur collar, who re- minds me of a mediaeval wizard they all three seem very intimate is he, may I ask, one of your new ac- quaintances also?" "Oh," said Miss Vivian, looking over her shoulder, "I suppose you must mean Lord Cotswold." "Lord Cotswold!" exclaimed Mr. Barton. "This is better and better. You remember what was said about Lord Cotswold at your aunt's table the other day. I congratulate you on your company. Do you owe it to your friend, Sir Rawlin? Alas," he said, shrugging his shoulders and taking out his watch, " I must go. I've a service at half-past five. My dear child," he said, re- suming his natural manner, " if all this dissipation is not distracting your thoughts too much, I ought to come very soon and begin our talks about confirmation. Will you or your aunt write me a line and let me know when to call on you to-morrow, perhaps, or the day after?" "Sir Rawlin," said Lady Conway, "come here. I want to have a word with you in private. Dr. Thistle- wood's lecture is to be on Friday. There won't be a word in it under thirteen syllables. Insist on your young lady being brought to that. You can arrange about it with the family now. She doesn't like me the young lady doesn't. That's because I'm doing her good." 138 AN IMMORTAL SOUL The party were here informed by a very apologetic at- tendant that the room was about to be cleared, prepara- tory to another stance. They were, indeed, by this time the only members of the public left. "Good Heavens!" said Lady Conway. "Let us fly! Nobody shall mesmerize me!" CHAPTER VI THE fevered apprehension into which, on his return last night, Mr. Barton had worked himself as he contemplated the ball-room windows had indeed been assuaged by Miss Vivian the moment he actually met her again. But now, when, having left her, he thought of her new associates, their aspect, their reputed char- acter, and the easy manner in which she had herself mentioned them, his previous trouble reasserted itself in a less acute but in a more pervasive form. It was the same trouble that had assailed him at Lady Susannah's luncheon-party, when he first realized the possibility of the girl's nature being swayed by influences other than those which for him were alone sacred. It was the jealousy of a new atmosphere. Such was his state of mind when, making his way toward his church, he found himself passing the doors of the Southquay museum buildings, one of whose halls was used for scientific and other lectures. Lists of the subjects now in course of being dealt with were displayed in striking type on placards which flanked the door. Most of these were familiar objects, having been there for half the winter; but Mr. Barton's eyes this afternoon were caught by a new announcement, which eclipsed the others by its freshness and the size of its bold lettering an announcement of a lecture entitled "The New Psy- chology," the lecturer being none other than the objec- tionable Dr. Gustav Thistlewood. Mr. Barton stopped short and stared at it. Science, as the foe of religion, was, in Mr. Barton's opinion, operative mainly among vicious and ill-educated 140 AN IMMORTAL SOUL artisans. It was, however, notorious that what occurred in this lower social stratum was not without its lament- able counterpart in a certain section of the highest, where materialism was made an excuse for every species of refined licence; and the insidious influences which a society of this kind might exercise seemed to him typified by the grandiose polish of Lord Cots wold, by the subdued self-confidence of Dr. Thistlewood, and by the very smell of Lady Conway's furs. This young soul, which had been committed to his special keeping, required that he should mount guard over it more closely than ever. Mr. Barton contemplated the placard with a slight ironical laugh. Dr. Thistlewood had doubtless, in some cases, shown himself a successful healer. But that a man should think himself qualified, because he understood pills, to give his opinion on the workings of the living human mind, was, in Mr. Barton's estimation, com- parable to the claim of a cobbler to direct the armies of his country because he supplied their boots. The folly of such men was truly as great as their wickedness ; but yet, when he reflected on how this typical pretender was being presented as an oracle to the imagination of a super-sensitive girl, anger got the better of contempt and anxiety got the better of both. He would see her again in private, and at the earliest moment possible. As for Miss Vivian herself, Lady Conway, could she have looked inside her, would have smiled to see that the treatment which her own wisdom had suggested showed some slight signs already of producing its de- signed result. The girl had awoke that morning from a long series of dreams, in which something constantly sought for had been forever eluding her, to find herself in a state of languid though not wholly unpleasing melan- choly, till her subsequent adventures at the fete gave a new aspect to everything. There each moment of sight- seeing had filled her with a delightful gayety. Even the proposal which Sir Rawlin did not fail to make, that 141 AN IMMORTAL SOUL they should go to Dr. Thistle wood's lecture, and which Lady Susannah had assented to, holding that a taste for lectures was a sign of steadiness in the young, came to her as a prospect of present happiness repeating itself. But as soon as the afternoon was over she felt that there had been a want somewhere. Her companion, instead of coming with her to the step of her aunt's carriage, had bidden her a hasty though doubtless a very friendly adieu, and allowed himself to be carried off by Lady Conway to the offices of the Conservative Association. She had been gay in his company; that fact remained. But was gayety all she sought for? Was gayety alone everything ? That night in her sitting-room, to which she retreated early, she sank as if quite exhausted into a low chair by her fireside, and took from a table close to her a small, thin, oblong book. It was Mr. Barton's Secret Way, whose pages were by this time liberally scored with pencil-marks. She turned these languidly till she came to the following passage: " Even the material world which so-called science studies has for both it and the soul were made by the same God anal- ogies in itself by which the world of the spirit is illuminated. Such science, for example, tells us this that there is no desire implanted in any living creature which does not indicate the existence somewhere of that wherewithal it shall be satisfied. Thus, for bodies numbed with cold there is the warmth of sun and fire. For tired muscles and heavy eyes there is sleep. In the hunger of a lamb is a witness to the growing of the green pastures. With respect, indeed, to any bodily want or desire whatever, the actual existence of its true corresponding object may, even before we have imagined it, be inferred from the desire itself just as, to take another analogy supplied, not by living but by mere brute, lifeless matter, from the movements of a planet seen is inferred the existence of a planet unseen, which influences them. So it is with the soul. If thy soul desire some- thing which it has not yet found, know thou that somewhere this thing desired exists; and if, believing that thou hast found it, thou wouldst know whether thou hast found it truly, examine thy heart afresh and ask whether thy heart is satisfied." 142 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Next morning a letter reached her the masculine writ- ing on whose envelope she saw for the first time. Her heart beat with pleasure and then stood still with doubt. The letter was very short, amounting to no more than this: " I shall be very busy up to the time of Dr. Thistlewood's lect- ure, but hope we shall meet then. Don't forget to come. The subject sounds dry, but I think that the watcher of the pier will make it interesting to both of us. I am, meanwhile, your friend who wishes the best for you. " RAWLIN STANTOR." The reception of this letter caused her to write an- other, almost as brief, and addressed to a different per- son. A servant was instructed to take it to the Rev- erend Theophilus Barton. It ran: "DEAR MR. BARTON, You kindly said you would come and talk to me either to-morrow or else to-day. Will you come to- day? To-day nobody wants me, so name any hour you like. It will be nice to see you quietly once more and talk about what really matters. You have always been very good to me. "N. V." Mr. Barton, as he read this, felt a thankfulness be- yond the reach of words. In heart he had been already with her, taking this tender life again under the pro- tection of his maternal wings. Lady Susannah had arranged, as she had done on similar occasions previously, that he should, when he arrived in the afternoon, be shown into her own boudoir, her instincts telling her that this apartment, close to the front door, was in itself a chaperon whose presence was decorous, though of course it was unnecessary. Here Mr. Barton found Miss Vivian awaiting him. Her aspect shocked yet at the same time subtly pleased him. Her cheeks were pale, and she rose with what seemed an effort from a table at which, without much apparent success, she was constraining herself to do her duty by a bowl of soup with some bread in it. AN IMMORTAL SOUL " You're not to think," she said, laughing, " that these are my usual habits. I've been told to eat this, for I couldn't manage much luncheon." Profoundly touched, he seated himself at a little dis- tance from her, and said, simply and kindly: "This is very, very sad. I fear you have overtired yourself. Go on with your soup. I haven't come here to scold you, but too many hours at balls don't you think I am right ? are almost more exhausting than too many hours in church." The girl looked at him with a smile in which, gentle as it was, there lurked a fugitive suggestion of worldli- ness condescending to worldly ignorance. "Dear Mr. Barton," she said, "you needn't preach to me about balls. The ball did nothing to tire me. My mind wants a tonic, I think, far more than my body." "I can well believe that," he said, seating himself at a little distance from her. " I have long been desiring this time when we can begin our talks in earnest. Come, shall we be methodical ? You must not look on me as a pedant. The things which I must begin with saying to you, you of course have heard before; but I want you to consider them as a system." And forthwith he set himself, in simple and lucid language, to elucidate the position of the soul and of human beings as a race, in the light which the Church, with her revelation and her treasures of philosophy, throws on it. The Church, he said, and the Church alone, makes the object of our life, and even our exist- ence, intelligible and reasonable things. We must, he said, begin with ourselves. How did we come to exist ? For we were not our own creators. We were created by some other Power, and this Power, to say the least of it, could not be less intelligent or less good than ourselves; for the Lesser, as was self-evident, could not produce the Greater. This axiom of the intellect was seconded by the voice of conscience, which, by condemning our own moral imperfections, told us that the Source of our J44 AN IMMORTAL SOUL being, or, in other words, God, was perfect. How, then, were our own imperfections the war in our members to be accounted for? The word of God informed us. Our imperfections did not, and could not, come from God Himself. We bore them as a burden inherited from our first earthly parents. The spiritual history of man, and the solution of all its problems, were comprised in two documents the written Bible and the living ac- tivity of the Church. The latter continued the process which was revealed and recorded in the former, thus linking together the earliest times with the latest. In the first chapter of Genesis, with its account of the primal tragedy, a complete foretelling of Christ and the Catholic Church was latent. Then in the inspired history of the chosen people and its woes we had the history of the individual soul writ large. Here we saw its misery in doing what it did not desire, there we saw its misery in desiring what it could not get. Then, when Christ came, and when His work was continued by the Church, we saw how the divinity of both, quite apart from external evidences, was attested by the marvellous fact that they brought to the human heart those precise forms of help and guidance the need of which, with increasing clear- ness, it had been signalizing from the dawn of time. This fact, Mr. Barton went on to say, was illustrated most signally by the Church's sacramental system, which touched life at every point, from the bed of birth to the death-bed first through the dews of baptism, then through the succor of confirmation, of which they would speak hereafter ; then through that Second Advent which took place at every good communion, when our Lord, as it were, laid His head on the breasts of all who loved Him; then through the Christian marriage that great triumph over the Evil One which turned all that warred against the Spirit into an embodied and life-long holiness ; then through the sacraments of cleansing penance and pardon; and, lastly, those which turned the death-bed into a solemn bridal. MS AN IMMORTAL SOUL The girl listened, absorbed; and although she was still pensive, she seemed to be breathing the atmosphere of some assuaging peace, Mr. Barton's face seeming to her like a face in some far-off chancel. "Well," said Mr. Barton, when at last he rose to go, "when shall I come to see you again and speak about confirmation in detail ? I have other sheep in my flock, you know, to be talked to about the same subject. Shall we say the day after to-morrow?" " Yes," said the girl, her eyes soft with some ambiguous gratitude. "I will expect you then. Good-bye." The priest departed, taking with him as much peace as he had brought; but this was ruffled next morning by the following few words which were brought to him, scrawled in pencil: " Instead of to-morrow. Friday, do you think you could come to-day? I had forgotten; but to-morrow we are going to Dr. Thistlewood's lecture." In spite of the other calls on him, Mr. Barton punct- ually came. Pleased by the urgency of her summons, the occasion of it roused in him an anxiety so harsh as to be almost irritable, nor did the submissive warmth of her welcome or her continued pallor disarm him. "And so," he began, " I gather that you are going to betake yourself to instructions very different from mine. My dear child, if you haven't found what you want in dancing-rooms, or in the tricks of a mesmerist, do you think you will find it in a doctor's disquisition on psy- chology? At its best, psychology is a dry and. for most of us, a superfluous study. Any child can tell itself more about the motions of its own mind than it could learn from an army of psychological lecturers. Do you know what psychology is? I can explain it to you in half a dozen words. When you and I talk, the different sounds we form depend on the different ways in which the tongue touches the teeth, the roof of the mouth, and so on; and wiseacres can tell us I dare say with 146 AN IMMORTAL SOUL perfect truth what particular movements of the tongue produce each particular sound. But for you and me, and for human beings generally whatever may be the case with the wiseacres the important thing is the words and the sentences we utter, not the particular gymnastics which the tongue performs in uttering them. The science of psychology is to the operations of the mind just what the science of articulation is to the use of speech. It can tell us no more of the uses to which our minds should be put than an account of the manner in which our Blessed Lord used his tongue could bring home to your soul or mine the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount." "I'm sure I don't know," said Miss Vivian, "and I don't think I much care, what psychology is, but we're all of us going, just to hear a famous man." "Ah, well," said Mr. Barton, reassured by the indif- ference of her manner, " the worst this precious lecture can do for you will be to keep you out of the open air; and this talk about psychology, new or old, about which you will hear to-morrow from an expert in drugs and doses, has not perhaps been very inappropriate after all. The proper meaning of psychology is an accurate knowl- edge of the soul; and our own subject differences being duly allowed for involves, and indeed rests upon, a sort of psychology of its own. So let us begin with that. You'll find it all set out in the little manual I gave you, or indeed in any other which does justice to the Church's teaching." Mr. Barton then set himself to explain questioning his listener at intervals, to make sure that she followed him that the whole meaning of confirmation depended on a certain fact as to the constitution of the human soul. This was the fact that, as the Church had always taught, as Miss Vivian would learn from any other An- glican priest, and as God had directly revealed to us, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, the soul of man is possessed of seven distinct faculties, which are essential M7 AN IMMORTAL SOUL to its spiritual life. The first man, Adam, possessed these in full perfection. By his fall, though not extinguished, they lost their strength, both in himself and in all de- scended from him. The sacrament of confirmation gave, he said, their pristine strength back to them. These seven faculties which, when thus completely restored to us, are called "the gifts of the Spirit," consist, Mr. Bar- ton went on to say, of "Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Spiritual Strength, Holy Fear, and Godli- ness." Imagination, memory, human affection, the sense of beauty, and so forth all the faculties, in short, of which we are cognizant in ordinary life could, he said, be applied to their proper purpose only when guided and illuminated by these seven sacramental gifts. He then proceeded to explain that these seven gifts of the Spirit "We have another chapter," he observed, "of Divine psychology here" caused to germinate in the soul "the nine fruits of the Spirit," foremost among which were Love and Joy and Peace. It was thus, he said in conclusion, that the grace given in confirmation enabled the whole inner being of man to complete itself, and to reach even here to foretastes of its future perfect union with Him in whom Love and Joy and Peace and all Beauty are one. This exposition, which was made with great logical simplicity, occupied a considerable time, during most of which Mr. Barton looked steadily at the green Brussels carpet. It had been enough for him to feel that he was one human soul directly urging the deepest of all truths on another, which other, as the voice of his Lord had told him, he might guide and cherish as though, in some special sense, she were his own. He attempted neither by voice nor glance to make his instructions the vehicle of any common sentimentality. He was hardly, indeed, conscious of himself. It was only when he came to his summing up of the matter that his listener caught his eyes, and saw them shining with exaltation, like the windows of a far-off city. 148 AN IMMORTAL SOUL " And now," he said, rising and standing with his back to the fireplace, "I've finished my homily for to-day. Well, dear child, I honestly believe that you have understood me, and that you will ponder these things in your heart. Yes, yes and I have one thing more to add. Don't make too much of what I said about this wonderful lecture. If the man's right, well and good. If he's wrong, he won't bite us. Your own people are going. By all means go also. Indeed, I may myself look in for an hour or so, and hear the old bones rattled again sensation, cognition, apperception whose sound I used to hate at Cambridge. An apothecary in a meta- physician's chair that will, at all events, be a novelty. Do you object to the thought that I am doing what I can to watch over you?" "No, indeed," she answered. "On the contrary, I am more than grateful." CHAPTER VII THE interest excited in Southquay by Dr. Thistle- wood's fame and personality was evidenced the following afternoon by the large number of carriages which were setting down their well-dressed occupants at the doors of the museum buildings. Whereas on ordi- nary occasions the fact of an impending lecture would merely have been indicated by the furtive and inter- mittent disappearance, through doors which stood half open, of a few sadly clothed persons, like worshippers who were entering a chapel unsuited to their social status, silk skirts rustled in the entrance, servants stood outside, and among the general stir a spruce-looking one- horse brougham, the door of which was opened by a tall footman in powder, emitted the persons of Lord Cots- wold and the renowned lecturer himself. Then Lady Conway drove up in a particularly shabby cab, as though all the equipages which fell short of the splendor of her own were the same for her. Mrs. Morriston Campbell followed, swaying in a large barouche, and nearly fell down, as she alighted, in her futile efforts to catch Lady Conway's eye. All she could do was to follow in her wake to the lecture-room, where Sir Rawlin and Lord Cotswold were leaning against the wall, talking; while Lady Susannah, Miss Arundel, and Miss Vivian were already seated, waiting as if in church. "Come," said Lady Conway to Sir Rawlin, "that's your place, by the young lady. Don't forget my ad- vice. Sit down, and explain the long words to her." In accordance with custom, the lecturer was intro- duced by a chairman, an old inhabitant of Southquay AN IMMORTAL SOUL and its intellectual patron. This gentleman, an octo- genarian of vigorous and distinguished aspect, began by reminding his hearers that Dr. Thistlewood was known throughout Europe for certain dramatic inci- dents in his career which were, indeed, matters of his- tory and also by his success in certain public enter- prises. Besides being the hero of the great Neapolitan pestilence, he was the founder of what was now one of the best-known health resorts in France, where treat- ment was accorded to necessitous patients gratuitously; but greater even than his achievements as a man of healing, though not so generally understood, were his achievements as a man of research. "Take, for in- stance," said the chairman, pleasantly, "this science of the mind, or psychology. When I was at Oxford, fifty- five years ago, nothing could have been more dreary and unprofitable. We were no wiser at the end than we were at the beginning of our study of it. I see a rev- erend contemporary of mine at the other end of the room, and I'm sure he'll bear me out." At this there was the inevitable laugh, and a turning of heads toward a well-known and white-haired cleric, who nodded a placid acquiescence. " But now," continued the chair- man, " during the lifetime of the youngest of you you young people have a great deal to be thankful for we've changed all that, and Dr. Thistlewood is eminent among those who have helped to change it. About the nature of the change I will only presume to say one thing. You'll find that he has made psychology a very much nicer medicine. It used to be something like our gray and our brown powders, the taste of which I re- member still. But in telling you this I only represent prophecy. I will not call upon my distinguished friend here for its fulfilment." Dr. Thistlewood rose, and a burst of applause greeted him. The chairman, he said, had relieved him of the most difficult part of his business namely, the introduction AN IMMORTAL SOUL of it. What he was going to speak about was not so much psychology generally as the differences which dis- tinguish the new psychology from the old. Psychology, as they all knew, meant the science of the mind and its workings. But we only knew that we had minds be- cause we were conscious, as selves, of having them. It would, therefore, be better to define psychology as the science of the living self. Now, how was this self to be studied? Since we only know that we have selves because consciousness tells us so, the most natural an- swer to this question was that we must study self by examining the facts of consciousness. This was the as- sumption with which the old psychology started, and with this assumption it ended. It sought for its facts wholly within the limits of the conscious circle. The new psychology differed essentially from the old be- cause, though likewise taking these facts as its starting- point, it had come to recognize that they did not stand alone, but were merely some fraction of a very much larger process, most of which lay beyond the limits of the conscious self altogether. "For example," said Dr. Thistle wood, "if we wanted to know why a man did some particular thing, the old psychology assumed that he need only honestly examine himself, and that then he could, if he would, give us a complete answer. Here we have the psychology of the confessional. The new psy- chology recognizes that in the case it will be enough for me here to say in the case of two-thirds of our actions the most searching self-examination could no more ex- plain their origin than a baby foundling could recount to us the biography of its great-great-grandparents. Here we have the fact which the old psychology overlooked. It behaved as a man would who thought he could ex- plain the England of to-day the trains in which he travels, the electric light he reads by if everything were a blank to him which lay beyond the memories of the present generation. This error the new psychology rectifies. It does not neglect the conscious or we may 152 AN IMMORTAL SOUL call it the self-examinable but it shows that this is ex- plicable only by connecting it with the unconscious." Such generalities, said Dr. Thistlewood, were no doubt rather dry. He would now enliven them with illustra- tions. He would begin with the case of memory. If we wished to make sure that a servant remembered some order given him, our great endeavor would be to make the man keenly conscious of it to dig it into him, as we say. Memory, indeed, seemed to most people to be an affair of consciousness or to be nothing. But the new psychology told us a very different tale. It showed us that facts might be remembered for half a lifetime which had, at the time of their occurrence, never made any entry into the domain of consciousness at all. He proceeded to give a number of quaint and curious cases, such as that of a Swiss woman a great heroine among spiritualists who in certain abnormal states would mouth out Sanscrit words, these being accepted by her friends as the utterances of a disembodied spirit. It afterward appeared that this woman, in her early child- hood, had been often in a room where a professor of Oriental languages would mutter scraps of Sanscrit as he waited for his morning chocolate. The child never knew she had heard them, but thirty years later they emitted themselves from the mouth of the morbid wom- an. To such cases he would add that of a French post- man who was terrified at finding that, when drunk, he had lost a valuable letter, but retained, in his sober state, no memory of the incident. He was made drunk again. He remembered it, and the letter was found, thrown away in a ditch by a road near Paris. Dr. Thistlewood said that he mentioned this last case because, simple as it seemed, it threw a vivid light on a question we were all compelled to ask. No memories exist in a conscious form always. What are they when they are not con- scious ? In what do they reside or inhere ? They don't reside in the clouds. We obviously carry them about with us; for with appropriate instruments we can re- 153 AN IMMORTAL SOUL cover them. In what they reside the postman's case showed us. The instrument by which they were recov- ered in his case was a litre of strong red wine, and the wine operated by affecting his nervous system, or, rather, some special tracts of it. The nervous system, then, was the basis of all consciousness the basis of what we mean by self. Self was a portion of that system, in a certain special condition. In other words, self for psychology was a function of the nervous organism. "Of course," said Dr. Thistlewood, "the clergy and they are well within their province in doing so will tell us that the self, or soul, has a secret existence of its own behind this nervous organism and transcending it. I wish to say nothing here in contradiction of this doc- trine. I say only that, if this doctrine is true, we must learn it from the clergy and not from psychological sci- ence. Science must be austerely humble and remain within its own boundaries." The few clergymen in the room here testified their approbation. "Psychology," Dr. Thistlewood continued, " deals only with the self as we know it under the present conditions of our exist- ence; and so long as we approach it under these con- ditions it is inseparable from the nervous system, and can only be understood as a product of it/' It was by a recognition of this fact, he went on, that psychology had ceased to be an affair of private and conflicting self-examinations, and had become a science in the true sense of the word. It had supplemented the self-examinations of the recluse by the experiments of the laboratory and the hospital. These methods of observation, he said, were revealing a world of wonders, all exhibiting the conscious life of the self as an efflores- cence of the non-conscious organism or as a candle- flame dependent on the wax which it melts for its own consumption. "Well," he continued, "to many of you all this may seem very revolutionary; but if it destroys some of our old beliefs, it is, in the most sensational way, reconstructive of others. I said I should avoid tres- AN IMMORTAL SOUL passing on the proper domain of the clergy, but I think they will forgive me if I here stray over the border. There are a large number of miracles ascribed to the saints of Christendom which, though the Roman Church still regards them as genuine, Protestantism and science alike have been accustomed to dismiss as ridiculous and degrading fables." A slight sound in the body of the hall here made the lecturer pause. It was caused by Mr. Barton, who was at that moment entering. The sound of the words "saints" and "miracles" arrested him in the act of searching for a place. He subsided into a chair with a frown of prospective antagonism. " Many of these miracles," Dr. Thistlewood continued, " so long derided by Protestant and scientific rationalism, the psychological science of to-day is actually giving back to us as facts. Indeed, for the scientific, for the experimental psychologist, some of the most valuable documents we possess are comprised in the old accounts of certain of the mediaeval saints." Mr. Barton could hardly believe his ears. Dr. Thistlewood said that he alluded to such phenomena as trance and ecstasy, to the seeing of visions, to the hearing of spiritual voices, and to the actual development in saints' bodies of the stigmata. Experimental psychology, founded as it was on observation, now recognized such alleged facts as genuine; for the psychologist was daily encountering, among the human specimens submitted to him, similar facts himself; and when they occurred they coincided in the most startling way with minute details recorded by the hagiologists of the' Roman Church. The occurrence even of stigmatization had been actually witnessed in hospitals. The occurrence of trance and ecstasy, divine visions, the hearing of unspeakable words, the con- sciousness of an abnormal insight into the divine mys- tery of existence might be called comparatively com- mon. They could be produced even in a healthy subject by the inhalation of certain vapors. But apart from AN IMMORTAL SOUL the employment of a medical artifice such as this, these phenomena were always accompanied by certain physical symptoms very specific symptoms, which happened to be precisely those ascribed to the saints by their biog- raphers. Among these symptoms, for example, were certain affections of the skin, often mentioned as ex- hibited by the great ecstatics, and identical with those distinctive of hysterical visionaries to-day. The ravish- ment of the saints, as we learned from St. Teresa herself, was always accompanied by a depression of breathing and circulation. These precise symptoms were now recognized as accompaniments of the ravishments of the hospital. More curious still, such ravishments as the saints experienced were said to have been accompanied, in some cases, by extraordinary contortions of the body. St Christina, for example, commonly called "mirabilis," is said to have been, during her ecstasies, contracted into a spherical form, or as her biographer puts it rolled up like a hedge-hog. Precisely the same thing occurred in cases of hystero-epilepsy. The vision of the Apostle Paul under the mid-day sun of Syria was at one time lightly dismissed by scientific men as a fairy tale. Psychologists now recognized that, in all its generic features, it coincided with well-known effects of sunstroke. w I will," said Dr Thistlewood, " again beg leave to impress on you that there is nothing in all this which need conflict with the faith of Christians. Just as the psychologist's identification of the self with the organic system need not hinder the clergy from maintain- ing that there is a transcendental self in the background, so the identification of certain abnormal phenomena, as manifested by saints and apostles, with occurrences daily observable in our hospitals and elsewhere, need not pre- vent the clergy from maintaining that there was in the former cases some additional element wholly unknown to science, and present in those cases only." And now, Dr. Thistlewood said, he would descend from abnormal facts to normal, which were for the old 156 AN IMMORTAL SOUL psychology no less inexplicable. Here he would once again refer to the Apostle Paul. They all remembered the apostle's celebrated confession: "The evil which I would not, that I do." This paradoxical antagonism between the act and the conscious will was a mystery to the apostle himself, and has remained a mystery till yesterday. The new psychology had now thrown a flood of light on it. By showing us that all our con- sciousness was the product of non-conscious activities, it exhibited will, or the conscious impulse to action, as surrounded by other impulses of which consciousness told us nothing, but which differed from will only as, in the case of some enormous mechanism, wheels and levers, of whose action we could take no count, because they were lost in darkness, differed from others which were revealed to us by a bull's-eye lantern. The old psychology confined itself to those few parts of the mechanism which lay within the illuminated circle. No wonder it was mystified by observing that the wheels which alone were visible to it were often reversed by some agency which was not in these wheels themselves. But when once it was realized that these few visible wheels were but parts of some larger mechanism, with a complex apparatus of unseen reversing gears, springs, and detents, which acted on them, the element of mystery and paradox altogether disappeared. Finally, from the antagonism between the conscious will and the act, they would pass to the succession of wills, each antagonistic to the other. Philip drunk dif- fered from Philip sober. Love prevailed one week. Prudence prevailed the next. Familiar facts like these showed us that the area of consciousness or, in other words, the content of what we commonly call self was not stationary, but moved, as the light flung from a lantern might, and had for its focal nucleus different brain centres in succession, and of a series of conscious states, thus varying in their content, what we commonly mean by self, or by personal identity, was composed. 157 AN IMMORTAL SOUL The question remained, however, of how these states were connected. What rendered the series one self in- stead of many selves? The answer to this question might be given in two forms. One was subjective namely, a general continuity of memory. The other was objective namely, the physical basis of memory, or the continuous functioning, to use yet more technical language, of certain parts of one normally co-ordinated organism. " In other words," Dr. Thistlewood went on, "what the new psychology shows, to make the matter short, is this: that these selves of ours, which we used to think so simple, are each of them a sort of family whose common life is supported by the co-operation of a thousand servants. Most of these servants the family never sees at all; and it sees, of those whom it does see, only two or three at a time. And now," said Dr. Thistle- wood, "to conclude. The general upshot of what I have just been saying may be briefly expressed thus: The new psychology takes much with which we are familiar away from us, but it gives us something in return which, when its strangeness has gone, we shall find to be more than an equivalent. The old psychology said, through one of its most accomplished representa- tives, ' We feel that we are greater than we know.' The new psychology answers and will you carry its answer away with you? 'We know that we are greater than we feel.' " "My dear Dr. Gustav," said Lady Conway, when all was over, " I'm delighted to hear that I keep so large an establishment, and that when I do wrong it's all the fault of the kitchen-maids. I must tell you, however, that for my own part I feel my greatness as well as know it, for to-night I'm going to meet you at dinner." CHAPTER VIII MR. BARTON, who had come to the lecture with a view to detecting the errors in it and taking them for a text in some future conversation with Miss Vivian, found himself for the first few moments in a state of be- wildered surprise which had in it the conflicting flavors of unexpected approval and of disappointment. The announcement which greeted him on his entrance that the new psychology was rehabilitating the miracles of the mediaeval saints he could not quarrel with that, although he would have liked to do so; and again, the lecturer's manner this certainly was not the manner of an "apothecary" turned quack philosopher. Still, Mr. Barton felt that there was something not right some- where; and then came the sentence in which the great vision of Paul, while admitted to be a fact, was as- similated to the ordinary results of sunstroke. Mr. Barton felt at once that his original prevision was justi- fied; and when he grasped more clearly the general line of the argument when he heard man's self spoken of as a function of his organic system, his immortal soul as a product of a bundle of perishable nerves he was less scandalized than delighted to find that even the most accomplished of sceptics inevitably fell to the level of the infidel of the street and the pothouse. Nothing is more gratifying to an opponent than to hear his enemy, in deliberate terms, expose himself. Mr. Barton had hoped to ascertain, the moment he entered, if Miss Vivian were present, possibly to sit near her, and at all events to note her companions and the manner in which she comported herself. But the crowd, 159 AN IMMORTAL SOUL for which he was not prepared, made any such observa- tions impracticable, so he resigned himself to waiting till the end; and then, when the end came, and he stood in the gangway looking for her, he felt himself ready to meet her with new confidence and authority. It would, indeed, not be difficult to deal with Dr. Gustav Thistle- wood. As the audience gradually thinned and no Miss Viv- ian appeared, he saw that in the neighborhood of the platform a numerous group remained; and there, not far from some sables which he recognized as Lady Con- way's, was an aigrette which could, as he knew, belong to one person only. Toward this group he began to push his way, but before he could get near it, the out-goers being still numerous, he encountered Mr. George Carlton, who, nervously holding his hat so as to protect it against the pressure of the public, assumed, on catching sight of him, an expression of beckoning intelligence. "My dear fellow," said Mr. Carlton, "I've just been sent to look for you. You're not gone that's delight- ful. My cousin Lady Susannah wants you to come to tea with her. I ought to tell you that there's a plot to make you sing perhaps a duet with a certain young person who is your pupil and I'm quite sure that you'll be dear and nice and obliging. Lord Cotswold is coming so musical and interesting; and he is most anxious to hear you. There he is. Let me introduce you." Mr. Barton could not refuse. He did not, indeed, wish to do so. During the past half-hour he had become conscious of a new attitude. The world would not hurt him. He could meet it on its own ground; and by mixing with it and observing its dangers he would be able all the better to guard others against them. While this was passing in his mind he heard Mr. Carlton describing him as " such a dear fellow such a charming fellow so cultivated"; and a moment later he found himself the recipient of a bow from Lord Cotswold, so 1 60 AN IMMORTAL SOUL grave, stately, and deferent that a bishop could have desired no more. "I hear, Mr. Barton," said Lord Cotswold, "that you have travelled much in the East, studying its churches. I also am an architectural palmer, and have brought back many relics from Palestine. My reliquaries are portfolios. Some day you must let me show them to you." Meanwhile, in the group to which Mr. Barton had thus attached himself, a slight movement was being caused by the departure of one of its members. This was Sir Rawlin Stantor. "You're not coming to tea, then?" said Miss Vivian, as he held her hand. " If I can," he answered, in a tone that at once moved and chilled her. " I have an appointment at the office first. It was all I could do to steal time for the lecture. The sooner I go the more chance I have of coming back to you afterward. This evening I make a speech. One can't always do what one wants to do." "Listen," said Lady Conway, detaining him for a moment. " I congratulate you. Your manner to the young person during the lecture was a model of retro- gressive prudence." When Mr. Barton, who fraternally went shares in a very slow cab with Mr. Carlton, reached Cliff's End, the rest of the party were already assembled in the drawing- room. Lady Conway's dress and Lord Cotswold's some- what florid presence made him feel the moment he en- tered as though, somehow or other, the homely apartment had been refurnished. Lord Cotswold, divining that Miss Arundel was not endowed with the gifts which capt- ure the attention of strangers, was devoting himself to her with a benignant courtliness, and was actually talk- ing about poultry. Mr. Hugo, on his best behavior, was smiling a shy smile, and was explaining to Lady Conway, who sat in a window and encouraged him, that the bank of shadowy purple rising along the horizon was the shad- 161 AN IMMORTAL SOUL ow of the earth cast upward by the departed sun ; while Oswald looked on in his most diplomatic of attitudes, feeling too superior to be jealous; and Miss Vivian, dis- tinguished among the rest as though she were some ex- pensive flower, exhibited a smiling weariness which was ready for its ornamental duties. "Ah," she said to Mr. Barton, with some slight signs of animation, " I'm glad you've come. I believe we're to be fellow- victims." This intimate welcome would have comforted Mr. Bar- ton greatly had he not caught sight of something which produced in him a new disturbance. Lady Susannah, who had at first escaped his observation, came forward from somewhere, in conversation with a male guest, and the two, conversing still, took up a position on the hearth- rug. This guest was the very man who, half an hour ago, had been pompously enunciating in their shallowest and most childish form doctrines which were fatal to all spiritual religion, and declaring that the earliest evi- dence which we possess of the Lord's resurrection was due to the action of the sun on the back of St. Paul's head. And to this man with the quiet, intrepid eyes this Satan in modern clothes Mr. Barton's hostess his simple, his Christian hostess was talking confiden- tially, with a touch of pink in her cheeks, and with an eagerness almost girlish. Moreover, so far as Mr. Bar- ton could gather, the subject which the two were dis- cussing had some connection with the lecture. To a certain extent he was right. "Of course, Dr. Thistlewood," Lady Susannah had been saying, " I couldn't understand some of it, but I'm quite sure that nerves have a great deal to do with all of us. My niece there, whom I think you know she's stronger now, thank God! her health, her spirits, one might almost say her thoughts, have seemed at times to be hanging on a hair-trigger." " Ah," said Dr. Thistlewood, looking in Miss Vivian's direction, "a very interesting young lady to me par- 162 AN IMMORTAL SOUL ticularly so. Could you tell me a little more about her?" Lady Susannah told him the story of the attack of influenza, and what had followed it, not omitting to mention the girl's dread of thunder. "That must," she said, "be purely the result of at- mospheric conditions on her nerves; for, as to her mind, nobody could be more sensible. Before she came to me she was under Dr. Gonteau at Nice." "Indeed!" said Dr. Thistlewood. "He's one of my best friends. Well, Lady Susannah, nothing is new to doctors. What first interested me in your niece was a likeness to a certain young woman though, of course, there are great differences whom I once came across in Italy and once again in Scotland." " Did she," asked Lady Susannah, " suffer from nerves, too?" Dr. Thistlewood laughed. " It's because the two," he said, "are so utterly unlike in point of nervousness, that I find something interesting in their general and superficial likeness. Often such a likeness means a like- ness in character also. In the case of twins this is some- times extremely striking." Dr. Thistlewood and his hostess were by this time on the hearth - rug, and not only Mr. Barton but others were exhibiting an inclination to listen to them. " My dear Dr. Gustav," said Lady Conway, looking placidly up at him, "what's all this about twins? Aren't you becoming rather Gampish?" "I was," said Dr. Thistlewood, "telling Lady Susan- nah that the physical likeness between twins is often accompanied by a moral likeness also. Indeed, if their physical likeness and the likeness of their external cir- cumstances were complete, their lives and thoughts would be as similar as the movements of two similar clocks. You think I'm laughing," he went on, "but I and other doctors have been collecting cases which bear on this very point. I can tell you of two cases which 163 AN IMMORTAL SOUL came under my own notice. Two twin Alsatians, at the age of thirty- two one in Paris, the other in San Francisco were both attacked simultaneously by rheu- matic opthalmia. Three years later, by acts of similar carelessness one at Liverpool, the other at the Central Railway Station in New York both received similar injuries on the right cheek, and ever afterward bore a similar scar. Of another pair these were natives of Jersey one went for years to India, the other was a lawyer in London. At the age of fifty-five, not having met for more than a quarter of a century, on the same day, and at the same hour of the afternoon, both were found to have been buying old-fashioned champagne- glasses one at a shop in Hamburg, the other at a shop in Inverness." "But," interposed Mr. Barton, unable any longer to contain himself, "may not we poor priests be allowed to maintain in our folly that it is the likeness of the two souls which produces that of the bodies, instead of the reverse, as I gather that you suggest yourself?" "I should," said Dr. Thistlewood, courteously, "be the last man in the world to attempt the refutation of the view which you put forward. I was only speaking of facts. I was not even suggesting an explanation of them. ' ' "I should imagine," said Mr. Barton, the spirit of op- position rising in him, " that even the facts were difficult to prove. I should like to ask you if there is a single pair of persons on record to whom you or your friends, on your own grounds of observation, would attribute absolute likeness, whether of mind or body?" " I am so far," replied Dr. Thistlewood, apparently unconscious of Mr. Barton's militant tone, "from saying that such a case exists that I should set it down as being, from the nature of things, impossible. If twins were alike at their birth, they would be differently situated afterward, since no two bodies can be absolutely in the same place at once. They would be like two clocks side by side in the Greenwich Observatory, which, an at- 164 AN IMMORTAL SOUL tendant told me, kept pretty much the same time that is to say, he added, if we allow for the difference of longitude." This illustration produced a general laugh, and the subject of the twins lost itself among the general triv- ialities of the tea-table. Then came the time when the promised music was called for. Oswald opened the piano, and Miss Vivian and Mr. Barton retired to the other end of the room to select from a pile of music some duet suitable to the occasion. " Will you take it to the piano ?" said Miss Vivian, when such a piece was found. " And please ask for candles. It's dark in that corner. I'll come in another moment." She turned away as she spoke, and, going alone to a window, she seemed to have forgotten all else in con- templation of the gathering twilight, as she had done on another occasion, when Sir Rawlin prematurely left her. Mr. Barton meanwhile set himself down at the instrument and ran his fingers over the keys, with a masterful and brilliant touch which, he could not help feeling, gave an additional point to his recent attacks on Dr. Thistle- wood. Dr. Thistlewood himself, who was watching Miss Vivian closely, gradually approached, though he did not attempt to join her. "Nest, my dear," said Lady Susannah, presently, "come, we are all waiting for you." But the girl seemed not to hear, and her conduct was just beginning to excite general attention when Dr. Thistlewood moved quickly toward her, and contrived to give the impression that what detained her was a conversation with himself. "You are wanting to go to sleep," he said, slightly pinching her wrist. "Blink your eyes; look at me. Wake up. You are rested." Her face at once recovered its usual aspect. " What!" she said. "Are they waiting? I beg everybody's par- don." And hastening to the piano she stationed herself at Mr. Barton's side. 165 AN IMMORTAL SOUL The piece they had selected for performance was recognized by every one from the first preliminary chords that sounded at Mr. Barton's touch. "Oh for the wings of a dove!" it was a cry that appeals to all. Even Lady Conway was moved. In the exquisite tenor of Mr. Barton's voice she recognized a treasure which would be invaluable at her own small concerts; and the girl, when to this tenor she joined her own soprano, seemed to be lifted from her lassitude on the wings of her own voice, and be borne by them far away toward the wilderness of desired rest. "The clergyman's singing," said Lord Cotswold to Mr. Carlton, " is magnificent. He interests me. Every muscle of his face is tense with feeling still. He wants her to sing again, but she won't. She has gone back to Thistlewood." "Do you," Dr. Thistlewood was saying to her, "hap- pen, by any chance, to have any relations in Italy?" " No," she said. " What makes you ask ?" " You remind me," he replied, " of some one I once met at Siena who was, I think, married to an Italian. In some ways, though not in others, the likeness is very curious, though nobody would be likely to mistake one of you for the other. I was wondering whom you re- minded me of when I met you first at the mesmerist's." "I hope," said Miss Vivian, with an indifferent smile, " that she was nice. I was never in Italy myself. I only wish I had been. I have looked at it so often from Mentone. See we've disturbed Mr. Barton. Why has he left off singing?" "My dear Mr. Barton," said Lord Cotswold, "accept my deepest thanks. My own piano and music-room I have both are as silent as the dust of Adam. Per- haps you will favor me one of these days by breathing into them a passing soul. And you, young lady," he went on, as he turned to Miss Vivian, " I've just been telling Mr. Barton that I too have a piano of my own. The ogre's castle is by this time fit to receive victims. 1 66 AN IMMORTAL SOUL I must get your aunt to beguile you into entering its dangerous precincts." " Dr. Gustav, before you go," said Lady Conway, join- ing the group, " let me ask you if you know that, on this auspicious occasion, we have not only musicians among us but also a sucking scientist. Behold him!" she went on, as she brought Mr. Hugo forward in a manner which vaguely suggested that she had hold of him by the collar. " He's been telling me all sorts of things about the sun and the earth's shadow; and he's going to reform hu- manity by manufacturing a new Adam; what is it out of, Mr. Hugo a mixture of glue and radium?" "Well," said Dr. Thistlewood, taking Mr. Hugo's hand, " I suppose she is thinking of radiobes. You and I are brothers in research is that so? Only you have the advantage of me, for the future is the kingdom of the young. You must come and see me at Lord Cotswold's wonderful castle. We might hit on some bits of ap- paratus which perhaps you would find useful." Mr. Hugo, who, under Lady Conway 's drastic patron- age, had hardly known whether to feel naughty or flat- tered, acknowledged this invitation with the broadest and most innocent of smiles. "Well," said Lady Conway, "I must begin distrib- uting my adieus. Good-bye, Miss Nest. I must kiss you, my dear. You have sung beautifully. Mr. Barton, we have not been introduced, so imagine that I am in- dulging in the presumption of praising you behind your back. Dr. Gustav, we shall meet later. Mr. Hugo, come here. Take me out to my carriage." Thus the company departed, with the exception of Mr. Barton. He, under the pretext of desiring to find some music, managed to outstay the rest; and while he and Miss Vivian were jointly engaged in looking for it the members of the family dispersed themselves, leaving him and her alone. "Well," said Mr. Barton, looking at her with an air of reproachful friendliness, " and so the lecture has come 167 AN IMMORTAL SOUL and gone. I'm sure you are none the wiser for it. You certainly don't look happier although one of its con- sequences has been a kiss from your new friend. Ah, that's the book I wanted. It's one of my own. Thank you very much, and good-bye. You sang just a little flat in two places, but it wasn't much." "Are you," said Miss Vivian, "really in so great a hurry ? Why do you look at me like that ? What have I done that's dreadful?" "It's nothing," said Mr. Barton, suspending his prep- arations for departure " it's nothing that you've done personally." "Oh," said the girl, "then there is something, after all. Well, then, tell me what have I done impersonal- ly ? Has the honor of Lady Conway's kiss any tendency to unfit me for confirmation ?" "Since you put it to me," said Mr. Barton, "I may as well speak honestly. Indeed, I have been longing to do so. I'm thinking of nothing that you've done. I'm thinking of something that seems to be going on round you. The atmosphere in which you live seems changing growing less and less like that in which I would wish to see you live myself." He spoke with a new confidence born of his late experiences his triumphs as a musician in the drawing-room, and a sense that he himself, what- ever Dr. Thistlewood's technical knowledge, was fully capable of exposing his childish fallacies as a philosopher. " Take Lord Cotswold," he proceeded. " Lord Cotswold may have fine qualities. There is something about him which suggests this; but he has led a tainted life. Take Lady Conway this masterful London lady. Whatever her private conduct, she is of the world, worldly. I caught a jesting phrase of hers something about the new Adam. A single phrase a slight nuance of tone will sometimes speak volumes. Sacred things for that woman are matter for a passing smile. But worse still is this doctor, with his wealth and his melodramatic rep- utation and his royal friends and his grand seigneur 1 68 AN IMMORTAL SOUL manners and let us admit it his professional skill and the fuss which such people as Lord Cotswold and Lady Conway make with him. All this does but make him the more dangerous; for, with regard to the deepest things the things that alone matter that man is a char- latan. That lecture of his I tell you this candidly I should several times have got up and left the room, if it had not been my wish to acquaint myself with the sort of thing you were being exposed to. He may not say in so many words that the soul is of no importance, but he sinks it in the body. Body for him is everything; and if you want to see where that leads him, you may remember what he said about St. Paul." " Do you know," said Miss Vivian, wearily, " that when you talk like this you really rather put my back up. You treat me as if I were a baby. What possible harm could that very dry lecture do me? I'm sure I don't know what Dr. Thistlewood means. When he talked about St. Paul he reminded me a little of Mr. Hugo; but he isn't silly like Mr. Hugo, at all events, who thinks that human beings can be made out of beef- tea." "Forgive me," said Mr. Barton, half smiling. "I don't wish to affront you." To his delight and astonishment the girl held out her hand to him. " No," she said, " it is you who have got to forgive me. It was quite wrong of me to be irritated. But I'm not, perhaps, in the best of spirits. There are so many things which you can tell me and which I don't know, and which would help me. Why do you waste your time in telling me things I do know ? Whether I shall manage to save my own soul or not, neither you nor I can tell, but I'm not in the least danger of forgetting the fact that I have one." " Hark!" said Mr. Barton. " Some one is coming. If I don't see you before, you will hear me preach on Sun- day the first of my confirmation sermons. Fancy, when 169 AN IMMORTAL SOUL you hear me, that I am talking to you alone. I shall deal with the very points which I have in my mind now. I only long to help you. Ah, Mr. Carlton, I and my fel- low-performer have been looking for one of my music- books. We've found the truant, and I must be off." CHAPTER IX " I'M glad," said Lord Cotswold, "that you thought, as 1 we went away, of asking the young scientist to come in after dinner. What will that boy be thinking what will men of science be thinking what will the world be thinking when he is as old as I am?" Dr. Thistlewood shrugged his shoulders. "Darwin," he said, " set a stone rolling the course of which was be- yond his own wildest conjecture." The speakers were standing together in front of a large fireplace the arch of which was like the entrance to a mosque. Above it, wreathed in arabesques, was a clock with Turkish numerals, whose hands were about to register the hour of half-past eight. The room to which this fireplace belonged, large and finely propor- tioned, was tawdry, even in the dim lamplight, with tar- nished colors and gilding. With its blue ceiling, on which glimmered large yellow crescents, and its mirrors, whose red - and - green frames culminated in horseshoe curves, it was not unlike some cigar-divan or so-called "Oriental cafe"," the haunt of the jeunesse dorie of some great commercial town. "It's a pity," said Lord Cotswold, "that Rawlin was not able to come. The charming guest we are waiting for had once upon a time a tendresse for him." "Who," said a voice in the doorway, eclipsing that of a servant " who had a tendresse for whom, if I may ask an indiscreet question ?" The questioner was Lady Con- way. "We were talking," said Lord Cotswold, "of Rawlin. He's speechifying to-night, or he'd be here." 171 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "Ah," said Lady Conway, carelessly, "women began early with Rawlin; and I don't feel sure that they've quite done with him yet. He began with the old. He's now trying the young." " The power of exciting the love of even an experienced man," said Lord Cotswold, ignoring any personal in- nuendo in this speech, "may exist in a young girl just as well as in the most accomplished woman. The rea- son is that what a man loves in a woman is no one of the qualities which he would value in a mere human being, as such intellect, sound judgment, knowledge, or even complete respectability. These may be his own pos- session. Any male friend may possess them. What he loves in a woman is a something forever outside him- self the mystery of all the horizons, the mystery of the Feminine in the universe. In the feminine organisms, as our friend Dr. Gustav would say, which are fit to hold it, this mystery is like wine trembling in ever fresh ves- sels, and ever fresh itself from the eternal vine. What does it matter whether the vessel was made this week or the week before, when what sparkles at its brim is older than all the existing stars ? The magic in a young girl's eyes is as old as the summer sea, just as the sum- mer sea is as young as a young girl's eyes." In the dining-room Lady Conway looked up from her soup. " You always," she said to her host, " had a cook above the common. I'm a better judge of the Masculine making stock in his own kitchen than I am of the Eternal Feminine making a mace'doine of grapes out of the uni- verse. So, unless we are like the poet Anacreon, and are absolutely unable to sing about anything except love, suppose you were to tell me a little something about your travels you and Dr. Gustav. He's almost as practical as I am." The two travellers accordingly began upon this fertile subject, Lady Conway, who had been round the world herself, comparing very vivaciously her own experiences with theirs. 172 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "By-the-way," she said, as dinner was drawing to a conclusion, "do you know whom I met at Calcutta? Charlie Galton. You remember that waist he cultivated. Well, he's now the shape of a football. As soon as I saw him I understood how that scented wife of his, with her bangles, her roaming eyes, and her necklace of tiger's- claws, had so often, and at such uncanonical hours, a cer- tain gray horse standing at the door of her bungalow." "Who," said Dr. Thistlewood, stopping her, "is the poet Anacreon now? It's just the same with all of you. Who is in love with whom ? Your conversation is always coming back to that. What does it matter ? You might just as well talk about who gave whom the measles." " Not at all," said Lady Conway. " I'm a philosopher myself in my own way, though I don't talk about uni- verses ; and I'm amused by seeing the follies that women can make men commit or, rather, I should say, bring out, for the foolishness was in the men before." "Oh," said Dr. Thistlewood, "that amuses you, does it ? No woman, you say, could force a man into follies unless these were already in harmony with the man's general nature. That, as I gather, is the philosophy which forms the basis of your amusement. Well, I've been trying some experiments which bear on this amus- ing question. Indeed, I had been arranging to amuse you after dinner by showing you one not on yourself, so you needn't feel the least alarmed." Unable to guess what he meant, Lady Conway turned away from him. "Tell me, Lord Cotswold," she said, "who built this madman's house ? And what on earth made you take it ?" "An Anglo-Indian," replied Lord Cotswold, "built it. As to my taking it, I won't tell you my reasons. Dr. Gustav shall show them to you after dinner, and per- haps something else besides." At this moment the dining-room door opened, and a servant's voice out of the shadow announced: " Mr. Hugo Arundel." AN IMMORTAL SOUL "My dear young friend," said Lord Cotswold, rising to meet him, " I'm delighted to see you. I hope my car- riage came for you in good time. Sit between me and Dr. Thistlewood. He's going, after dinner, to give us a little experiment. He has many things that will in- terest you. He has an apparatus for taking moving photographs. No doubt you're a photographer your- self. You might do us all by limelight." Lady Conway looked at him with a confidential and laughing eye. " Not me, Mr. Hugo," she said. " I strictly forbid that." Mr. Hugo, meanwhile, who had refused various dain- ties for fear he should seem like a child had down for dessert, condescended in a manly way to sip at a glass of port, and looked ready to be pleased with and also to explain everything. " Dodson," said Lord Cotswold to a servant, whom he summoned with a small hand-bell, " have all the lamps been lighted ? Come, then, Lady Conway, let us go, and you shall see why I took this house." From the gaudy drawing-room, in which they had as- sembled before dinner, they passed on to a great circular saloon, decorated in the same style, but more barely fur- nished, and having in it a grand-piano. The windows opened into a conservatory, the floor of which, on a lower level, was reached by a flight of steps. Lady Con- way descended into this, and saw that, along the face of the house, the structure extended itself in the form of a glazed gallery. At the end of the gallery for she was determined to see everything she discovered a room in a tower with a balcony that overlooked the sea. Ash-trays and match-boxes showed that it was designed for smokers. "Lord Cotswold," she said, when they all had re- gained the music-room, " I'm a convert to your taste already. That place was made for lovers. You posi- tively ought to give a party." " Precisely," said Lord Cotswold, " and have the priest to play a small party, for in Lent he wouldn't come 174 AN IMMORTAL SOUL to a large one. It's the very thing I've been contem- plating. Before you go I must consult you about it. But first let us finish our explorations." He opened, as he spoke, a pair of tall vermilion doors, which admitted them to a wide passage, carpetless, bare, and echoing. " Here," he said, " I shall hand you over to our friend. I took this house, not for the sake of the lovers though I hope we shall have many of them but because it en- abled me to provide him with a separate kingdom of his own. He thinks, when I leave, of continuing as its king, on his own account." When they reached the end of this passage, doors were again opened. "Now," said Dr. Thistlewood to Lady Conway, "will you favor me by walking in? And will you favor me also with your opinion on what you see?" Lady Conway looked blankly round her. " My first opinion is," she said, "that I have got into the reading- room of a mechanics' institute. My second is that I want to get to the fire." The large, gaunt room, or gallery, in which they were now standing, was illuminated by naked gas-jets, which emphasized its general bleakness. The floor was cov- ered with coarse cocoa-nut matting. The tables were of white deal. Against the walls were some unorna- mental cupboards, some photographs of human figures, obviously taken for scientific rather than for artistic purposes, and alternating with these were mysterious anatomical diagrams. At one end was something in the shape of a tall wardrobe draped with curtains, and at the other, partially hidden by black cloths thrown over them, were a large gramophone and other sets of appara- tus, which made fitful glimmerings with their polished brass and mahogany. " Dr. Gustav," said Lady Conway, suddenly, with an accent of slight alarm, " you don't mean to tell me that you've opened a private hospital!" 175 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Dr. Thistlewood looked at her with an air of provoking gravity. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "My patients are not infectious. Indeed, I have only one an old servant of our host's, on whom I am keeping an eye and her malady is so far from dangerous that she may possibly outlive us all. It is, however, quite true that, as soon as our host departs, I shall take this as a home of rest for a certain class of invalids. That gramophone will reutter my patients' confessions for me, and those other implements are for registering their pulses, their breathing, and their temperatures, when in various men- tal conditions, and for taking and exhibiting moving pho- tographs of them at critical stages in their careers." "This monster," said Lady Conway to Lord Cotswold, "is making me quite uncomfortable. What is it that he really does here? Is this a dissecting-room? And does he vivisect babies? And have you tucked him away in this out-house so that no one may hear their cries?" "No," said Dr. Thistlewood, "I don't vivisect ba- bies. I should like to vivisect criminals of a certain class, instead of sending them to the gallows or the electric chair. But why cry for the moon? Luckily, Nature helps us. She gives us the vivisection of dis- ease, especially brain disease. Also we have hypnotism, which is a kind of vivisection in disguise, and which sen- timentalists don't attack because they don't yet under- stand it. But all this is dull for you. Let us go back to common life. You said at dinner that when women made fools of men they were only drawing out the folly that was latent in the men already." "My dear man," said Lady Conway, "you mustn't take me au pied de la lettre like that. No doubt, as you more than once have taken occasion to tell me, I often talk a very great deal of nonsense." "At all events," said Dr. Thistlewood, "in that par- ticular piece of nonsense you suggested a very reason- able question. You remember the mesmerist whose per- 176 AN IMMORTAL SOUL formances you just missed. She had, of course, been doing the usual tricks making various people do a variety of ludicrous things which they wouldn't have done had they been in their normal senses, and of hav- ing done which they were afterward quite unconscious. Well, there you've got something which, as every doc- tor knows, is as easy and commonplace as the feat of a school-boy who, for a practical joke, should make an- other school-boy sick by putting an emetic in his tea. A hypnotist can control the actions of nine people out of ten, to some extent. That's admitted on all sides. But a certain school of investigators doctors and others contend that this power is limited in a peculiar and most impressive way. A hypnotized person, they say, can be made to do anything, no matter how contrary to his normal judgment and proclivities, with one startling exception. He can never be made to do anything morally wrong." A bashful inclination to speak was here manifested by Mr. Hugo. Lord Cotswold at once encouraged him, and Mr. Hugo brought forth his wisdom. " If," he said, still shy, yet rejoicing in his own temer- ity, " no hypnotized person can be made to do what is wrong, everything done by a hypnotized person must be right. So, if you wanted to find out whether a thing was wrong or right, you would only have to hypnotize some- body and see if he could be made to do it." "Bravo, Mr. Hugo!" said Lady Conway, laughing. "Mesmerize your aunt Susannah and tell her to elope with a bishop. If she does, the bishop will know that she still is an honest woman. Or mesmerize Oswald and tell him to elope with me he knows that I'm deeply attached to him; and if only he's safely mesmerized at the time when he does the deed we shall both of us be comfortably sure that we have no need of repentance. Look here, Dr. Gustav, do you happen to have a pin about you ? I see that this rose in the front of my dress is loose. It's only an artificial one. I wear it for the sake of modesty rather than ornament." 177 AN IMMORTAL SOUL " Do you," said Dr. Thistle wood, as if a sudden thought had occurred to him, " mind waiting a moment ? I must be going out of the room in a minute or two, and when I come back I will bring you one. Well, our young friend here has made an excellent criticism. If a hypnotized person can be made to do nothing wrong, we've an in- strument ready to our hands for solving all cases of casuistry. Unfortunately, we are not so blessed. One of the very writers who has urged this view most elabo- rately happens to allude in his book to the well-known case of a boy a gentle, excellent boy who when in a condition brought on, not by hypnosis but by a seizure, committed a most atrocious murder, of which afterward in his normal state he had no knowledge or memory. If conscience can be overturned by epilepsy, it's idle to pretend that it must necessarily be immune to the influences of hypnotism. Still," Dr. Thistlewood con- tinued " Lady Conway, I hope I'm not boring you if we are content to mean by conscience merely some dis- position or habit ingrained in the subject's system, it may often in various ways be able to resist suggestion just as stupidity /would for no hypnotist could hypnotize a dunce into a Bacon. Everything is a question of de- gree. The truth is that the degree to which hypnotized subjects are plastic under the influence of suggestion differs in different cases; and we can't arrive at any general conclusions except by careful experiments on a number of typical subjects. It may amuse you to see the way in which a test can be made, since you are, as you truly say of yourself, a thoroughly practical woman. So if you'll excuse me for a moment I'll make my short preparations; and my young friend here, if he likes to do so, shall come with me. Lady Conway, you needn't look at me as if I were going to take one of your teeth out. Come, Mr. Hugo Arundel, would you like to inspect the preliminaries?" Mr. Hugo, who had been alternately contemplating the scientific pictures on the walls and listening to Dr. 178 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Thistlewood with a vaguely gleeful sense that what the great man was saying would be distasteful to Mr. Bar- ton, responded to this summons with the air of a proud disciple. "That picture which, I see, catches your eye," said Dr. Thistlewood, as they went together toward a farther door, " is a curious little animal magnified. We'll have it down and look at it when we come back." "What's he going to do?" said Lady Conway, when she and Lord Cotswold were left alone together. " Your talk about your travels was much more amusing than this." "This," said Lord Cotswold, laying a hand on her arm for he still retained something of the demeanor of a man of gallantry " is only another form of travel- ling. It is travelling in the world of knowledge ; and at present it has this advantage, that it is not travelling in a crowd. You asked me for my traveller's impressions," he went on, abruptly. "The more rapid and easy the act of travel becomes, and the more our own civilization is diffusing itself throughout the remotest regions, the more vividly does travel on myself produce one great impression, which is this that the earth is no bigger than some small balloon's small car, over whose wicker sides we peer into the homeless gulfs around us ; but the fact that this infinite space supports us and buoys us up, fanning our cheeks and touching the very roots of our hair, makes us feel we live by forces compared with which this world is nothing. My dear friend, pending the ar- rival of Dr. Gustav's pin, let me rearrange your rose for you, which seems in danger of falling." Lord Cotswold made the rearrangement a pretext for certain attentions which some women would have re- sented, but which Lady Conway submitted to indiffer- ently with a faint, sarcastic smile. This tender scene had not been completed very long before Dr. Thistle- wood returned, and Mr. Hugo along with him. Mr. Hugo's face and gait exhibited the happy importance of 179 AN IMMORTAL SOUL a boy who has just been promoted from a jacket to a coat with tails. "Now," said Dr. Thistlewood, genially, "while we wait for a few minutes we'll amuse Lady Conway by showing her a pretty picture the one which my young friend was looking at when we went out. I'll take it down from the wall, and then we shall see it better. Now, Lady Conway, what should you say that this is?" "I'm sure I don't know," she replied, rather impa- tiently. " It looks like a spider's web with a lot of lit- tle spiders stuck in it. But you, no doubt, have some long and learned name for it." " Pretty well," said Dr. Thistlewood, laughing. " It's a little animal which is called Microgamia Socialis. Come, Mr. Arundel, we'll put it on this table. Each of these little blotches is a living animal by itself ; but they are all tied together, so as to have a common life, by what looks like a spider's web, but is really a system of nerves. That's a rude illustration of how we are made ourselves. We are, each of us, a number of life-centres, and what we each feel ourselves to be results from the manner in which these centres are tied together." Mr. Hugo looked at the picture with eager and de- lighted eyes. "I quite understand," he said. "They are something like the radiobes, which I hope I may be able to show you in my bottle." "Good Heavens!" exclaimed Lady Conway, with a gasp. "What have we got here?" Mr. Hugo turned round with a calm, superior smile. As for the Microgamia Socialis, Lady Conway had quite forgotten it. What attracted her attention was the en- trance of a female domestic a pallid woman with an amiable but strained expression, who proceeded to dust the chairs in a very business-like manner, till she came to the group near the fireplace, when a singular thing happened. Pausing in front of Lady Conway, and look- ing not at her face but at a point about ten inches be- low it, she quietly plucked from its place the wearer's 1 80 AN IMMORTAL SOUL artificial rose and, retiring a little, began to smell it. Lady Conway was in the act of making a horrified gest- ure of protest, but Dr. Thistlewood, seizing her wrist, checked her. "Don't mind that," he said. "Madame Levy does that daily. Just stop quiet and listen. Sarah Davis, tell me where did you find that flower?" The woman looked slightly puzzled. " It was float- ing," she said, "in the air, sir, just in front of the fire- place, as if it was hanging by a bit of string or a cob- web." "How many people," said Dr. Thistlewood, "do you see now in this room?" "I see three, sir," said the woman: "yourself, his lordship, and another a very young gentleman." " You don't see a lady, do you?" "No, sir," said the woman, looking round, "I don't see no lady nowhere." "At the end of the room," said Dr. Thistlewood, "is a cupboard with a curtain drawn across it. Just pull that curtain aside, please. You will find Mrs. Mark- ham, his lordship's late housekeeper, who tried to get you into trouble, hiding there." The woman obeyed the order, and presently exposed to view a life-sized lay-figure, or doll, draped in female clothing. "Do you," said Dr. Thistlewood, "see anybody try- ing to hide there ? You do? Very good. Who is it?" "Mrs. Markham, sir, who used to be housekeeper." Dr. Thistlewood pointed to one of the deal tables on which were standing a tumbler and a bottle of water. "Sarah," he said, "go over to that table. I've an order to give you presently. Now, Lady Conway, watch. This is a woman who ordinarily would not hurt a fly." He went to the table and poured some water into the tumbler. "Sarah," he said, "take this, and be careful how you hold it. In that tumbler is oil of vitriol. You know what oil of vitriol is. If it touches your skin, it 181 AN IMMORTAL SOUL burns it exactly as a hot fire would. If it touches your eyes, it makes them blind forever. The quantity you have in that glass, if thrown over a woman, would kill her. Are you quite aware of that?" "Yes, sir," said the woman, holding the tumbler gin- gerly, " I am quite aware of that." "Very well, then," said Dr. Thistlewood. "Without spilling a drop, go over to Mrs. Markham and throw the whole of it in her face." Keeping the tumbler away from her, and moving with extravagant caution, while Mr. Hugo watched her with a highly critical smile, the woman crossed the room and dashed the water, with a jerk, in the face of the lay- figure. "Thank you," said Dr. Thistlewood. "You have burned her up to ashes. There's nobody in the cup- board now. Look Mrs. Markham's gone." "Yes, sir," said the woman; "there's nobody in the cupboard now." " Well," said Dr. Thistlewood, " that's a good riddance. You've done for her. And now, Sarah, you will go to bed at once. You will sleep quite soundly ; in nine hours you will wake, and you won't have the least remem- brance of having been in this room to-night." When the door had closed Dr. Thistlewood turned to Lady Con way. "Come," he said. "What's the matter? Would you like a little glass of brandy ? You look as pale as if you had seen a ghost, or as if you took me for a necromancer armed with some diabolic powers. You might just as well take me for a necromancer if I put you to sleep with chloral. That woman, who is very easily hypno- tized, was, when she came into the room, quite unable to see you, because I told her that she would see in it nobody but three gentlemen; but she saw that flower of yours, because I told her that she would see a rose, and that when she saw it she was to take it. Do you think that miraculous, or even what you would call un- 182 AN IMMORTAL SOUL canny? My dear lady, consider. You don't see one- half of the things that are in this room yourself. And why don't you see them ? Simply because you don't at- tend to them. The hypnotist, by means of suggestion, is able to produce an artificial and intensified inatten- tion to certain things which he specifies. But it doesn't always require hypnotism to do even as much as this. Once or twice, when I've had the privilege of walking with you in Hyde Park, I've noticed that a number of ladies were totally invisible to yourself. I know a lady, indeed, whose very beautiful cousin, with peculiar au- burn hair, was never seen by her for years, though she stood five feet ten in her stockings, for the simple reason that she had appropriated this lady's admirer." "Oh," said Lady Conway, incautiously, "you call her beautiful, do you? Dr. Gustav, you're a fool. You're getting tiresome, and I'm going to say good-night." "Instead of that," said Lord Cotswold, "come back into more comfortable quarters. We still have my party to talk about." "And I," said Dr. Thistlewood, when they found themselves again in the drawing-room, "will try to put her into a more comfortable frame of mind. You've just seen some things," he continued, "which to your think- ing are odd. Well, it's odd that a drunkard sees snakes in his boots; it's odd that a knock on the head makes a man see stars. The things which you've just seen are only more odd than these because they illustrate facts which have never, till lately, been reduced to a system." "I don't," said Lady Conway, "like your experiments one little bit. You were much nicer when you were putting us together instead of taking us to pieces. And now let us come to our senses and talk about Lord Cotswold's party. He must have it on Monday or Tuesday, for on Wednesday I'm going back to Lon- don." "Well," said Lord Cotswold, "we will see if we can 183 AN IMMORTAL SOUL manage Monday. On Sunday, if the hour is not ruin- ous to digestion, Dr. Gustav and I are going to hear Mr. Barton preach. I saw it announced in one of the Southquay papers that he is going to deliver the first of a series of sermons on confirmation." CHAPTER X SUNDAY morning came, and the air was full again of the sound of distant bells, which stole through the draperies of Miss Vivian's half-open window. Yes- terday afternoon, till the latest possible moment, she had waited for the sound of a door-bell which might have announced Sir Rawlin's coming. But she waited in vain. Sir Rawlin, to say the truth, had begun at the lecture to resent Lady Conway's interference. Her ad- vice, as she gave it, though he realized its substantial wisdom, was, so he felt, developing into a foolish joke; and he resolved that, by avoiding Cliff's End for a day or two, he would deprive her of all excuse for repro- ducing it. Exhausted by disappointment, Miss Vivian had risen late and had given up all idea of being present at morn- ing service. Nothing relieved her depression but a short letter from Mr. Barton. Mr. Barton, at all events, was faithful, and did not forget her. He wrote: " I could not express in your aunt's drawing-room what I wanted to say to you about the relation between soul and body. Men like Dr. Thistlewood are right in attributing to it a pro- found importance, but men like him put matters upside down. The body is to the soul what the piano is to the pianist. If the piano becomes untuned, the best musician can play nothing but discords. If the strings become quite relaxed, he can play nothing at all. The musician, so far as he can, must keep his own instrument in order; and if God should allow it to be dis- ordered through no fault of ours, then, in extreme cases, we are mad; but we still are in God's hands, and the soul itself is un- touched just as a great pianist would be a great pianist still, though the only instrument within his reach were deprived of 185 AN IMMORTAL SOUL its keys or strings. I preach to-morrow evening my first con- firmation sermon. I shall have these matters in view. I trust that you will be there, and I do so for the special reason that my next private talk with you may have to be put off. for a little. In a group of poor cottages between the Turkish Castle and the golf-course there has been an outbreak of some illness. The doctor is not yet certain about it, but if it spreads and proves to be serious I may be occupied in ministering to the sick. So the needs of the body meet us, you see, everywhere." As she sat before the looking-glass, while her maid put the last touches to her toilet, the expression of her own face reminded her of an over-intimate diary which her pride forbade her to expose to the scrutiny of other people. Suddenly she made an effort. She asked for her newest hat, with its broad brim and its curving wave of feathers, committed her hands carefully to a delicate pair of gloves, and set out to meet her family, who by this time would be coming back from church. The slight frou-frou of her skirts, in some incongruous way, joined itself in the business of sustaining her to her con- sciousness of Mr. Barton's sympathy; and before she discerned the eminently Sunday-like figures of her aunt and Mr. Carlton advancing slowly across a field she was ready to meet them with an almost elaborate gayety. In a correct and Sunday-like fashion Mr. Carlton was gay himself. "My dear Nest," he said, "such music in church such positively divine music! But if you were tired you were quite right not to come. Well, you're rested now. Look at her. She's as fresh as paint." "Thank you," said Miss Vivian. "The paint is only just put on." "Naughty!" said Mr. Carlton, as he raised a reprov- ing finger. " But listen we've got some news for you. While you were having your beauty-sleep a letter came to Susie from Lord Cotswold, asking us all to go to an impromptu party to-morrow night as ever is. Mr. Bar- ton, whom we saw just for a moment he has been asked also specially asked to give us some sacred 186 AN IMMORTAL SOUL music. And you, Miss Minx you, too, have your part cut out for you. Mr. Barton inquired about that, and said that, as the party was small, he would go and play your accompaniments." To the girl this news came as a fresh stimulus, and, as often happens when spirits are artificial, her task was now to restrain rather than to maintain hers. She was even able that afternoon in the school-room to indulge gallantly in a laughing encounter with Mr. Hugo, who, having suppressed himself somewhat in the chastening presence of his aunt, now indulged in a postponed ex- hibition of high and majestic seriousness. With a fur- rowed brow, as though the fate of nations depended on him, he was examining some tweezers which formed part of his scientific appliances. "Well, Mr. Hugo," said Miss Vivian, "tell us about your last night's adventures." " Yes," said Miss Arundel. " Did they give you some nice dessert?" Mr. Hugo, without looking at them, smiled a superior smile. "Dr. Thistlewood and I," he said, "were trying a few experiments." Here dropping his tweezers and making a portentous grimace, he succeeded in affixing to one of his eyes a magnifying-glass of the kind used by watch-makers. He took his bottle from a shelf and examined its contents critically. "Ah," he said, "it is just as I knew it would be. Several nuclei have formed themselves and are visible already. Dr. Thistlewood was much interested when I told him of the nature of my work." "And when," said Miss Vivian, "is a little Mr. Hugo going to pop out of the top of your bottle?" "Nest," said Mr. Hugo, advancing, "do you at all know how you are made up yourself? I'll show you by a drawing. Look this is a portrait of one of your an- cestors. He is called Microgamia Socialis, and he is simply an organic association of so many separate lives. That's how you are made up, and I just as much as you. 13 187 AN IMMORTAL SOUL You are you and I am I and Nina is Nina merely be- cause these lives these little things like bugs are tied together in each of us in rather different ways. And," Mr. Hugo proceeded, "by the methods of hypnosis, by the production of the somnambulistic state, and stimu- lative or inhibitive suggestion, one qualified person can untie these lives in another person, and tie them in a new knot, so that the person becomes quite different, and then one puts him all back again. I incline to be- lieve that, when I was operating last night with Dr. Thistlewood, I must have put Lady Conway uninten- tionally into a rather peculiar psychopathic state, for she told us all, quite out, that she was very much in love with Oswald." "What!" ejaculated Oswald, blushing with indignant delight. " What's that nonsense ? If Lady Conway had said such a thing, which of course she didn't, a true man of the world would never think of repeating what a woman let fall by accident. You baby, Hugo!" Mr. Hugo, who had intended, when he spoke, to im- press his brother by the important nature of his com- munication, now shifted his ground with considerable mental agility. " When the normal interaction of the cerebral centres is perturbed," he said, "the patient often utters the re- verse of what he or she feels. It was the absurdity of the statement, my dear Oswald, not the possible truth of it, which induced me to quote it as a sign that Lady Conway 's condition was abnormal." He might have said more had it not been for the con- duct of Miss Vivian, who here burst into a fit of uncon- trolled laughter. "Hugo," she said, "please go on. Give us a little more. You and your brain-centres are really too de- lightful Who else is Lady Conway in love with? She was very parsimonious if she only mentioned Oswald." Mr. Hugo raised his eyebrows till they almost touched his hair, and moved disdainfully toward the door. 188 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "One might," he said, as he opened it, "be almost tempted to think, when one hears you laugh like that, that you, Nest, were the victim of some cerebral in- stability yourself, and that the cells, the neurons, or the ganglia of common-sense had disappeared from the area of your consciousness." Mr. Barton, meanwhile, was at the same hour giving to his evening sermon a careful and last revision. One of Miss Vivian's utterances had constantly kept recurring to him: "Whether I shall save my soul or no, neither you can tell nor I." He also remembered her gently mocking question: " Has the honor of Lady Conway's kiss any tendency to unfit me for confirmation?" There seemed to him in these words to be a sort of tragic flippancy, like that of a child straying along the brink of a precipice; and he was conscious, as he thought of her, of a quasi-maternal longing to throw his arms about her and drag her back into safety. But though she was the focus of his solicitude, his solicitude went far beyond her. For him she became the image of all youth, and in the vaguely insidious influences which seemed to be now surrounding her he saw the image of all temptations. The chief of these temptations for him were not those of the flesh. They were those, far more subtle, of a mental tone and temper, which, seducing the soul into moral and spiritual indifference, left it a prey to temptations of all other kinds. Such influences, old as the world itself, had never, he felt, taken a more malig- nant form than that of the semi-materialistic cant which, even when, as in Dr. Thistlewood's case, it shrank from the absurdity of denying that the soul existed, reduced its responsibility to a mere vanishing - point by main- taining that most of its behavior was determined for it by the idiosyncrasies of its mortal body. Such was the tenor of his reflections ; and when he dwelt as a philos- opher on the merely intellectual crudity which betrayed itself in so many phrases in Dr. Thistlewood's lecture, and still more plainly perhaps in the naive arrogance of 189 AN IMMORTAL SOUL his conversation, he felt equally able to encounter and overbear him from the pulpit and at Lord Cotswold's party. That evening the church was crowded, the congrega- tion comprising an unusual number of men. Miss Viv- ian's overstrained spirits, when she had done with her cousins, had deserted her. Mr. Hugo's science and Os- wald's boyish romance became like a comedy which had wholly lost its savor, and, coming back again sad- ly to the realities of her own condition, she had looked forward, with a sense at once of rest and excitement, to the sound of Mr. Barton's voice. To her it seemed, when she entered the sacred building, that the whole congre- gation was pervaded by an expectation similar to her own. Before the service began the whole church was in half obscurity, through which the voice of the organ throbbed. Then the chancel grew starry, as though its lights were seen through tears; and among its lights came a flicker of the white, advancing choir, followed by the stoled priests. The notes of the voluntary died away and ended, and, the nave and aisles being not yet fully illuminated, a hymn was sung in which the choir alone joined. The sound, almost unearthly, performed the office of an incantation, calling all that was spiritual from the depths of the human heart, filling the air with contrition and giving to abjection wings. The same ef- fect was maintained till, the liturgy having been brought to a close, the nave was again darkened. Then two lights, unlit before, were seen shining at a certain elevation in the neighborhood of the chancel arch. These were the lights of the pulpit, and presently they were illuminating a face which the mystical and clair- voyant eyes could not save from being stern and but just saved from being threatening. "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" This was Mr. Barton's text, which thrilled through the tense silence. He was, he said, going to address himself 190 AN IMMORTAL SOUL more directly to those younger members of his congrega- tion who, before long, were to be confirmed. But the truth he was about to insist upon did not concern the young only. It was equally vital to every man and woman who heard him. The object of confirmation, just like that of the Lord's Supper, was to convey to the recipient, from a source outside himself, some strength which would enable him to realize the one true end of his existence. Of the particular kind of strength given to the recipient by confirmation it would be his duty to speak hereafter. This evening he would invite them only to consider the more general question of why any such gift of extraneous strength was important to us. " We are all of us human beings," he said, " before we become Christians. Let us ask ourselves, therefore, what this nature of ours, common to us as human beings, is, to which the Church offers her sacraments and which gives those sacraments their meaning." In our present state of existence we were, he said, composite creatures made up of soul and body. He would deal with the body first. That in itself was a composite thing also. We each of us bore witness to this fact every moment in speaking, as we are obliged to do, of the different bodily parts of us my hands, my arms, my legs, my feet, and so forth. The body was composite, not only in the sense that we could separate its parts in thought, but also in the sense that some of its parts could be amputated without destroying it, while if other parts ceased to operate the whole would be destroyed and lost. In what, then, so far as any one of us was concerned, did the practical unity of the living body consist ? There was no one part, even among those commonly called vital, in which any one could for a moment maintain that the living unity centred itself. The heart, for exam- ple, would be lifeless without the head, the head with- out the heart. The human unity of all these various parts consisted in their common relation to a single living self. This arm, this foot, this tongue each belongs to AN IMMORTAL SOUL me, because to me, who am separate from each of them, they all severally minister. "I am," said Mr. Barton, "merely repeating here the truth with which the child starts and with which the philosopher ends. And now," he continued, his voice slightly rising, " let us turn from this body, which is mine, to the self or let us say the soul which is me." As soon as we did this, he said, we were confronted by a momentous contrast, which only failed to overwhelm us because it was so self-evident and familiar. The body could be divided into its component parts by thought; everybody was ultimately so divided, in fact. But the soul the self was, even in thought, indivisible. "To-day," he said, " I may have two eyes. To-morrow I may have plucked out one. I may seek God to-day. To-morrow I may have turned away from Him. Every- thing in me may change everything but I myself. It is the same I the same enduring centre, that loves, suffers, sins, prays, is blind, sees. And this I, this self, this soul, being thus simple and indivisible, is for that reason, in its very nature, indestructible. It would be out of place here to quote to you the supreme thinkers, from Plato to Descartes, who have been awe-stricken by this fundamental truth. I will only say, adding my voice to theirs, ' Show me the man who can think the annihilation of self, and I will hail him as a new Om- nipotence who could create all the stars of heaven.' We did not ask to be, but, having once been, we can never again not be even though the mountains should fall on us and the sea vainly cover us. " We may well, each of us, say," he continued, after a long pause: " ' What a fearful thing the existence of my- self is!' Among the weary toils and troubles that come upon us every day we find comfort in the thought of our pillows, with their gift of soft forgetfulness, or in the peace of resignation which will be ours on abandoning some hopeless struggle. But, in the deeper sense of the words, we shall rest from ourselves never. Self lies 192 AN IMMORTAL SOUL upon self like an ever-living coal of fire. It is, indeed, an overwhelming thing to think that I shall be I always that I can never divide myself from myself. And," Mr. Barton continued, "the matter does not end here." The self, he said, must not only remain what it is through an eternity of present moments, but it drags its past after it, like a trail from which it never can free itself, and its past is being fulfilled forever in the qualities of its eternal present. Yes, he said, but even now we had not the whole case before us. Besides being burdened with the past which we call our own, we were burdened also with that of our first ancestor. We all of us, like him, were born desiring peace. We all of us, through his per- verse weakness, had lost the power of gaining it. Thus the natural man unaided was, in the very fact of being a man, his own house of torment from which there was no escape. Here, Mr. Barton went on, we had the general ex- planation of what the sacrament of confirmation did for us. It miraculously resuscitated in us certain powers which had been lost. Of all this he would speak more explicitly in future sermons. He would confine him- self now to a fundamental question which underlay it namely, what in their essence these powers, which re- quired resuscitation, were. They might be described very shortly. They were the powers essential to the integrity of the moral character, and Christ made good the loss which the first Adam has transmitted to us by giving us, as the second Adam, this lost character back again, providing us with a model for our imitation and His continual aid in imitating it. All the sacraments of the Church had for their ultimate object the production of the Christ-like character. "Or," said Mr. Barton, "to bring the matter to a finer point and this is the point to which all along I have been leading you their object is so to redeem and revivify the human will, which is the master of the intellect and the affections, that it shall operate in accordance with the will of the Divine Man, our Saviour. It is only through the exercise of the will, 193 AN IMMORTAL SOUL thus mercifully revivified, that you and I can render our own external existence not a terror or a burden to us, but a blessedness a blessedness which, though passing our understandings, is divined dimly by each of us. ' The Spirit and the Bride say, Come ; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is athirst come.' Well," exclaimed the preacher, "might a great poet, who was also a great thinker, say that this human will of ours is the main miracle of existence " ' The living will which shall endure When all that seems shall suffer shock,' and endure with you and with me, for weal or woe, eter- nally. "Perhaps I shall be told," he went on, "for the spirit of science is abroad, that I am here encroaching on a science that is called psychology, this being a study of the body through whose mechanism the soul here oper- ates, and I shall be challenged to explain how we Chris- tians acquire any right to speak about it. Christ, so far as we know, delivered no scientific lectures; but all the psychology, whether new or old, which concerns men practically, in relation either to soul or body, is to be found in Christ's teaching. First, as to the body, and a very few words will be enough. If any one thinks that Christ, teaching us through the Church, treats the body with too much contempt, he need but consider the fol- lowing familiar facts. It was through the medium of the body that the redemption of the world was accom- plished. The human body is the medium of the great sacramental mysteries. By the touch of water on our foreheads we become members of Christ. Through our bodily mouths He comes to us in the holy eucharist. Our bodies play their parts in the great mystery of mar- riage. The powers and graces conferred by confirma- tion and ordination come to us from God through the impact of a bishop's hands. Ordination, baptism, and confirmation we shall here find specially significant, for 194 AN IMMORTAL SOUL these sacraments can be administered once only to each of us. The tissues of the body are in a state of constant change, and yet their virtue is such that they are the vehicle of gifts or faculties so absolutely enduring that it is no more possible to bestow them a second time than it would be to cut a man's head off if it were cut off already. " Such, then, is the implicit importance which Chris- tian psychology assigns to the human body. What is it that it teaches us about the soul? What it teaches I have set forth already. If the soul the self were not an indestructible entity Christ's work would be mean- ingless. It would be equally meaningless if this self were not master of its own actions. Therefore, the in- destructibility and the responsibility of the self are im- plicitly the fundamental doctrines of the psychology of the Christian Church; and if we are asked for the au- thority which the Church has for teaching them we need not appeal, though we might do so, to the voice of supernatural revelation. We have two other witnesses, purely human, which corroborate, and indeed anticipate, the voice of God. To one of these I have referred al- ready. I mean the voice of the human intellect speak- ing through the world's great thinkers. But the great thinkers are few. There is a greater witness behind them, and this is the corporate voice of the human race at large. What Christ spoke to was a will mysteriously its own master; but had men not known in themselves that such a will existed He would have spoken to deaf ears. As it is, the whole heart of the human race re- sponds to Him, and the divine implication of His mes- sage is repeated by the Church daily, from all her thou- sand confessionals, whether at the bedside or elsewhere. What is the universal language in which the penitent Christian confesses? I have sinned and why have I sinned? Through my fault, through my own fault, through my own most grievous fault. I was master of myself, but my mastery has been used amiss by me; and through my own solitary fault, and through nothing 195 AN IMMORTAL SOUL outside myself, have I wounded Him that died for me. In every broken, in every contrite heart in all the un- numbered prayers uttered in sad chambers by men to whom God has given the gift of tears in all spiritual sorrow this same implication lives more vitally than in all philosophies. "Oh, eternal spirits to whom I speak, the bodies through which I know your presence, and through which you know mine they are our instruments in this passing life ; sometimes, alas ! they are our impediments ; some- times God makes lutes of them, which sound with the very music of the heavens. Study them if you will. Be duly careful of their health. But you will learn no more about the soul from an examination of their nerves and tissues than you would learn about the quality of a wine by examining the glass that held it. Yes, study the complexities of the corruptible body, if this interests you, but do not forget that, when you confront the destiny which your wills, acting through the corruptible body, shall have prepared for you, the body will have passed away, and your wills and the results of your use of them these two last things will be alone and naked before your God. Christ, using our bodies as the mys- terious vehicles of His sacraments, will strengthen these wills if we apply to Him ; but even so let us remember this our wills remain our own." The sermon ended abruptly, and was followed by the announcement of a hymn which was not in the hymnal, but copies of which were now distributed by attendants throughout the church. The result of this unusual pro- ceeding was that, as at the opening of the service, the congregation were mostly silent and the choir alone was audible. The hymn, which was as follows, bore the title, "Each Soul to its God": " Lord of light and might, Lord, in star and star Only three things are Living in Thy sight. 196 AN IMMORTAL SOUL " Thou, the Sun, art one, Life of earth and sky, One, my God, am I, Lost, alone, undone. " Like me, of the three One, my God, are they Other souls who stray Lost and alone like me. " Lord, when place and space Are not, and the skies Hold no worlds, and eyes Cease to obscure Thy face; " When earth's sun foredone, Like an ended thought Ends, and all is naught, May these three be one." CHAPTER XI ^ ear Nest," exclaimed Mr. Carlton the following night, as Miss Vivian, arrayed for Lord Cotswold's party, entered the drawing-room, where he was sitting alone before dinner, "come here and let me look at you. Let me feel that stuff all gray clouds and silver. What do you call it? Smoke-color? And the violets ah, how sweet! And the shoes put out the little shoes. And now the feather fan and the gloves all of the same shade. You impertinent little wretch how naughty of you! Do you want to break every one of our poor hearts? But, my dear, turn round to the light. I don't quite approve of those purple streaks under your eyes. Little girls like you must be careful not to overdo them- selves. You've the dress of a French coquette, but you've the eyes of a little, tired-out saint. But cheer up. You needn't look in the glass. All this merely makes you doubly dangerous." The party was to begin at ten o'clock. Lady Conway and Sir Rawlin had dined at the Turkish Castle, and dinner, which was somewhat late, was but just drawing to its conclusion when a series of chimes proclaimed that the appointed hour was on them. Lord Cotswold had explained that he had got together about forty guests, some of them being Indian or Colo- nial officials and their wives, now domiciled at South- quay, who years ago had been hospitable to him in the course of his many travels, and of whom of the wives especially he entertained grateful recollections. Others were local residents who possessed political influence, or who were, like old Mrs. Summerfield, retired veterans of 198 the world. Mr. Barton, who, it was hoped, would be the musical hero of the evening, was to be kept in counte- nance by the performances of a small string-band ; and an entertainment which might possibly be even more popular than the music that is to say, an exhibition of moving photographs was to take place in Dr. This- tlewood's big, bare room, Mr. Hugo having been invited to assist, or, at all events, to patronize the operator. "Well," said Lord Cotswold, when the clock's last notes had sounded, "Rawlin, Dr. Gustav, and I must have our cigars later. The music will be in the room that opens into the conservatory. We can smoke and be warm under a palm-tree while our clergyman dis- courses music." The arrivals soon began, and the string-band in the music-room struck up punctually at the first peal of the door-bell. The company were easy to entertain, as the larger part of them knew one another; and the in- spection of a singular house, which had hitherto been a local mystery, was enough to keep them, as they dis- persed themselves, amused, talking, and occupied. In due time came the party from Cliff's End. "My dear," said Lord Cotswold to Miss Vivian, "you are the moon clothed in clouds. I wonder if we can find you an Endymion. We can find you a seat, at all events. Most of my friends have gone on into the music- room." The music-room was dimly lighted by a number of colored lanterns, and the general effect was pleasing. Rumors that Mr. Barton was going to play were in cir- culation, but he had not yet arrived; nor did he do so before Lord Cotswold, in order to make up for his ab- sence, had given an order, intrusted to Mr. Hugo, that the moving photographs should be exhibited as a pre- liminary diversion. Most of the guests were trooping in to the exhibition when, full of apologies, the defaulter greeted his host ; and failing in the dimness of the music- room to detect any presence that appealed to him, he 199 AN IMMORTAL SOUL adopted his host's suggestion that he should follow the disappearing sight-seers. When the last of this band had gone Lord Cotswold heaved a sigh of relief. As he did so he drew out a large cigar-case, and quietly passed through the open window into the conservatory, from the shadowy leafage of which came the murmur of two men's voices. The music-room had, however, been not left entirely empty. Miss Viv- ian, when the exodus began, had remained in a shaded corner ; and she now discovered that she was not wholly alone, but that Lady Conway was facing her, who like- wise had not stirred. "Come," said Lady Conway "come and sit down by me. That's right. Now I can talk to you comfortably. Tell me, who made your dress? When I was your age I never had frocks like that. Oh, my dear, what a bore here comes the Church in person, as cross as two sticks at seeing you appropriated by the world! It's you the good man wants. You're one of his pet lambs, I suppose. Music or no music, your Mr. Barton has a very bad, nasty temper. But he sha'n't interrupt us. Mr. Barton for I'm sure it's you, even in this dim religious light now that the band's in abeyance, do sit down and play to us. Play something soft play anything just for our two selves anything," she added to Miss Vivian, "which will prevent his trying to talk to us." Mr. Barton, who, after a vain and anxious search, had only found Miss Vivian to find her absorbed in a com- panionship which kept him at a hopeless distance, cer- tainly did exhibit an aspect of painful sternness which excused, if it did not justify, Lady Conway's comments on his temper. Still, to play to the girl, if he could not speak to her, would be something; and his mastery of music, which even Lady Conway recognized, would en- able him there and then to challenge her insidious in- fluence. With a slight bow and with a sufficiently good grace he accordingly seated himself at the piano, whose 200 AN IMMORTAL SOUL low and liquid vibrations, as he took some pleasure in noting, reduced this disdainful woman at once to a lis- tening silence. On Lady Conway, however, this effect did not last long. Presently her ear was penetrated by sounds of another kind namely, those of a subdued con- versation proceeding from a group of men who were seated outside the window on the broad steps of the conservatory. A sudden flash in her eyes showed that she had divined its tenor. "Mr. Barton," she exclaimed, "don't stop playing, whatever you do. We are only moving in order to hear better. My dear, do you mind coming rather nearer the window? Hush! we'll pull out the curtain. That will shelter you from the draught." The voices of those outside were now clearly audible. The music filled the room with its soft, dissolving ca- dences; but Lady Conway saw, as she knew she would, that her companion's ears heard nothing of it. "It's just as well," she said to herself, "that she should real- ize what men are." "Civilized women of the different civilized races," Dr. Thistlewood was saying, in quiet, reflective tones, to which the slightest trace of some un-English accent it might have been French or American lent a certain elusive pungency, "differ as much from each other as the languages in which they talk, and as little." "Rawlin," said Lord Cotswold, "do you remember the Persian rose-garden and the trickling cistern and the scents and the new moon and our Brahmin our sage from afar who preached to us on the ' Great Sen- tence,' which means that, if we would know ourselves, we must know the divine Infinite, we being all of us modes or passing miniatures of it? Do you remember that, and how you half shocked, half puzzled him by saying, in illustration of his doctrine, that you, when talking to one attractive woman, often forgot that she was not another, the only change being that she had migrated to a different house?" 201 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "That seems," replied Sir Rawlin, "an unfeeling thing to have said ; and yet what it means is, in one sense, the essence of all religion. All the great religions tell us to love man as man. This can only mean that we are to love not men, but manhood, which alone gives a similar value to Harry and Tom and Dick. And if this is true about men it is true about women also. What allures us in each individual is not a woman, but womanhood. It is this that we really seek for in Moll, in Meg, or in Marjory." "I don't know," said Dr. Thistlewood, "whether you are talking orthodox religion ; but you are, at all events, talking orthodox science. A man has a passion for roses; but his passion does not lose its object with the death of any single flower. As our host here was saying only the other night, the individual women men love are merely so many cups which dip up for them the same mysterious water; and a similar thing is true of the driest scientific experiment. Every experiment must be made on a particular specimen whether of a gas, of a mineral, of blood, or of fermenting beer. But we value the specimen for everything rather than for it- self. Each is only a different eye-piece through which we peer into the same universe." "The Buddhists and the Brahmins," said Sir Rawlin, "both preach the same gospel; and here are we, with our white neckties, repeating it. But I doubt if, when it comes to practice, I have quite the courage of my opinions. If the individual woman is nothing more than the cup, still it is the cup alone that enables us to drink the water; and for each of us, only one such cup out of every thousand will hold it. If we find one that will, we should be careful not to break it." "That," said Lord Cotswold, putting his hand on Sir Rawlin's shoulder, "is what Dr. Gustav does not see. There are some kinds of experiment which he has never himself tried. If he had he would know how life seems to give the lie to science. But here are our guests com- 202 AN IMMORTAL SOUL ing back again, having exhausted the pleasures of pho- tography. Finish your cigars if you like. I shall have to sacrifice mine." The three smokers rose. Lord Cotswold and Dr. Thistlewood disappeared at once into the music-room, where Mr. Barton, still the victim of circumstance, be- came a centre of entreaties from his host and from a ring of others that he would not leave the instrument, but would give them what they hoped to hear. He looked around the room for Miss Vivian. He could not see her ; and perforce he resumed his playing. Sir Rawlin re- mained behind, standing just outside the window. Not a yard away from him, partially hidden by a curtain, a figure stirred within, diffusing a faint perfume, and pres- ently stood confronting him. Miss Vivian had supposed him to have passed in with his companions, and was her- self on the point of seeking a seclusion which she took for solitude. On seeing him she slightly started, and made a movement as though she would turn away. Sir Rawlin instinctively held out a hand to check her; and there was something in his eyes and manner which she found herself unable to resist. "What!" he said, speaking hardly above a whisper. "Are you going to run away from me? It's days since I've seen you days since I've said a word to you. We shall be able to talk in here; or, if you'd rather listen to the music, you shall just sit by me and be silent." She seemed to hesitate for a moment, the color mount- ed to her cheeks; then she held out her hand to him, and he led her down the glimmering steps. "Till I saw you again," he said, "I hardly knew how I'd missed you. Look, here are two chairs. Have the one with the cushions. That's right. Be comfortable. Well, we can talk at last." "Tell me," she answered, "are you sure that I don't bore you ? If that's so, I'll say to you, as I think I must have said to you at the ball, 'Don't talk to me yet.' That's the last thing which I remember saying to you *4 203 AN IMMORTAL SOUL then. Let me listen for a little to the music and get myself ready for a question I want to ask you." For a full minute or so they both of them remained silent. Then she turned to him, with her face half hid- den by her fan, and said, softly but carelessly: "Mr. Barton plays well, doesn't he?" "He is," said Sir Rawlin, "a man of many accom- plishments. Do you like him ?" Above the feathers of the smoke-colored fan her eyes showed a faint smile. "Yes," she answered, "enormously. Taken in con- junction with a piano, Mr. Barton is I wonder if you'd understand if I tried to explain myself by a simile." "Try me," he answered. "Let me hear what your simile is." " In conjunction with what I spoke of," she continued " I mean a piano or an organ Mr. Barton is a cup which dips up very beautiful music. I'm not sure now whether I won't keep my question to myself." " You must," said Sir Rawlin, abruptly, " do so for the moment, at all events. Listen. There are people com- ing. Suppose we go somewhere else. At the far end of the conservatory is a smoking-room in a round tower. We sha'n't be interrupted there." The girl had risen almost as quickly as he had; and they were soon making their way along a lane between banked flowers, while on one side through glass, which was partially dimmed by moisture, came the shinings of the moon and sea. Lady Conway, on the evening when she had made her inspection of the premises, had observed correctly that here was a place for lovers. " You heard, then," said Sir Rawlin, presently, " what we were talking about as we sat smoking?" "Some of it," the girl replied. "My question has to do with that. Wait till I ask it. I'm not going to ask it yet. Stand still and look. Does this remind you of nothing? It's like that place at the ball, where I lost myself in that stupid dream ; and Lady Conway do you 204 AN IMMORTAL SOUL remember, for I'm rather vague about it myself sud- denly came in meddling, as if we were two children. She's a kind of woman who wants to have everybody to herself. Good Heavens, what a startling eclipse! That didn't happen at the ball. One would think that the moon had been blown out like a candle." "That's odd," said Sir Rawlin. "The night seemed clear enough. Let us go to the window in the tower. There we shall see better what's actually happening." The door of the tower was open, and firelight shone within. Facing them was a large window, giving access to a seaward balcony. They stationed themselves by its ample panes, and looked out on a scene which charmed them by its visionary wildness. The sea lay before them, a moving floor of waters. The moon was by this time wholly lost to sight; and masses of travelling cloud, the conformations of which were vaguely distinguishable, had already half covered the sky with their slowly moving, noiseless wings. "'If you and I were outside in the dimness," said the girl, at last, " I should hardly see you as clearly as I did when you helped me to steady myself in the mist. But I shouldn't have to trouble you with that kind of steady- ing now. Everything changes don't you think it does ? There's one question for you, though it is not the one I meant." "Let me," said Sir Rawlin, "hear the one that you did mean. I'll do my best to answer it. My inclination is to say too much to you rather than too little." " Come, then," she said, taking him gently by the coat, while she looked at him with a smile which at first made him doubt her seriousness, " tell me just this. Do men really think of women as wineglasses, which they put to their lips, drink from, and then throw away behind them ? Is that what happens? Is that what men mean by kisses ? I should very much like to know. ' ' "My dear," said Sir Rawlin, slowly, "you must never let a simile run away with you. Still, if you keep to this 205 AN IMMORTAL SOUL one, which was not my own, but Dr. Thistlewood's, you shall have my sincere answer. Should a man know that, if he drank from one of these delicate vessels, it might, owing to his nature or his circumstances, drop from his hand afterward, he had better remain thirsty and not drink at all. This is a hard saying. One only learns its truth from experience." " If I were the glass," said Miss Vivian and her eyes were now cast down " and if I found myself being treat- ed like that, I should feel not that I was being taken care of, but that I was not worth being lifted. But you know better than I do yes, for you have had experience by which you mean many experiences just as you have seen many countries; and I dare say you have broken and thrown away many things. Isn't that so ? I think it must be, for look do you know what you are doing now? If you don't go away, or if I don't, you'll have broken my flowers presently my poor, unfortunate vio- lets. How dark they look! See, by this light they are almost black. No matter. You may break them if you like" But her words ended in a gasp. At that moment, and for a flickering moment only, Sir Rawlin's face to her, and her face to him, seemed to have been transfigured into a mask of illuminated alabaster, and a pennon of blinding fire had shaken itself across the night outside. The next thing Sir Rawlin knew was that her face was hidden on his shoulder, and the beating of her heart was as audible to him as if it had been his own. Then, after a breathless silence, came a crackle and a roar of thunder, so long and loud that the window-frames and the floor trembled. Sir Rawlin, remembering what he had seen before, had been conscious for a moment of nothing but a fear that the girl might faint, and of an urgent anxiety of a common-sense kind as to the consequences. Something, however, told him that this precise result was unlikely. When the thunder began she had clung to him yet more 206 AN IMMORTAL SOUL closely, but the manner in which she did so showed him that she was not losing her strength. "Nest," he said to her, not pausing to choose his words " Nest, my dearest child, come back to the mu- sic-room. You won't see the lightning, and you'll hardly hear the thunder there." But he felt that his suggestion met with curiously small approval. Her laces brushed his hands. The scent of her violets, which were now being bruised indeed, faintly touched his nostrils. Then, as he could not extricate himself, his face bent slowly down toward her, and she was aware that a kiss had formed itself as his lips just brushed her hair. At that instant came a second flash, which seemed to have licked the window-panes, and the thunder followed after barely a second's interval. "Come," he repeated "come in- side at once. It is madness to wait here longer mad- ness for many reasons. What, my child, won't you do as I ask you ? Nest, do you know this ? I have dreamed of you every night." At last she looked up at him, her head thrown slightly back. He felt the momentary pressure of her deep- drawn, happy sigh, and her eyes, dim and glimmering with a new appeal, were expectant. "I, too, have dreamed," she said. "I have dreamed of this of this. I was dreaming of this when I was trying to paint the sea." These last words, which were a whisper, seemed to lose themselves in a blue-white blaze, accompanied by a crash quite close to them, like that of an exploding shell. The floor and the walls shook, and a pane of glass was shivered. For a moment they were both be- wildered by the sound, the flame, the shock. The room was rilled with dust and an odd, sulphurous odor. Sir Rawlin, quickly recovering himself, looked first toward the window, then at the girl whose hand was now grip- ping his. To his astonishment she was smiling calmly. "Well," she said, "after all, we are still alive, or I think we are." 207 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "Do you know," said Sir Rawlin, "what has hap- pened? The lightning has struck the balcony. It has twisted the rails, and a bit of the stone has fallen. Now, positively and with no more nonsense, you must go." He wound his arm round her waist, with the effect very nearly of carrying her, and hurried her back through the narrow passage of the conservatory. They neither of them lost their wits, however, for by the time they had reached the steps which would bring them back to the music -room their bearing was beyond reproach not only his, but hers. She had skilfully patted her vio- lets into something like their pristine order, and con- trived, with possibly more success than he, to enter as though nothing unusual had happened except the storm. Her companion was lost in wonder at her singular self- possession; but he noticed as she sat down, which she did, at his suggestion, on the first chair that presented itself, that her limbs had begun to tremble. "I must," he said, "tell Lord Cotswold about the ac- cident that has befallen his outworks." "Do," she said, smiling, "find him. I am perfectly happy here." Their entrance had been unnoticed, as had probably been their absence also; for the storm, which had in- terrupted Mr. Barton in his triumphant rendering of a mass, had constituted a more moving performance than the finest piano-playing in the world. Lord Cotswold, catching sight of Sir Rawlin, came toward him with an odd glitter in his eyes. "This is nearly as fine," he said, "as what you and I witnessed once among the mounds of Babylon, with nothing but a tent to protect us. We had, my dear fel- low, no lightning-conductors there. We had to take our chance, and we enjoyed it." "I don't want to frighten your company," said Sir Rawlin, lowering his voice, "but you must, I think, have taken your conductors on trust. A bit of the balcony 208 AN IMMORTAL SOUL of your smoking-room window is gone. I was close by when it happened." "Then my landlord," said Lord Cotswold, placidly, "must bear the loss of his balcony better than I, my dear Rawlin, should have borne the loss of you." A plaintive voice interrupted them. It was Lady Susannah Lipscombe's. "Sir Rawlin," she said, "can you tell me what's be- come of Nest? I can't see her anywhere. You know what makes me anxious." "You needn't be anxious," he answered. "I had taken her to see the conservatory just when the storm broke. There she is, and you'll find her as calm as you are." Lady Susannah hastened to the girl's side. Lord Cotswold's eyes followed her. "If the shepherdess is frightened, as the aunt seems to suppose, she's the first shepherdess I've seen who could make fright ornamental. Another flash did you see it ? And now wait for the thunder. Hark ! it was a long time coming. The storm's drifting away from us. Listen again. That's rain. Well, since our friends are no longer in danger, they will be brave enough to enjoy hearing how close the danger has been." The news of the catastrophe proved to be highly popu- lar, and one or two adventurous spirits, headed by Mr. Hugo, who felt from his intimate knowledge of it that the lightning of it was a sort of cousin of his own, set out to inspect the havoc with a pleasant sense of intrepidity. Mr. Barton, meanwhile, who had again been searching for Miss Vivian, having now seen her, and having seen, too, that she had no other company than her aunt's, made his way toward her with an eagerness which he could ill restrain. By the time he had reached her she had risen, and, with no signs of discomposure other than a slight impatience, was affecting to pull up her long gloves over her elbows, which, as a matter of fact, they showed no inclination to leave. 209 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "My dear," her aunt was saying to her, "you're sure that you feel quite well?" "Perfectly," the girl answered. "I'm only a little restless. I feel as if I must walk about." "Will you," said Mr. Barton, "take a turn about the room with me?" "There's nothing in the world," she answered, "that I should like less. I beg your pardon. I hardly knew what I was saying. Come, Mr. Barton yes, stroll with me round the room, as you said. I would sooner walk than talk." Mr. Barton was overjoyed to secure her, let the terms be what they might. The scantiness of the furniture rendered walking easy, and the company, though some had by this time gone in to supper, was still sufficiently numerous to render it not conspicuous. Their wander- ing tete-a-tete had not, however, lasted long when it met with an interruption which jarred on Mr. Barton's nerves as one of the most affronting and unpardonable kind conceivable. Dr. Thistlewood, who had been for some time missing, entered the room in haste, and without any apology for his intrusiveness instantly came up to them. "Mr. Barton," he began, "I have something special to say to you." Mr. Barton bowed stiffly. Dr. Thistlewood, however, taking no note of his man- ner, had turned to Miss Vivian with a glance that searched her face. "What is this?" he said. "Has the thunder upset your nerves a little ? It often does that to some people. You stay here, young lady, and I'll speak to you in an- other moment." Mr. Barton's face had grown more and more severe. "Well, sir," he said, "what is it?" "I want to tell you," said Dr. Thistlewood, "that in one of the cottages over the hill there's a woman in the act of dying. I've been with her for the last half-hour. The parish doctor was engaged. My remedies and ad- 210 AN IMMORTAL SOUL vice have already done all they can. She is anxious to receive yours, which I trust may be more effectual. The case is not infectious, and you needn't be afraid of the rain. It was stopping as I re-entered the house. If it weren't that this young lady would be the better for a little attention, I would have walked there with you myself. As it is, I will join you shortly. Redmond the woman's name is. My servant, who will show you the way, is at the door with a little case for you. It con- tains everything that is necessary for the administra- tion of your last sacraments." Mr. Barton was completely taken aback. His lip quivered. He went through some obvious struggle. Then his expression changed, and, offering Dr. Thistle- wood his hand, "I thank you," he said, "for being a messenger and also an example of duty to me." And turning on his heel he went. "And now," said Dr. Thistlewood to Miss Vivian, "do you mind my having a little talk with you ?" "Not in the least," she answered, with a slight, in- voluntary shiver. " I don't know why I did that. I'm sure I haven't caught a chill. Yes, Dr. Thistlewood, talk. I think it would be a rest to hear you. Where shall we go? I'll go anywhere you like to tell me." "I knew," he said, "that day when you sang at tea to us, and when for a moment you felt that you were going to sleep I knew that your influenza had left some trace behind it. Nerves, nerves we are all of us made up of nerves. I've a little den of my own here, which leads out of that passage. Shall we go in there for a minute or two? It will do you good to rest." She accompanied him with the docility of a child, and they entered a small sitting-room furnished with com- fortable chairs. "There," said Dr. Thistlewood, soothingly, "sit down by the fire. We won't talk about health. Your own doctor must do that. Let us talk about imagination. I should think you were very imaginative." 211 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "Am I?" she said, indifferently. "Why do you tell me that?" "I mean," said Dr. Thistlewood, "that, if an idea is suggested to you, it is often sufficiently vivid to affect you in some practical way. For instance, when I spoke to you about not going to sleep, you woke up at once, and the little passing weakness cured itself. But we're not going to be medical. When I speak about your im- agination now, what I mean is that, if one mentions or describes an object to you, your mind or imagination conjures up for you an almost visible image of it. Here now is a book a Bradshaw, with a red leather cover, on which are three blots of ink. My impression is that if I told you to think of this afterward you would, much more clearly than nine people out of ten, see a mental image of this blotted book before you. You don't think there's much in that. No but highly suggestible imag- inations can sometimes do more that those who possess them are aware of. Suppose we try; and if you fancy I am playing you a trick well, you must catch me out. Here's the book, then. Look at it. Now close both your eyes, and when you open them you will find that the book has disappeared." With a faint smile of resignation she closed her eyes as directed, murmuring as she did so : "This is like some game of a school-boy's. Don't do anything disagreeable. Don't put something nasty in my mouth." " Now," said Dr. Thistlewood, the book being still held out to her, "open your eyes. Where is the Bradshaw now?" "I don't know," she replied. "You have hidden it away somewhere. Anybody could have done that." "What do you think," he said, "that I am doing with my right hand?" " It looks to me," said the girl, "as if you were pretend- ing to hold something with it. Oh, I understand you now. You want to see if I can imagine that the book's there." 212 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Dr. Thistlewood laughed. "Well," he said, "put out your hand and feel. Is my hand only pretending? Do your fingers feel nothing solid?" Miss Vivian started. "Yes," she said, "they seem to be touching a book, but I see only empty air. Perhaps if I'd not my gloves on " But Dr. Thistlewood interrupted her. "Never mind about the gloves," he said. "Just stay quiet and watch me. The book is in my right hand still. I am going to transfer it to my left. As soon as my left hand has hold of it you will see it again as large as life." "Yes," said Miss Vivian, "that's perfectly true. I see it. But this is all a trick, and I can't guess tricks to- night. I should like to sleep for five minutes. I wish I was in my own bed." "Well," said Dr. Thistlewood, kindly, "I won't trouble you any more. Yes, go to sleep for a minute or two. It's the best thing you can do. I'll speak to Lady Susan- nah, and when the carriage is ready I'll come back for you." When he found himself again in the music-room the company was fast dispersing, and Lady Susannah and Mr. Carlton, both of them in some agitation, were in- quiring of Sir Rawlin if he knew where Miss Vivian was. "I'm afraid," said Dr. Thistlewood, coming up to her, "that in a natural and a quite unalarming way Miss Vivian is beginning to feel what she didn't seem to feel at first I mean the shock caused by the lightning when it happened to hit the house. Don't be anxious. I con- gratulate you on your young lady's courage. Only self- restraint is an effort, and the effort has had the happy effect of tiring her. At the present moment she is sound asleep in my study. The best thing will be, if we can manage it, to get her quietly home without waking her and have her put straight to bed. I suppose you have two carriages. I will order one of them, if you'll let me, to come round to the private door and we'll get her into it without any fuss or trouble. If you wouldn't mind 213 AN IMMORTAL SOUL going home with her yourself now, the rest of your party can come on when it suits them. I see a young man of yours there, who is sitting down to a game of cards." Dr. Thistlewood exhibited such masterly promptitude that, before five minutes were over, his arrangements were all complete. The side door was not far from his sitting-room, and he himself, carrying the girl as though she were no more than a feather, had placed her in the carriage, her sleep being quite unbroken. "She's very light," he said to Lady Susannah. "Your own servants I noticed that you have a stalwart foot- man will have no difficulty in getting her to her own room. The longer she can sleep the better. I will call or send to-morrow to hear of her complete recovery." "Tell me," said Lord Cotswold, when Dr. Thistlewood appeared again, "what's all this? I hope there's noth- ing really the matter with her." Dr. Thistlewood explained what had happened, and assured him that there was nothing to be alarmed about. " If I," said Lady Conway, looking up from the card- table, at which she had begun to give Oswald his first lesson in piquet " if I had been at that window I should have been frightened out of my life. I envy young people whom a thunderbolt merely puts to sleep at bed- time. Oswald, my dear boy, you're incorrigible. Fancy playing a card like that! It strikes me forcibly that, unless this narcotic tempest is going to make all of us sleep on Lord Cotswold's chairs and sofas, we had better be following Miss Vivian's example, and taking ourselves back to our own lawful pillows. My dear Dr. Gustav," she continued, "why that hat in your hand and that gray coat over your arm ? Has your own lawful pillow suddenly ceased to be enough for you ?" Dr. Thistlewood, who was actually carrying with him both these articles of attire, looked at Lady Conway with a sort of contemptuous friendliness. " Your penetration," he said, " does you credit. I am going, as you guess, to a pillow that is not my own the 214 AN IMMORTAL SOUL pillow of a woman who is dying, if she is not already dead. Next to the manner in which human beings live, the most interesting thing to me is the manner in which they die. I hope to be in time to witness the application of the priest's anaesthetics, which in some cases, though not in all, give more relief than ours." CHAPTER XII HAD the lightning struck Sir Rawlin and reduced him to a scorched cripple, his consciousness of hav- ing suffered some staggering and incalculable disaster could hardly have been greater than it was the following morning. He was loaded with a sense that in one un- guarded moment a moment in which his own conduct had been wrenched out of his hands by circumstances he had taken a step which even yet he could hardly grasp as real. Lady Conway, so he told himself, had been absolutely right from the first. In spite of her warnings, in spite of his own caution, he had put himself in a position from which, alike in his own eyes and those of all reasonable people, he could only emerge as an object either of ridicule or contemptuous condemnation. To marry this girl who was less than half his age, and to whom, though the thought of her even now made a deep appeal to him, he could never be a true companion except as a life-long tour de force to marry her would be an experiment foredoomed to grotesque disaster. And yet, having held her in his arms, in what way could he meet her again, unless he were prepared, as Lady Conway had put it, to satisfy the expectations he had so madly per- mitted himself to raise ? There was, however, one duty which he certainly could not neglect a duty which was simple and immediate. Miss Vivian's indisposition, though nobody had made too much of it, had at least been sufficient to demand that, in the course of the morning, he should send to Cliff's End, or else call there, to inquire if she were quite re- covered. Resolving to grasp his nettle, he chose the 216 AN IMMORTAL SOUL latter alternative. He went as early as possible, in the hope that he would thus see nobody but a servant, and would yet at the same time be exhibiting a due solicitude. Comparing his present with his previous journeys to the house, he now felt like a criminal who was going to his own execution. Fate, however, had some relief in store for him. While the butler, in answer to his inquiries, was giving him the comfortable information that slight overfatigue was Miss Vivian's only malady such was Dr. Thistlewood's verdict and that she still was sound asleep, Dr. This- tlewood himself appeared, accompanied by Lady Susan- nah, who, smiling with quiet satisfaction, was thanking him for his help and counsel. "Well," said Dr. Thistlewood, when, after a little con- versation on the doorstep, he and Sir Rawlin went down the drive together, " I don't think we need trouble our- selves much about our charming young lady this time. The probability is that when she wakes up and it will be a capital thing for her if she sleeps the whole day through she'll quite have forgotten the storm and every- thing else connected with it. Retrograde amnesia that's what some doctors call it is, in constitutions like hers, a very common occurrence. She'll merely remember that she went to Lord Cotswold's party; that she talked to you at the beginning of it; that she listened to Mr. Barton's playing; and that somehow she went to sleep in a corner, and was taken home to her bed; and the matter will end there." Had the skies at midnight opened and poured down a flood of sunlight, the aspect of the world for Sir Rawlin could not have been more changed. He felt like a man who has been roused from a portentous nightmare. So great was his relief that he dared not trust himself to speak. But his caution was unnecessary. Dr. Thistle- wood's thoughts already had taken a new direction. " By-the-way, last night," he said, " I got back just in time to see our friend Mr. Barton engaged in his proper 217 AN IMMORTAL SOUL work. Any one is impressive who really believes what he preaches; and the old woman, who I shrewdly suspect was a Catholic, could not have made a better ending had he been one of her own priests. I had thought of going this morning to have a look at those cottages by day- light." "The ground," said Sir Rawlin, "on which they stand is mine. They are leaseholds, and I've no authority; but I'll go with you myself, and we'll consider what ought to be done. The only two acts we are certain not to regret are to avoid giving pain and to alleviate it." "Alleviate it when you can," said Dr. Thistlewood; "when you can't, don't be disturbed by it. In those two commandments lie all the law and the prophets. I shouldn't wonder if we found our priest at the cottages." This conjecture proved correct. Sir Rawlin and Dr. Thistlewood found him there when they reached the spot, just emerging from the cottage of the woman who had died last night. His priestly manner was for the time in abeyance. He was the cool, practical man, with some knowledge of domestic engineering. He informed the new-comers that already a sanitary inspector had been summoned by him, and was making, indeed, at that moment, a house-to-house visitation ; and he went on to say that matters were not so bad as they might have been, though the condition of the drains was in many respects a standing danger. Then the conversation was effectually changed in tone by Dr. Thistlewood 's observ- ing to him, as a thing which he might be glad to hear, that Miss Vivian's breakdown last night was merely a passing trifle, and that to-morrow, or at least in a day or two, she would be just as well as she ever was. Mr. Barton had forgotten the words indeed, at the time they were spoken he had noted them only as an interruption which Dr. Thistlewood last night had ad- dressed to Miss Vivian in his hearing; and he learned now for the first time that she had ended the evening otherwise than in her normal health. The slight sense 218 AN IMMORTAL SOUL of resentment and the keen sense of anxiety which the behavior of the girl at the party had not failed to produce in him at once gave way to a solicitous and protecting pity; and having learned that this fragile life was now sleeping peacefully, he departed conscious of emotions which failed to be peaceful likewise only because hopes were mixed with them too tender to be closely scruti- nized. Sir Rawlin was still fretted by the thought of his own late conduct, and was not even yet easy with regard to its possible consequences. Mr. Barton's lot even now was indeed much happier than his, and before the next day was over it was destined to be happier still. That same afternoon he made his inquiries at Cliff's End, indulging in some faint hope that he might see the invalid in person. This hope was unrealized, but he did see Lady Susannah; and what Lady Susannah told him thrilled him far more profoundly than anything he could have dreamed of hearing from the lips of the invalid herself. Miss Vivian, he learned, had slept till an hour ago. She had awoke refreshed and placid, and suffering from nothing but some sense of exhaustion. Her only recollections of the party seemed to be that Mr. Barton had played at it; that while talking to him afterward she had suddenly felt faint; and that then, somehow or other, she had gone to sleep in a chair. She was ap- parently much relieved to find that she had caused no disturbance, and especially that in Mr. Barton's presence she had done or said nothing unusual. '"When is he coming again to talk to me about con- firmation?' That," said Lady Susannah, "is a question which she has just asked twice. You and the question of confirmation seemed to be uppermost in her mind; and if she's well enough to-morrow afternoon, and you happened to be not otherwise engaged, I really think that to see you would be the best thing for her that could happen." Here was news which transcended Mr. Barton's wild- is 219 AN IMMORTAL SOUL est hopes, and which gave them for the first time the outlines of some defined form. The perplexing vacilla- tions which he had come to suspect in her nature be- tween the interests represented by himself, and others connected with some alien mystery of existence, was ending at last in a victory for the soul and God. Though her feet might at times fail her, though her gaze might be at times diverted, her inmost wish and will were to seek that narrow path up which, with the aid of God, his own hands might guide her. "Theophilus," his Lord seemed to say to him, "lovest thou Me more than these?" And before he had time to answer, the Divine Voice continued: "If thou lovest Me, feed My lambs." He was still full of thoughts like these when the hour appointed came, which was to confirm him in his con- fidence that he alone had read her truly, and make his own nature blossom into a wonder which he hardly rec- ognized as himself. Shortly before five on the follow- ing afternoon he almost ran down the road from his own house to Cliff's End, prepared for what was waiting him, though not even then prescient of it. He was shown into the drawing-room, where Lady Susannah, who was at tea, offered him a cup which he accepted, but could not force himself to swallow. "My niece," she said, "will be very much pleased to see you; but be careful not to excite her, for she's rather pulled down still. I have had to-day two telegrams one from her parents, and one from her old physician, Dr. Gonteau, and they both beg that, if possible, she may be placed under the advice of Dr. Thistlewood ; and Dr. Thistlewood, who was with her not long before you came, says that no visitor not even an old friend like you ought to stay with her this afternoon for more than twenty minutes. Perhaps you won't mind coming into my boudoir. Nest is in there. I'll take you to her now if you are ready." Mr. Barton rose at once, and followed her with a beat- ing heart. "Ah," said Lady Susannah, as she opened 220 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the boudoir door, "she must have gone up to her room. Wait, and I'll send her down to you." Mr. Barton, who accordingly found himself left alone with Lady Susannah's dim, small-patterned chintzes, her china on rosewood whatnots, and a copy of his own parochial magazine on the green velvet cloth of an other- wise bare table, began to be conscious of a hollowness underneath his waistcoat, and a sense that he hardly knew what was about to happen or what he wished to happen. For a moment he thought it would simplify things if they were only to talk about the weather, or if he were to make his escape on the pretence that he could wait no longer. At last Miss Vivian entered. She was dressed in a rose-colored tea-gown softened by mysterious laces, which emphasized by a subtle contrast the ivory white- ness of her arms. Pale though she was, and exhibiting signs of lassitude, Mr. Barton felt himself almost aghast at her beauty and the careless erectness of her carriage. The sight of him seemed to please her, and she offered him a friendly though a somewhat languid hand. "It's so nice of you," she said, "to take pity like this on my solitude. I'm afraid you'll find me rather a washed-out rag. Will it fidget you if I walk about a little? I suppose that, having had more than my due share of rest, I am paying for it now by an undue share of restlessness." Mr. Barton besought her to walk about as she pleased. "I know myself," he said, "what it is to be restless, but I do trust that you are not suffering otherwise." He thought of the occasions on which he had called her "my dear child." He now felt that the smallest inti- macy in addressing her was no less impossible than it would have been had this girl been a reigning sovereign. "Oh no," she answered. " Otherwise I'm right enough. Thank you very much for asking." With awkward and half-hearted attempts to disguise an increasing shyness, he put to her some further ques- 221 AN IMMORTAL SOUL tions relating to the merest trifles, for he divined that an abrupt approach to any serious topic was imprac- ticable; but her answers, though there was nothing un- friendly in them, amounted to little more than one or two listless words. He began to fear at last that any conversation in her present state might be too much for her, and he was beginning to regard her with a pang of disappointed sympathy, when he found that his timid observations met with no response at all. He looked at her with a sharpened attention. By this time she had ceased to walk. She was leaning against a cabinet op- posite to him, her head slightly bent and her hand shad- ing her eyes, as though she were absorbed in thought and were hardly conscious of his presence. A growing fear overtook him that she was possibly about to faint; but suddenly, to his surprise and pleasure, came a marked and reassuring change. With some effort of will it seem- ed that she had pulled herself together, and once again she began to return his look. But the change, Mr. Bar- ton became aware, had not ended here. Apathy he could not be deceiving himself had given place in her to personal interest, and a light had come into her eyes, or the suggestion of a light, which he knew that he must long have dreamed of, but which never till this moment had he seen in them when they met his own. Mr. Barton felt as if the room were beginning to turn round. This light, this ineffable light, grew more and more unmistakable appealing, tender, and yet with a vague reproach in it. She moved toward the fire and sank quietly into a chair, motioning to him to be seated also. " I suppose," she said, speaking in a low, soft tone, " that women hardly know what feelings are really deep- est in them for sometimes one feels one thing, some- times another. Do you know, I have so often doubted, I have been swayed this way and that. But events take us at unawares, and then it all comes out. I was sure that you would come back to me. After all you have 222 AN IMMORTAL SOUL said to me here you know what I mean I was sure that you, from the very first time you saw me, did take a real personal interest in me yes, and I in you." "I take more interest in you," said Mr. Barton, in words that came out slowly, each word trembling like a leaf " in you, in your own self, in your own sacred soul oh, my beloved one than I have ever no, I can't express it. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. You have taken me into a new world. By-and-by you must teach me a new language." " I trust you," she replied, with a grave smile. " Yes, I trust you even if I am only a cup, as Dr. Thistle wood says, to be drunk from and cast aside." "Did he say that of you?" the unaccustomed lover exclaimed. "The brute beast! My first impression of that man was, after all, right." " Never mind," she said, soothingly. " Don't let us talk of that. For the present for to-night it's enough for me to have you here, though you won't be able to stop long. Tell me how did you manage to come back ? As they all must have seen you go, you shouldn't have come back like this." Mr. Barton, so far as the tumult of his deeper feelings permitted him, was conscious of some faint surprise at this last observation; but he quickly remembered the fact of her protracted sleep, which would naturally have confused and foreshortened her ideas of time, and have probably made her suppose that his last visit to her in that room was yesterday, and that the intimate solem- nity of their interview was still uppermost in her mind. "Tell me," she went on. "Which way did you come back just now ? Did you come in through the conserv- atory?" Why it should be supposed that he had chosen this mode of ingress was beyond Mr. Barton's immediate powers of guessing. A conservatory, indeed, existed at Cliff's End, to which a door from the porch gave access, and it might, for all he knew, be possible to enter the 223 AN IMMORTAL SOUL house through it ; but this was not a route he would ever have thought of choosing. " No," he replied, with a smile and a certain accession of confidence born of the thought that he was humor- ing an invalid's fancy, " I came into the hall quite prop- erly first, and I wiped my feet on your aunt's new mat, and then I went into the drawing-room, and then I found my way here." "What then?" she persisted. "Did any of the ser- vants see you? Didn't they think it odd?" "The butler," replied Mr. Barton "yes, he saw me, certainly. So did your aunt also." " She didn't !" exclaimed the girl. " Well, I don't care, after all, whether it was odd or not. You are here. That's all that matters." "But your aunt," said Mr. Barton, still finding a re- lief in dwelling on the unessential " you must know that she saw me. She told you that I was here, and she sent for you." "Well," said Miss Vivian, laughing faintly, "have it your own way. I'm too tired to be teased. Why are you so far off ? Sometimes I can hardly hear you. Come for one moment I couldn't stand it for longer but just for one moment come over and talk to me." Mr. Barton rose. There happened to be no chair near hers. Before he knew what he had done he found him- self at her side, kneeling. She leaned toward him and laid her hand on his hair. "My aunt," she said, "didn't send for me. How silly you are! I was waiting for you." " You are more to me," whispered Mr. Barton, thrill- ing beneath this undreamed-of touch, "than anything in the whole wide world except Him in whom you and I and all the world exist." " I was wondering," said Miss Vivian, slowly, "whether you felt things in that way. It's the way I feel myself, and I have wondered whether it was yours, too, when I burnt the incense that Mr. Barton gave me, and when 224 AN IMMORTAL SOUL I read Mr. Barton's book, which points to the star beyond the star. And so that book really speaks your own feel- ings? For you for you yourself the hunger of the lamb is a witness to the growing of the green pastures ? Come, I am waiting. Just touch my lips with yours a touch only, for I could bear no more." Mr. Barton had never, even in thought, kissed a wom- an's lips before. This was his first hour of paradise. "Now," she said, "you must go. That's all I am equal to. My aunt will be coming to look after me. I had rather that you went first." "I was warned," said Mr. Barton, "that I wasn't to stay long. Much more must be said as soon as my be- loved, my beloved, my beloved can bear it to herself, and to others also." In the act of rising he so far disobeyed her that he stooped and kissed her on the forehead, as reverently as if he were kissing the dead. She was conscious that he shook all over. How he got out of that room Mr. Barton never knew. He was like a man who had died and come to life again in a new world. Cliff's End, with its hall, its front door, and its winding, laurelled drive, and the public road along which he hurried homeward, were shadows to him. Gradually through this haze of beatitude certain thoughts took shape, which at first brought him to earth with their practical and austere solemnity, and then lifted him up once again on wings. He was one of an Anglican order whose members, so long as they remain- ed in it, were vowed in secret to celibacy. Of priestly celibacy he had hitherto been an earnest though not a bigoted advocate. From his brethren and his former opinions he would now have to sever himself. CHAPTER XIII MR. BARTON was long in realizing the fulness of what had just happened to him, but he knew that his whole nature had suffered some profound change. His spiritual aspirations were true to their old orientation, but mounting toward the object of them, through a new air charged with wonders, the wings of his spirit were lifting him with a bolder sweep, and colors from heaven were shimmering on them which he had never even seen in dreams. He had, in fact, since his last interview with Miss Vivian, passed by a sudden and a curiously belated process from the immaturity of youth to the maturity of a normal but untainted man. That night, in the small and cell-like room, where he generally wrote his sermons and so often meditated on his knees, he gave himself to the composition of a letter addressed to the superior of his order, and announcing the changed prospects which would separate him from the band of brethren. It was thus that his letter ended: " Dear Father in Christ, pray for me that I may find in this most holy sacrament of marriage such means of grace as will enable me with increased fidelity to work for the ends which are sacred to both of us." This duty having been accomplished, a weight was lifted from his mind. He went out into the suave night air to consign his missive to a pillar-box; and then, having said his prayers, which were not so much prayers as thanksgivings, he betook himself to his narrow bed, so tired with happiness that he felt he could no longer cope with it. But happiness is a foe to sleep, just as pain 226 AN IMMORTAL SOUL and sorrow are. Mr. Barton dozed at intervals; but hour after hour was heard by him, as it sounded from the church clock, and the new-born activities of his soul would not let his body rest. At last he struck a match, rose, and hurriedly dressed himself, and throwing round him the folds of a black cloak, took a key from his dress- ing-table, and again stole out into the dark. "My hair is heavy with dew," he murmured, "and my locks with the drops of the night." The key was one belonging to a side door of the church. He entered, and, unper- plexed by the obscurity, made his way to the chancel and cast himself on his knees before the altar. There, in the profound silence, he opened his heart to Him who seemed to him at this moment to be a close physical presence no less truly than He was when the Divine Body told its advent to man by the touch of the flake-like wafer. "Domine, non sum dignus. Domine, non sum dignus. Oh, Eternal Love, that hast died for me, Thou hast given me love for a teacher, so that, losing myself in love for what is Thine, I may love Thee Thyself more worthily." Hours ceased to exist for him as he appeased his restless spirit by unspoken words like these, and his vigil did not end until in the high windows the robes of the saints and martyrs took a first faint coloring from the dawn. Outside, the pure, pale air came to his cheeks with a touch of caressing moisture, and all the purities of the world rose blushing beyond the eastern seas. Be- fore re-entering his house he lingered in his little plot of garden. Crocus and daffodil were dreaming there of the love that is at the heart of all things, a robin began to twitter among the pink blossoms of an apple-tree. One of these blossoms touched the happy lover as he passed. He closed his eyes, and for a moment pressed it to his lips. A dreamless sleep followed; and immediately after breakfast he wrote the following letter, the composition of which was rendered easy to him by the austere sim- plicity of his mind, and sent it off by messenger to Lady Susannah Lipscombe: 227 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "DEAR LADY SUSANNAH, In accordance with what you told me, I remained yesterday with your niece for a very short time only; but, short as the interview was, there is something which I must tell you with regard to it. I must begin at the beginning, and describe to you just what happened. For the first five minutes or so she seemed nervous and restless. Thinking, in- deed, that she was perhaps hardly equal to the effort of con- versation, I was at last on the point of getting up and going, when her nervousness and restlessness seemed all at once to leave her. There she was, her natural sober self. It had been my intention to say to her, had I found her in a mood to listen, something about those sacred matters to which I am specially anxious to impress the following fact on your notice every con- versation of mine with her has, on such occasions, been con- fined. Events, however, yesterday afternoon brought a certain topic forward to which neither of us had ever alluded on any former occasion, and I wish as to this point to speak to you without delay. I wonder, Lady Susannah, if I shall surprise you? " The character of your niece is so pure, so simple, so full of the spirit of religion that it made, from the beginning of my ac- quaintance with her, a very deep impression on me. Will you, then, be very much surprised if I tell you that I have come to love her? I have never been in love with any one girl or woman before, and so, I suppose, I did not know what was happening to me. If I had I would have spoken to you earlier, for I would never have entered your house knowingly under false pretences. " Well, yesterday, by the merest accident, with no premedita- tion on her part, and with no expectation of such an event on mine, she made me aware that she entertained for me some feel- ing not unlike that which had grown up in me for her. Then I for the first time yes, Lady Susannah, then for the very first time understood myself. It was all done in a moment. I did not stay long. I think I left her happy. But if she should regret anything if she should be in any doubt let it all be as though it never had been. As to myself, I have fair private means, and as to my family connections, I believe that you would consider them respectable. I am, in all honesty and candor, yours, THEOPHILUS BARTON." Having despatched this letter, with instructions to the messenger not to wait for an answer, Mr. Barton tried to devote himself to the examination of some parish 228 AN IMMORTAL SOUL accounts; but his efforts were unavailing, and he was losing himself in a lover's dream, when his maid-servant burst into the room and said, presenting him with a card: "The gentleman, sir, he wishes to see you most par- ticular." The card was the card of Dr. Thistlewood of the un- clean and blatant cynic for whom the purest of women was "a cup to be drunk from and thrown away." Mr. Barton's eyebrows met together in a menacing frown, and he was about to say, "Tell him that I can see no- body," when it suddenly struck him that this visit, at an hour so unusual, might possibly be connected with the occurrence of some fresh case of illness. He ac- cordingly composed his countenance, and replied: "Show the gentleman in." " I trust," he began at once, in a tone of cold anxiety, as though he were addressing his visitor across some im- passable gulf "I trust that there has been no fresh outbreak?" Dr. Thistlewood greeted him with an easy but grave courtesy which, against Mr. Barton's will, did something to disarm his anger. "No," said Dr. Thistlewood. "If you mean our poor friends in the cottages, I have no bad news whatever; but if you could kindly spare me a few moments, I do want to consult you about the health of one of your parishioners, on whose present condition you might, I think, throw some light." "I'm a busy man," said Mr. Barton, still frigid, "but if there's any information which I can suitably give you I will do so. Pray sit down, and permit me to take your hat." "I have," said Dr. Thistlewood, speaking with a lei- surely seriousness, "come here on behalf of a friend of yours Lady Susannah Lipscombe. The matter has its own importance. I have only this moment left her." Mr. Barton felt, as he heard this unexpected an- 229 AN IMMORTAL SOUL nouncement, that ice-cold drops of perspiration were creeping out on his forehead. Could Lady Susannah, before his letter had reached her, have learned and been indignant at what had occurred yesterday? And had this godless doctor been sent to take him to task for it ? Or was she his beloved one worse? Could it be that she was dead or dying? Had happiness been too much for her?" "I trust," he stammered, "that there is nothing wrong wrong at Cliff's End with any one?" "If by anything being wrong," said Dr. Thistlewood, "you mean anybody's life being in danger, I can set your mind at rest. Nobody at Cliff's End is in any dan- ger whatever. You know, however, that Miss Vivian a highly nervous subject was upset the other night by the thunder-storm. Certain after-effects of that slight jar still continue, and if we desire to get rid of them quickly we ought, in a case like this, to acquaint our- selves with even her slightest symptoms. And now, Mr. Barton, before I go farther, let me explain to you that Miss Vivian's parents, by the advice of my old friend Dr. Gonteau Miss Vivian's former physician have telegraphed from Nice to request that she may be placed under my own care. Their request, supple- mented by Lady Susannah's, must form my apology for intruding on you. And so let us get to business. You were yourself, as Lady Susannah tells me, the last, and indeed the only visitor whom Miss Vivian has seen since this little indisposition of hers; and I have accordingly come, with Lady Susannah's sanction, to ask in what way she struck you. Did you notice that there was in her conversation anything odd or unusual?" Having been cold a moment ago, Mr. Barton now grew hot. "You place me, sir," he said, stiffly, "in a position of some embarrassment. You may, perhaps, be aware that my intimacy with the young lady in ques- tion originated in my having been called upon to in- struct her with regard to religious matters. Most of my 230 AN IMMORTAL SOUL conversation with her has been systematically confined to these; and conversation of that kind I am bound to regard as private." "Of course, of course," said Dr. Thistlewood. "I have, as a doctor, been associated with as many priests as laymen. I understand your position, and I respect it. But the questions I want to put to you have no reference whatever to anything which Miss Vivian may have said to you of a sacred or even a confidential char- acter. What I want to ask you about is only such ordinary and casual observations as are bound to occur here and there in the course of the most serious inter- views. Here's an example. I once learned something extremely useful about a patient from being told that, in the middle of a conversation I don't know what about, and I never asked with whom she had com- plained of the coldness of the room when the tempera- ture was really eighty. In the present case, what I am anxious to know is whether, when the young lady was referring to ordinary matters, you happened to notice in her any straying of attention, or any tendency, after her long sleep, to confuse the order in which recent events had happened." "Oh," said Mr. Barton, in a tone of great relief, "is that the sort of thing you mean ? I beg your pardon if at first I answered you rather cavalierly. Yes, do you know, now you mention it, I did notice something of the very kind you refer to. She seemed to think that my last private visit to her for the purpose of talking about confirmation, which was really some days before, had occurred I couldn't quite tell when, but very lately, very lately indeed." "May I ask," said Dr. Thistlewood, "how she con- veyed this impression to you ?" "Well, "replied Mr. Barton, "instead of speaking about my having called again, she spoke about my having come back, which is the sort of thing she might have done had I only just left the house." 231 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Dr. Thistlewood nodded. " Quite so," he said, "quite so. Was there anything else you noticed at all of the same kind?" "No," said Mr. Barton, reflecting. "I don't think there was much else. She said, by-the-way, that when I was there last everybody had seen me go. Now that wasn't true. Perhaps she was thinking of the day when you and I met at tea there." Mr. Barton, realizing that the catechism was quite innocuous, was beginning to find an excuse for talking about Miss Vivian pleasant. He set himself to reflect further. "Well," he said, actually allowing himself to smile, "that's a puzzler. And oh yes, now I think of it, there were one or two little odd things more. She asked me if I had come back through the conservatory." "Ah!" Dr. Thistlewood exclaimed, looking up rather sharply. " Is there a conservatory at Cliff's End through which visitors often enter?" "No," said Mr. Barton, as though proud of Miss Vivian's fancy, "that's just where the oddness comes in. Then, too, there was another thing, though I don't know if it comes to much. She happened to quote something from a little book by myself; and she used a phrase which might yes, which certainly might, show that her mind had a momentary tendency to stray. She quoted my book, saying to me: 'That's what Mr. Barton tells us.' This might, of course, have been merely a sort of friendly playfulness; but it may, on the other hand, have meant that, her mind for the moment being absorb- ed by the substance of the book, she failed for just the passing moment to realize that she was talking to the author." "Well, Mr. Barton," said Dr. Thistlewood, preparing to rise, "I'm very much obliged to you for your infor- mation. It's precisely little symptoms like these which help us in a case like this to see how much and what kind of nervous disturbance tends to persist in a patient even after the medicine of a good long sleep, and how 232 AN IMMORTAL SOUL most expeditiously we may help her to get rid of the remains of it." "And now," said Mr. Barton, "may I ask you a ques- tion in return ? Miss Vivian is no worse, is she, than she was when I saw her yesterday? My own little visit, I trust, did not unduly tire her." " As to the general future of Miss Vivian's health," said Dr. Thistlewood, "there is, let me assure you, no danger of any kind; but we mustn't let her waste her youth in being ill longer than necessary. For some days she must be kept perfectly quiet ; and, though her friends, secular and spiritual, will no doubt miss her company, they need feel no anxiety about herself." Mr. Barton, when Dr. Thistlewood had gone, felt him- self, on the whole, not displeased with this interview. His beloved one had not suffered from the agitations of yesterday, and if it were necessary that she should re- main quiet for a day or two, he felt that he could bear, and indeed welcome, the interval as enabling him to dis- cuss with her aunt the practical details of the situation. He hardly dreaded a rebuff on Lady Susannah's part, but there might be minor difficulties. These should be got over. Nothing in the world should baffle him; but he, nevertheless, was racked by anxiety till the evening, when Lady Susannah's answer was at last put into his hands. The first words of it were sufficient to elicit from him a sigh of relief. She wrote: "MY DEAR MR. BARTON, I quite understand how things have happened. I have always myself approved of clergymen marrying. I have several clergymen cousins, and they all have very nice wives. You deserve one just as nice, and I should like to think that you had found one by my means. Also I could wish nothing better for Nest than a husband who would make her happy." Mr. Barton, who received this just as he was beginning his dinner, laid the letter down as soon as he had got thus far, and with unexpected appetite swallowed some lentil soup. Then he resumed his reading. 233 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "There are, however, several reasons why happiness would be very doubtful for you. I ought to tell you plainly, for one thing, that this poor child's parentage is most unfortunate. Her father I will, Mr. Barton, give you confidence for confidence, and tell you that in early days it was once possible that I might have married him her father is under a cloud, and cannot show his face in England; and the lady whom he did marry is a divorcee, with a husband living. But there are other difficulties, quite apart from all this, relating to dear Nest herself, and these may, I fear, prove a yet greater obstacle to your wishes. " Dr. Thistlewood, who knows nothing about what you tell me, said to me only this morning, ' If she were but as strong now as I hope we shall see her some day, a reasonably happy marriage would probably be the best thing for her; but she hasn't enough stability yet. as she and her husband, if she had one, would both discover to their cost. Let her wait three years,' he said. 'Things will be different then; and even then she'll be no more than a girl.' He's seen her again this after- noon, and he's coming again to-morrow morning. By the mid- dle of the day I shall be able to tell you more; and if I can hold out to you any immediate hope, I will. But if you are serious in the matter, you must be very, very patient. And you must, if you please, remember her unfortunate connections. Nothing can alter these." The first effect on Mr. Barton of this concluding por- tion of the letter was like that of a physical blow, but a second reading of it roused rather than discouraged him. Starting from the table he dashed off a hasty note, telling his servant that somebody must take it to Cliff's End forthwith. He wrote: " If I have to wait, I will wait as Jacob waited; but no external circumstances, however unfortunate, would for me be any obsta- cle hardly even a drawback. I shall look out with impatience for your promised letter to-morrow; but do not think that I resign or even lessen my hopes." The letter did not arrive till late the following after- noon. It ran: "DEAR MR. BARTON, I could not write to you earlier, for this morning things seemed so doubtful, and we have had a very busy day. Nest's condition has turned out to be such that Dr. Thistlewood is I won't say alarmed, for there's no question of 234 AN IMMORTAL SOUL danger, it's only a question of time. But unless she was to run the risk of being laid up for many months, he insisted that she ought instantly to be removed to new surroundings and kept absolutely quiet. Her father has telegraphed his most em- phatic concurrence. None of her friends are to see her or even know where she is. Dr. Thistlewood was to manage everything. Nest left us at two o'clock to-day. She was not looking ill merely languid and acquiescent. Everything was arranged beautifully nurses, reserved compartment, and so on. For to- night I may tell you this she is to be at a home of rest be- longing to Dr. Thistlewood in Gloucestershire; but her parents have expressly desired that, until she is quite well, her sub- sequent whereabouts shall not be communicated to anybody. There is every prospect of our having her back in a month or so. Please be patient till then. " In order that you may not worry yourself more than the occasion requires, I may as well tell you that something of this kind was foreseen by Nest's parents as a possible occurrence from the first. If Nest's health ever made it desirable that she should leave me, I promised that, during her absence, I would take in Enid Wynn the other one, the half-sister. Indeed, all the winter there have been boxes of Enid's clothes locked up in a cupboard, so as to be ready for her in case she came. This young person will probably arrive next week. When I think of what I suspect to be her history though it's not her fault I confess I feel rather nervous. One thing, Mr. Barton, without betraying any confidences for I have received none I may say to you, by way of a hint. Since such a point is made of keeping these two girls apart, it seems likely that Nest is, for a time, going back to her parents. Hence the anxiety that Enid shall be safe in my charge first. I would therefore sug- gest that, if you want to learn anything about Nest more than I have been able to tell you, you should apply, not to me, but to her father, Captain Rhys Wynn Vivian, Villa Orloff, Cimiez, Nice. " Any day you like to call I shall, of course, be delighted to see you. Meanwhile, don't make too much of a malady which, however we may deplore it, would be only serious if it were neglected. Don't be angry with the plain speaking of one who may, after all, some day call herself your relation. "SUSANNAH LIPSCOMBE." 16 BOOK III CHAPTER I MR. BARTON was stupefied by this hardly credible news, and the kindly and equable tone in which Lady Susannah communicated it merely made matters worse. Such a tone, no doubt, might have done much to relieve him had he really felt serious alarm with regard to Miss Vivian's health, but he did not. Convinced as he was by the language of Dr. Thistlewood himself that her general health was in no danger whatever, he ac- cepted her present condition, whatever might be the medical name for it, as a sad, a pathetic, but merely pass- ing infirmity; and the manner in which her weakness had sought his strength, and had thus in a moment re- vealed two souls to each other, had opened his eyes to the direction in which the true remedy lay. His support would do more for her than the treatment of any doctor, and the plea that she required a rest-cure which neces- sitated her immediate removal as though rest were im- possible in the quietude of her aunt's home was merely an excuse for removing her from his own influence. Thus did he begin to reason with a morbid and self- tormenting ingenuity, till he became in his own eyes the victim of some monstrous plot, which was directed against Miss Vivian also. Who was the prime mover in it was beyond his consistent guessing. Could it be Sir Rawlin Stantor? And was Dr. Thistlewood in league with him for some infamous purpose? Or could it be the girl's parents, who perhaps looked on Mr. Barton as no fit match for their daughter ? And was Lady Susan- nah really in secret league with them? This last ques- tion, as soon as he caught himself asking it, did some- 239 AN IMMORTAL SOUL thing to sober him by showing him its own absurdity. And yet could he, that same evening, have been a hidden listener in the dining-room at Cliff's End, and heard how lightly the girl's departure was discussed by her own relations, there were no suspicions so fantastic in their bitterness that they might not have found harbor in his mind and interpreted the whole course of the con- versation as an implied mockery of himself. Mr. Carlton would, in that case, have figured as the first offender. "Well, my dear Susie," he said, looking up from his soup, "in our young days little girls with attacks of nerves weren't humored as they are to-day. If they ventured to be fanciful they were locked up in the school-room you remember the martial law of Duchess Fanny at Collingham and they had to eat cold rice- pudding off the nursery governess's writing-table. Poor little Nest I'm sure to lose her is like losing a bowl of flowers. And if she's coddled it's no fault of her own. But I can't help thinking that parents in the present generation make some maladies worse by paying too much attention to them." "I'm afraid," said Lady Susannah, "that in Nest's case there's something rather more than fancy. Any- how, though I'm sorry to lose her for even a few weeks, I'm glad to think that her parents and a great physician like Dr. Thistlewood have taken the responsibility off my hands. Dr. Thistlewood is really a wonderful man. That nurse, v/ho is one of his staff she arrived at Lord Cotswold's yesterday, as if by magic is a thoroughly superior woman. I gave her tea in my boudoir." "Yes," said Mr. Carlton, "I caught a glimpse of her in the hall a sensible, sober person. It was quite re- freshing to see her so different from those trolloping females too dreadful, I call them you know the mod- ern nurse. At Easton, the other day, there were two of them looking after poor dear Caroline, and when they were off duty this is a literal fact they used to go flaunt- 240 AN IMMORTAL SOUL ing arm-in-arm together along the corridor giggling, my dear, giggling quite out loud. If my dearest mother could have seen it I think she would have had a fit. It's a comfort to think that Nest has got some- body of the proper sort. Her parents are so right, if she's got to have a rest-cure at all, in sending her off like this under sealed orders. But the person, my dear Susie, whom I look upon as the best person of all is yourself. It's so good of you, while Nest's away, to take in the other young person and at a moment's notice, too. You haven't, I suppose, heard yet on what day you're to expect her?" "No," said Lady Susannah, with a look of half-hu- morous resignation. "Here again I have had to leave myself in Dr. Thistlewood's hands. He's going to Mal- vern to-morrow to finish his arrangements about Nest. My own impression is that her parents will want to have her near them perhaps under the care of Dr. Gonteau, her old doctor where she won't have anything to re- mind her of that dreadful thunder-storm. Anyhow, Dr. Thistlewood will see that the best is done for her. And as for Enid, if he finds when he gets to Malvern that she is, as he expects, on her way to England already, he'll try to meet her in London, or else at Bristol, and bring her back with him." Oswald and Mr. Hugo had been listening with con- siderable interest. Both the diplomat and the man of science, having in their several ways secretly suffered from Miss Vivian's disregard of their sentiments, felt that the temporary loss of her might prove to be a blessing in disguise, by bringing them another young lady who would possibly be more appreciative. Oswald judged that the dignity recently achieved by him of having his life blighted by a passion for a married wom- an would greatly enhance his attractions in the eyes of an unmarried girl; and as for Mr. Hugo, he had been preparing himself for his new cousin by dismissing her sister's malady as a mere piece of nervous silliness. 241 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "Enid," he said, solemnly, as soon as Lady Susannah had come to an end of her information, "is a very sen- sible name." "Yes," said Oswald, in a tone of condescending ban- ter. "It begins with the same sacred letter as Elvira." Oswald, having received that morning a letter from Lady Con way, was in that happy condition which prompts successful lovers to regard the loves of others as the ob- jects of a placid merriment. Mr. Hugo scowled and pre- tended to read the menu. "Mr. Hugo," said Miss Arundel, "why are you making such an exceedingly fractious face? There's a melon coming. I ordered it this morning on purpose to make you good, and it cost elevenpence halfpenny." Miss Arundel had once studied for three months at a cookery school, and prided herself on the ingenious economy with which she managed to feed her kindred. For this reason, as Sir Rawlin Stantor had divined, she was the frequent butt of her brothers, who, forgetting their feud, now joined in an attack on her. " Nest," began Mr. Hugo, "even if she is not very wise, could at all events do one thing. She could write a menu fit for a gentleman to read. When I have a house of my own," Mr. Hugo continued, his prospective income being four hundred a year, "I shall have a servant specially to look after things like that." "A menu of Nina's," said Oswald, "is like a series of dish-covers, which conceal, instead of revealing, the nature of what we're going to eat. Look here, Cousin George, let me just read you this: ' Soup fish minced meat in shells.' What comes next? I suppose it will be: 'Skin bones.' My dear Nina, you had much better do it in French. 'Pure"e anonyme poisson, bon marche Petits ddbris de quelquechose Morceaux assortis, a la chat.' Do you know, Cousin George, I'm always telling Nina that if one day her heart is cut open like Queen Mary's, we sha'n't find Calais written on it we shall find 'Keep down the house books.'" 242 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "And if Oswald's heart is cut open," said Mr. Hugo, who had only deferred his revenge, and whose repartees were simple and rather pointed, "what we shall find there will be: 'Lady Con way.'" "Come, come," said Lady Susannah, "don't you two boys talk nonsense. What would your cousin Enid think if she heard you sparring like this?" "Yes," Mr. Carlton continued, hastening to improve the occasion, "and that reminds me there's another thing which your aunt Susie was going to tell you. The parents of your cousins won't say how or why so right they are; I wish there were more like them but be- tween these girls some one has made mischief. Well, don't, if you can avoid it, talk about Nest to Enid, or even let out that's she's been here. Enid, apparently, has no suspicion of the fact, so you two young men be discreet, and don't run the risk of stirring up unpleasant feelings by alluding to it. I can trust to Oswald's tact; but I should not feel quite sure of Hugo if he weren't so old for his years. Men of science wouldn't have been burned and imprisoned if they hadn't said things which they'd better have kept to themselves." Mr. Hugo's baby countenance acknowledged this com- pliment with smiles. "I think," he replied, "I can promise, about a minor matter like this, to be less outspoken than Galileo. Nina, I should like some melon." Mr. Barton at this moment was beginning the com- position of a letter, which Lady Susannah received the following morning. He wrote: "Your news has so astonished me that I can hardly take it in. You, personally, I gather, have had no voice in the matter; you have not suggested her removal as a means of separating her from me. I sincerely believe you to be my friend. But I will not weary you with what I feel on my own account; this would perhaps not mean much to you. I will speak only about a trouble which you yourself will share with me. I refer to her coming confirmation and her first communion, for which she 243 AN IMMORTAL SOUL was so carefully preparing herself. She was coming to our Lord with the heart of an untainted child. And now, if I may judge from what you yourself have so emphatically told me, she has been placed out of reach of any religious guidance what- soever; the means of grace have been literally snatched away from her; and at this very moment, according to your own show- ing, one or other of two things will be happening to her. She will either be under the care of parents who, although they are legally married, are, as you and I know, living in a state of dead- ly sin, and are desecrating a most holy sacrament in the entire conduct of their lives, or else, if she is taken elsewhere, under whose care will she be? She will be under the care of the de- pendents of a sceptical doctor, who does not perhaps deny that a soul exists, but for whom our faith means nothing, because he has closed his eyes to it, and, like all such men, hates it in his heart of hearts. The atmosphere of open sin is hardly so deadly for the young conscience as this atmosphere of cynical indifference. Think, Lady Susannah think! A human soul committed to our joint care what can you or I ever give in ex- change for it ? And what good reason, I ask you, is there for this removal ? So far as I can see, none. On Dr. Thistlewood's own admission for he spoke to me about the matter personal- ly her present indisposition is not even remotely dangerous. There must be some other reason in the background. Cannot you suggest to me what it is ? Does Dr. Thistlewood, in the in- terest of her parents, or perhaps of some other persons, desire to come between us ? Or is there for such things have been any darker plot? But I won't ask that. I hardly know what I write or think. Dear Lady Susannah, you are a good woman, and I believe you to be my kind friend. I will trouble you with no more questions till I have seen Dr. Thistlewood himself. I shall go to him to-morrow morning, and if I can extort from him no satisfactory answer, I will throw myself on your goodness and ask you to give me what help you can. You can surely do, or at all events tell me, something. Yours, "THEOPHILUS BARTON." True to the resolution expressed at the close of this painful letter, Mr. Barton, at an early hour next morning, despatched a note to Dr. Thistlewood, in which he begged for an immediate interview with him about business of the utmost moment. But a message was brought back to him to the effect that Dr. Thistlewood was away and would not return 244 AN IMMORTAL SOUL till to-morrow or the day following. Thus, condemned to all the agonies of suspense, he would have written again to Lady Susannah, or would have called on her, if he had not been withheld by a sort of tragic shyness. He believed that he had her sympathy, but he did not know how completely; and her sympathy, if lukewarm, would wound him far more than her antagonism. That day, in any case, had he seen her, she could have told him nothing. Next morning, however, a letter from Dr. Thistlewood reached her, which produced an immediate excitement among the whole of the Cliff's End household. He wrote: " All our arrangements for your invalid have been carried out most satisfactorily. You may be assured that she will be under care as affectionate and judicious as your own. Her sister, your new visitor, will be at Malvern to-morrow. She will spend the night there under the charge of Mrs. Grey, my matron partly for the sake of rest, and partly for the sake of something which young ladies, when they don't want rest-cures, think even more important. Both these sisters, it seems, are equally par- ticular about their clothes. Miss Enid comes trusting in those boxes which are lying at Cliff's End ready for her. Among these boxes is a small one covered with green canvas, and con- taining, as I gather, a travelling-dress and I know not what be- sides. Pray send this by the first possible train, addressed to Mrs. Grey's care. The young lady, I take it, will refuse to ap- pear among you until she is in a position to make a suitable first impression; and she has nothing with her which she considers entirely suitable. She's quite accustomed to travelling, having been in England, Scotland, and Egypt. Still, I will wait and come down with her, and bring her with me to your own door. And here let me take the opportunity of making a small practical suggestion to you. I have already begged that, for the sake of peace and quietness, you will advise your own family to say nothing to Miss Enid about her sister, and it would be well, I think, if you gave the same caution to Mr. Barton. He would take it better from you than he probably would from me. This being so, my present suggestion is that, since Miss Vivian was, as I am given to understand, a great reader both of religious books and of poetry, and has doubtless left in her sitting-room many volumes with her own name in them, you should, during her absence, put these possessions away. I am not authorized 245 AN IMMORTAL SOUL to explain the nature of the difference between the sisters, but I am not betraying the confidence which the parents have thought fit to repose in me, if I tell you that it originates in circumstances for which neither of these young people is in any measure responsible. I feel sure that you will be glad to know this. As soon as I can I will telegraph the important moment when I shall have the honor of presenting you with a new niece. " Yours, with respectful sincerity, " GUSTAV THISTLEWOOD." The duty of putting away Miss Vivian's private be- longings provided Miss Arundel with an occasion for much congenial activity, and the not unpleasant mystery which made this precaution desirable filled Mr. Hugo and Oswald with a subtle sense of holiday. They felt, indeed, so much disinclined for any of their usual occu- pations that most of the afternoon was spent by them in the absorbing sport of pursuing three strange cats which had invaded the Cliff's End garden, and taking shots at them with a catapult of Mr. Hugo's own inven- tion. Lady Susannah, meanwhile, whose early disappoint- ment in love was now disposing her toward sympathy with all unfortunate lovers, had despatched as early as possible a kindly letter to Mr. Barton. His attachment to her niece by no means itself displeased her. She had been touched and drawn toward him by the simplicity with which he avowed it. But her kindliness, flavored by a sense of some possible future relationship, seemed to carry with it a right to advise and chasten; and Mr. Barton's attachment being, for the present at all events, one which could advance itself to no practical conclusion, she was anxious, while showing him that she quite under- stood his feelings, to insinuate that a sensible man ought to exercise some control over them. "I quite agree with you," she wrote, "that the postponement of Nest's confirmation makes this illness of hers especially sad and unfortunate. But you have done all you can. You will help nobody by distressing yourself; and in a very 246 AN IMMORTAL SOUL few weeks we may hope that she will be given back to us. Don't mope. Come and see us at tea to-morrow. If you come rather late you will probably meet Enid Wynn, the sister; she ought to interest you because of her con- nection with Nest. And afterward you and I can have a brief talk in private; I want to give you a little caution with regard to your conversation with Enid. If you wish to look on me some day as an aunt, you must allow me to anticipate an aunt's privileges and advise you." Mr. Barton divined, as he read this and he divined quite correctly that the depths of his own passion were beyond Lady Susannah's comprehension ; but he divined, at the same time, the sincerity of her good-will toward him, and the effect on his spirits of her last sentence was magical. It was like a touch of cool ointment applied to a smarting wound. He had, moreover, discovered by this time a source of consolation through his own un- assisted reasonings. It was impossible, he concluded, though he often had thought the contrary, that Dr. Thistlewood, at the time of his inquiry about the details of Miss Vivian's behavior, could have known or even suspected the attachment between herself and him. Nothing, however, could weaken his conviction that Miss Vivian's attachment to himself was somehow at the bottom of what to him was her otherwise inexplicable removal, and that of this removal Dr. Thistlewood was the primary instigator. But how could Dr. Thistlewood have found such a fact out ? The answer, when at last he thought of it, was overwhelming in its clear simplic- ity: Miss Vivian, in her helpless condition, must have confided the secret to Dr. Thistlewood. He could see her lying weak and exhausted on a sofa, turning her beau- tiful and now helpless eyes to the masterful physician, and surrendering to him with angelic simplicity the holy secret which at once sustained and agitated that frail vessel, her body. The pathos of the imagined scene ren- dered her doubly and trebly dear to him. The affection with which he enfolded her turned into three affections 247 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the adoration of the lover, the solicitude of the servant of Christ, and the yearning of the mother for the little helpless child; and from this triple communion with her something besides developed itself a fiery confidence in his future and hers, and a cool resolve that on the first favorable opportunity he would extort from Dr. Thistle- wood's own lips a full account of his proceedings, of the whereabouts and condition of his patient, and of the nature and the probable duration of those obstacles, if any, which made a separation between her and her future husband imperative. For the present he was doomed to inaction, and meanwhile events moved on. CHAPTER II QHORTLY after five o'clock the door-bell at Cliff's End O gave a resounding peal. Lady Susannah, who was in the drawing-room together with her family party, rose with an odd timidity which was almost like distress, and made her way into the hall. Mr. Hugo looked as though he would like to follow her, but Mr. Carlton, with the air of an elderly governess, enunciated his opinion that the new-comer would be shy and had better be left to the welcome of her aunt alone advice which he em- phasized by slipping into the hall himself and finding a position half-way up the staircase, whence the whole drama of arrival could be clearly and unobtrusively witnessed. The front door was open. There was al- ready a little bustle in the porch, and beyond the porch Dr. Thistlewood, in a hooded cloak, was saying good- bye to somebody whom Mr. Carlton could not yet see. "I can't come in," he could hear Dr. Thistlewood say- ing; "but tell your aunt that I've brought you faithful- ly to her door, and don't forget, young lady, the good advice that I've given you." Mr. Carlton heard the clear reply of a speaker still out of view. It might have come, he thought, from an amicable but slightly im- pertinent school-boy. "Don't you trouble yourself." This is what the voice said. "One would fancy, to hear you talk, you knew pretty well all about me." "Not all," said Dr. Thistlewood, with a pleasant laugh of com- radeship, "but more, perhaps, than you suppose. Well, good-bye; I can't wait a moment longer. I'll come and see your aunt to-morrow." Then came a process of hand-shaking which drew the 249 AN IMMORTAL SOUL concealed speaker into the field of Mr. Carlton's vision. "Thanks, awfully," she said, as Dr. Thistlewood disap- peared into a carriage. And now Mr. Carlton, though his attention was somewhat distracted by the movements of a couple of servants who were busy with some arti- cles of luggage, was able to form an idea as to what sort of stranger had come to them. He found himself watch- ing a figure having the outlines of a graceful girl and the deportment of an independent boy a figure which paused in its advance toward the hall door to administer a passing reproof to a kneeling and perturbed footman. "Gently, man, gently with that old bundle of rugs." Mr. Carlton caught the words. "You're dropping the magazines and papers all over the shop." A moment later Lady Susannah came forward, and Mr. Carlton discreetly tiptoed back to the drawing- room. "Enid," said Lady Susannah, kindly, but with a cer- tain effort, "my dear, I am glad to see you." Accompanied by a little spitz-dog, the young lady ad- vanced, looked at the friend who welcomed her, and then threw her arms brusquely round Lady Susannah's neck. "It's awfully good of you having me here like this," she said. "I always heard from father you were quite one of the best. Do you mind my giving you a kiss? I hope I'm not too presuming." Lady Susannah returned the salute with tenderness, and when this process was over there were traces of moisture in her eyes. When the stranger entered the drawing-room from the twilight that was perennial in the hall, her likeness to Miss Vivian, and her difference from her, both be- came equally apparent. Their figures were somewhat, their features were closely, similar, and, indeed, recalled to Lady Susannah Dr. Thistlewood's discourse on twins. But the likeness ended there. Every movement of Miss Vivian's was instinct with something that was not male. The frou-frou of her skirts, the belts that accentuated 250 AN IMMORTAL SOUL her waist, her furs softly scented, the delicacy of her gloves and boots all seemed a part of herself. She had hardly a characteristic which would not in a man be monstrous. Miss Enid wore little that a man might not have worn as well. She had on her head a hard, wide-awake hat. Her white collar was stiff. Her neck- tie had a horseshoe pin in it. Her gloves were of loose, thick doeskin, and, to put the whole matter in a nut- shell, her dress of plain brown cloth, beautifully fitting though it was, seemed making a piquant apology for consenting to end in skirts. Her voice, moreover, though otherwise not unlike Miss Vivian's, was, nevertheless, a good half-tone lower. She greeted her new relations with a frank grasp of the hand and a nod of composed good-fellowship, though in Mr. Carlton's case these rites were retarded by a mo- ment's appraising inspection of his rings and his little high-heeled feet. Then, on Lady Susannah's suggest- ing that she had better come to the tea-table, she tore off her gloves, tossed them contemptuously onto a sofa, and observed that, the room being hot, she proposed to take off her coat. Oswald was at once at her service, begging her to accept his help. "Thanks, dear boy!" she said, equably. "Peel it off if you can. One, two, three now for a good pull. Thanks, once more. Now chuck it down anywhere." Lady Susannah felt herself to be listening to a new species of language, and making acquaintance with a new code of gesture. Both, besides being a surprise to her, were a shock to her old-fashioned prejudices, and yet the quiet self-possession of the stranger, the absence of any doubt on her part that each phrase she used was the right one, and the sweetness of her low-toned voice, which formed an amusing contrast to the uses which its owner made of it, did much toward turning into in- dulgence the criticism which they united to provoke. "Now," said Lady Susannah, "I've no doubt you're hungry. Here's your tea, and here are muffins, toast, 17 251 AN IMMORTAL SOUL sandwiches, Devonshire cream. I'll leave you to help yourself. I hope you had a pleasant journey." "Devonshire cream!" said Miss Enid. "I must sam- ple that. I never saw it before. Yes, Aunt Susannah, the journey itself was right enough, only at Bristol, where we'd got to change, we'd a mauvais quart d'heure on the platform. The whole place from end to end was as black as your hat with excursionists. When our own train came in it was all we could do to get to our re- served compartment. Dr. Thistlewood's as strong as they make 'em, but even he was a bit hustled, and as for the porter, they nearly squeezed his insides out. I felt," she continued, as everybody seemed inclined to listen to her, " for all the world as if I were at good old Cairo, where fifty Arabs in night-shirts fight over one dressing-bag, and the next moment, for anything you can tell, it may be at Mecca. Before I knew better I fancied myself rather smart for discovering that the scarecrow who grabbed mine first was Hassan. Imagine my feelings on discovering that they were all Hassans every man Jack of them! Look here," she said, turn- ing confidentially to Mr. Hugo, who with some naive adroitness had managed to sit down next her, "I didn't quite catch your name, though I know that your broth- er's called Oswald. What's yours? Well, don't be in a hurry. Think it over and tell me to-morrow ; and mean- while give me a bit more cream." "I see," said Miss Arundel, "you've a dear little dog of your own. We must introduce it to James. What's its name? Would you like it to have some milk?" "Yes, if you like," Miss Enid replied, carelessly. "Where's the little brute got to? Father insisted on having it sent after me. But it's not worth a Os- wald divined that she was going to say "a damn," but she changed the phrase in time. "It is not," she said, "worth anything. There isn't a bit of sport in it. I tried it at home, and it would not even kill a sparrow." 252 AN IMMORTAL SOUL An expression of shocked surprise was visible on Lady Susannah's face. "Dr. Thistlewood," she said, coldly, "tells us you're quite a traveller. You've been in England before." "Yes," said Miss Enid. "I was once for a month at Harborough. This place is better to look at. I could al- most fancy I was at Nice. I suppose, however, there's no hunting hereabouts I dare say no sport of any kind except," she added, after a moment's reflection, "rats." "What!" exclaimed Lady Susannah "what should make you think of rats? I'm happy to say that in this house there's not a rat to be caught by anybody." "No," said Miss Enid. "But, coming down in the train, Dr. Thistlewood told me that the basement of Lord Cotswold's castle was crawling with them; and if I could raise a terrier, he said, he'd be thankful if I would have a go at them." Lady Susannah shook her head. "I hope, my dear," she said, smiling, "you're not going to be cruel. Come, if you've done your tea you'll like to be shown your rooms. Nina, will you take her?" "Certainly," said Miss Arundel, with alacrity. " Enid, are you ready?" "Right you are," replied Miss Enid; and the cousins had risen to go when the door was opened and the butler ushered in Mr. Barton, preternaturally grave, but affecting a slight smile. "Here, you Oswald," Miss Enid was saying over her shoulder as Mr. Barton advanced, "be a good fellow. Pitch us my coat and gloves. Now, Nina, lead the way." She was in the act of catching her possessions when she found the new visitor staring at her, to which attention she replied by a quick but comprehensive survey of him. Lady Susannah was in the act of calling her back, with a view to making her and Mr. Barton acquainted, but the impulse came too late Miss Arundel and she were gone. "I hope," said Miss Enid, as soon as they were safe 253 AN IMMORTAL SOUL outside, "that that individual will know me again when he sees me. Who is he ? He looks as if he'd swallowed the poker." Miss Arundel explained that Mr. Barton was a clergy- man, a friend, and a neighbor. " Have you many in these parts built that way ?" asked Miss Enid, as they climbed the stairs. "The only Eng- lish parson I've ever seen to speak to was a ripping little fellow in Northamptonshire, who hunted three days a week, and would take a toss without turning a hair. The poor people about him worshipped the very ground he trod on, and you'd never have guessed what he was if it hadn't been for a bit of necktie. What! am I to live down this very snug little passage? And your aunt spoke about rooms. Is she going to give me two ? This is doing me well. What's in here? The bedroom?" Miss Vivian's maid, a discreet elderly woman, who had it was so arranged at Dr. Thistlewood's express sug- gestion been left to attend Miss Enid, was busy setting out a pair of plain ivory brushes, and some other toilet appliances equally plain, on the dressing-table. "I don't know, miss," she said, "if you've got any bottles and other things. I can find no scent any- where." "My dear woman," replied Miss Enid, "you may take your oath of that. It's the whole bag of tricks you've got there. But what are these?" she went on, pointing to a powder-box and a pair of glove-stretchers. "They aren't mine. Perhaps, Nina, they're yours." Miss Arundel's nature was transparently and bluntly truthful. A prevarication was here necessary, but she paid for it with an ingenuous blush." "Somebody," she said, "must have left them here by accident. I'm sure I can't say who." "Well," said Miss Enid to the maid, "lock them up in some place which they won't get out of till they're want- ed." And this matter having been settled, she turned to survey the room. 254 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "I hope you'll be comfortable," said Miss Arundel, kindly. Miss Enid looked at her with a laugh, and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Comfortable!" she said. "I should rather think I should be. But, Nina, let me breathe it in your ear all these frills and flounces and ornaments and satin bows make me feel like a bull being put to bed in a china-shop. Don't think me a beast for having popped it out like that. Aunt Susannah's awfully good to me. And now let's have a squint at the sitting-room." In the sitting-room was a lamp, and a fire was bright- ly blazing. All Miss Vivian's books and other traces of personal occupation had been removed, but otherwise everything was arranged precisely as she had left it, and there still clung to the curtains a fragrance scarcely per- ceptible, which was due to sundry burnings of Mr. Bar- ton's incense. Miss Enid sniffed a little, and glanced at the walls and furniture. " If these were to be my permanent diggings," she said, " I should want all these walls for my fishing-rods. You'll think me an absolute Goth, my dear, but I should clap those china brackets in a cupboard. All the same, I couldn't better the chairs. But, Nina, dear girl, there's a crucifix and a saint's picture and a prie-dieu. They remind me of the convent school." "Were you brought up in a convent?" asked Miss Arundel, with some curiosity. "Yes," said Miss Enid, "for my sins I was; but, of course, only when I was a kid. They weren't bad beasts in their own way some of the sisters. But what are those things doing here? Are you all of you holy Ro- mans? And that black man down-stairs who made a face at me perhaps he was the genuine article?" Miss Arundel assured her that Mr. Barton, like Lady Susannah and herself, were members of the same Church as the hunting parson of Northamptonshire, and that Mr. Barton would be horrified at the supposition that 255 AN IMMORTAL SOUL crucifixes and pictures of saints were not even more in place in an Anglican household than in a Roman. "And you," she went on, "from the way in which you speak about the convent, I suppose that you belong to the English Church, too?" Miss Enid scrutinized her with a sort of humorous hesitation. "Well, my dear," she said, "I certainly belong to nothing else. And now let me ask you one thing. Don't you think that, before we go down-stairs, we might open the window and have this bower of luxury aired a bit? It may be only my fancy, but to me the place smells like a pole-cat." "Perhaps," said Miss Arundel, "it may be a trifle stuffy. Well, we'll do as you say. And now you shall see the school-room." The school-room where Mr. Hugo, still thinking of his new cousin, was consoling himself for her disappearance by severe preoccupation with his microscope, was much more to Miss Enid's taste than the elegance of her own apartment. "One can breathe here!" she exclaimed. "This is the place for me." Mr. Hugo looked up delighted; but with some effort of will he consulted his dignity as a sage by not abandon- ing his apparatus for a trifle like a mere girl. He sum- moned a weighty frown and became more preoccupied than ever. Miss Enid Wynn rewarded him by an im- mediate approach to his table. "What have you got in there?" she said. "Let me have a peep do." Mr. Hugo looked up again, and beamed condescending approval on this dawn of scientific intelligence in a quite unexpected quarter. "Wait a moment," he said, as he delicately turned a screw, "till I've got the object into something like prop- er position. What's in there is a toad's eye. Now sit down, and if the focus is wrong you can alter it." "Well, Enid," said Miss Arundel, "I shall leave you 256 AN IMMORTAL SOUL here. You'll be able to find your way to your own room at dressing-time." Miss Enid, meanwhile, was beginning to peer through the eye-piece of the instrument. "All right, Nina," she said. "Look here, Mr. Hugo I haven't got the focus yet. Am I turning the right screw? How does the little devil work? No, don't touch me. It's coming. Ah, isn't that jolly!" Mr. Hugo's delight increased as he watched his prom- ising pupil, and his hand hovered over her shoulder like a moth that desired to pitch on it. This consummation, however, was hindered partly by his own shyness, partly by the entrance of Oswald, which a frown on Mr. Hugo's brow showed that he regarded as the worst form of in- trusion. As for Oswald himself, he had just come in from the garden, where he had begun the composition of a poem of which Miss Enid Wynn was the occasion " Your heart is fresh as morning dew, But mine is bitterer than the sea." He had accomplished these verses, and the rest of the poem was to lead up to them; but, the requisite rhymes and sentiments being somewhat slow in presenting them- selves, a spirit in his feet led him to look for the being whose freshness formed such a contrast to his own blighted maturity. The charms of a young hoyden like this, with a soul that could stoop to rat-catching, could not possibly endanger so he told himself his fatal loyalty to Lady Conway. Still, like many lovers of very much more experience, he felt that though his loyalty to one lady was inviolable, it was only due to himself that others should attempt to undermine it, and he was now in quest of a temptation which, as a matter of course, he would resist. Oswald's instincts in matters like these were admirable. He would have been horrified had he realized how closely they resembled those of Mr. Hugo. Without seeming to notice that Miss Enid was present, he went to the cup- 257 AN IMMORTAL SOUL board in which he kept his portfolio of caricatures, and, opening it on the central table, became seemingly lost in a search for some particular picture. His tactics were presently successful, for as soon as Miss Enid had had enough of the spectacle of the toad's eye she rose from her chair and cautiously approached the artist, leaving poor Mr. Hugo to affect a profound indifference, the only result of which was the breaking of his slide as he ex- tracted it. "Oh," said Miss Enid, carelessly, with her arms akimbo, "are all those pretty pictures yours?" "Yes," said Oswald, assuming an air of profound ab- straction, but at the same time adroitly spreading some of the drawings over the table. " They are only scribbles of mine. I was seeing if I'd lost a letter among them." Miss Enid took up a drawing and broke into a pleasant laugh. "This is good!" she exclaimed. "I see you're a regular dab at it. Are these some of the Southquay freaks?" "What have you got hold of?" said Oswald. "Oh, that's a Mrs. Morriston Campbell and her dried-up stick of a husband." Miss Enid next took up one of Oswald's romantic love scenes, in which a lady on a balcony was listening to a moon-lit troubadour. "Here's a party," she said, "who seems to be a trifle sorry for herself. You've made her look as if she had a pain in her tummy." This piece of profane criticism was heard by Mr. Hugo with rapture, and he immediately came over to the table to enjoy his brother's discomfiture; but Miss Enid had passed from the love scene to some more of the carica- tures, and was once again in a state of appreciation and interest. As the next best thing, therefore, to seeing Oswald's talents made light of, Mr. Hugo set about help- ing to do the honors of them himself. "Oswald," he said, "show her the ones of Mr. Barton and Peter." 258 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "Oh, do!" cried Miss Enid, her eyes lighting up with mischief. "Mr. Barton's the sky-pilot, isn't he the bean-pole of a man who came stalking into the drawing- room and looked at me and looked at me well, as if I was some one out of Noah's Ark ? Is that him? Nina tells me he's not a Roman; so what has he to do with Peter, or Pope either?" "Our Peter," began Oswald, solemnly, "is not an apostle. He is a deity." But this method of explanation was much too indirect for Mr. Hugo. "Our Peter," he said, "is a beautiful Angora cat, and he cost seven pounds, and that's his altar where we offer up lights and liver to him; and Oswald has invented a ritual for him, copied from Mr. Barton's; and oh, Os- wald there, look there there's one of the pictures. That's Mr. Barton preaching an offertory sermon for him." The news that Peter was a cat rather puzzled than amused Miss Enid, until she had examined the pictures, when she grasped the situation instantly. As soon as she saw Mr. Barton depicted in full canonicals she burst into a laugh that was delightful to the artist's vanity. "Oh," she said, "this is ripping! Do let us see some more of them! As soon as I saw Mr. Barton, I thought he looked a first-rate rotter. You don't mean to say that he really rigs himself out like that! They've got to do it in France ; but here I thought even clergymen were more sensible. Women in petticoats are bad enough. Men in petticoats are worse. I say, Mr. Hugo, I want to tell you a secret. I've got an Albanian's dress with me, very much like a Highlander's, with a kilt only down to there. It does make you feel so free. And I've got a sporran and everything. Do you think that if I wore it to-night Aunt Susannah would go pop? It would make Mr. Barton sit up, wouldn't it ? I must try it some day. I don't dare do it to-night." 259 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Mr. Hugo whispered, with wise reticence: "Keep that for Mr. Barton." To Oswald this whispering and the whisperers seemed utterly beneath contempt, so, gathering his pictures to- gether, he hastily left the room, taking his constancy to Lady Conway away with him, like a shield which had not received the honor of a single dent. When dinner-time arrived Miss Enid made her ap- pearance in a long skirt, which was safe enough from any resemblance to a kilt; but she wore a sort of black jacket so cut and so ornamented with silver buttons as more or less to suggest the male fashion of the Highlands, while her hair was somehow arranged so as to look like a Scotch bonnet, and was tied at the back with a knowing little black bow. Her manners before, and especially toward Lady Susannah, though in no way visibly con- strained, were so naturally subdued and softened that Lady Susannah herself could find no new fault with her save that her language, her tastes, and even her dress, were all a little peculiar. There was, moreover, some- thing in her spirits that everybody found catching so much so, indeed, that in the drawing-room, when dinner was over, Mr. Carlton proposed the playing of some in- nocent round game. The game at length fixed upon was, at all events, innocent enough. Each player in turn named one of the four elements fire, water, earth, and air and challenged another to name, while the challenger counted ten, something which inhabited, or was, at any rate, specially connected with it. Thus Mr. Carlton him- self was challenged with the element air. His answer by rights should have been some bird or insect; and he was held to have failed ignominiously because all he could think of was soda-water. Oswald did no better, when, air having been named again, he responded with cynical promptitude: "Women's promises." "Oswald," gurgled his aunt, "I think you're a little hard on us. But you must think of something that's alive. Now, Hugo, it's your turn. You give us an element." 260 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Mr. Hugo looked round him with a solemn and superior smile, and, his eyes at last fixing themselves on his new cousin, he astonished the whole party by articulating the word "Carbon." "My dear," said Lady Susannah, "carbon is not an element." "It is," said Mr. Hugo, sententiously. "If it weren't for what I and others are now finding out about radium, we might still say that carbon was the great creator of life." "It takes much more than an element, Hugo," said Lady Susannah, gravely, "to make even a sparrow. You shouldn't talk like that not even in fun. It's not reverent." Mr. Hugo, at this juncture, caught his new cousin's eye. It seemed to him that, in a cautious way, she winked at him. At all events, she did something else she sur- prised the assembly by joining in the discussion herself. "Yes, Aunt Susannah," she said; "of course, if it comes to that, carbon alone will no more make life than air or water will. You want oxygen, hydrogen, and the whole group of albuminates." "My dear child!" exclaimed Lady Susannah, astound- ed, "where did you pick all this up?" "Oh," said Miss Enid, modestly, "it's only what all boys know. Isn't it, Mr. Hugo?" The young lady's familiarity with the profoundest facts of science went straight to Mr. Hugo's heart; but he was also a little jealous of it. "I should," he replied, "hardly quite say that. It's what very few girls know at any rate." "Most likely," she went on. "I seem to be an awful prig; but, you see, Aunt Susannah, as soon as the nuns had done with me, I was taught something sensible by two friends of father's by Dr. Gonteau and Professor Guggenheim at Nice. Dr. Gonteau, as I suppose you know, is an old friend of Dr. Thistlewood's, and he often took me into his laboratory and let me see him at work." 261 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "And what," said Mr. Carlton, daintily, "did the other gentleman do the gentleman with a charming name? He sounds like a chemist. I'm sure he made horrid smells." " Wrong," said Miss Enid. " Go down one. Professor Guggenheim gave lectures on the origin of religion and on the Bible and on sacred books and on Christianity." A shadow of perplexed disapproval passed away from Lady Susannah's face. "I'm glad," she said, "that you've had some regular religious instruction. But, as for the origin of religion, you can hardly have wanted a professor to tell you that." "I say, Enid," said Mr. Hugo, when he was lighting her bedroom candle for her, "I'll show you something to-morrow. I am actually producing life with radium in a closed glass vessel." CHAPTER III NEXT morning Oswald had risen early, and gone out before breakfast into the garden to finish the poem in which he contrasted the heart of Miss Wynn with his own. He was thus occupied when, at a turn of one of the paths, he came on Miss Wynn herself, wearing one of his own hats. " Morning," she said, with a nod. "Is this your prop- erty I've been making free with?" "It is," said Oswald, looking her full in the eyes. "That hat has known many airs and skies. It has had a long life, but it never lived till now." "Oh," said Miss Wynn, composedly, "you know how to lay it on, I see. But I don't care for compliments, thank you. Compliments are all my eye." "That," said the gallant Oswald, "is because you have had too many of them." "Many or few," said Miss Wynn, "I can pretty well tell their value. This place is like Italy. Have you ever been to Italy?" "Once," said Oswald, with a slight, mysterious sigh. "I should like to go there again for the sake of old associations which perhaps, after all, it hardly dares to think about. But I can't go at least, not now. I am called to a very different and much more distant place. I am expecting every week to be ordered out to Con- stantinople. I happen to be attached to the Embassy." Miss Wynn looked at him with a respect which she had hardly evinced previously, and exchanged her bantering manner for a sort of soft sullenness. "Well," she said, "if ever in your life you've done 263 AN IMMORTAL SOUL anything particularly rotten, I hope that at Constanti- nople you'll be sufficiently far away from it." The word "rotten," as applied to any possible indis- cretion of his own, seemed to Oswald contemptibly in- appropriate. But what this girl meant was evident. She assumed that he was a man with a past. She was not without some penetration. She would never have spoken in this way to that babyish Mr. Hugo. The con- versation was here disturbed by the loud ringing of a bell. "That's not for breakfast," said Oswald, cynically. "It's for prayers." "Does Aunt Susannah expect me?" asked Miss Wynn. "I don't mind going if she does anything for a quiet life. She doesn't? You're quite sure? Thank good- ness for that!" Oswald, who felt that, whatever might be the case with men, liberal opinions were more or less unbecoming in women, was slightly jarred by this utterance, and his original conclusion that there was a strange want in her nature was confirmed by the promptitude with which, when the party assembled in the dining-room, she de- serted him altogether for his brother, with whom, on pretence of being helped by him to boil an egg on the sideboard, she soon seemed to be indulging in the con- coction of some childish plot. Subsequent events showed that such had been indeed the case. "Enid," Miss Arundel had said, at the end of breakfast, with the air of a person proposing some bout of intoxicating dissipation, "would you like, in the course of the morning, to come and see my hens and chickens? I've got forty-seven, and nine of them have the gapes." And Miss Enid had replied that already Mr. Hugo and she had settled to go for a stroll, but would visit the hen-house on their return. The morning wore away, however, and the two were still missing; and when it was found at luncheon that both their chairs stood empty, Lady Susannah was beginning to experi- 264 AN IMMORTAL SOUL ence grave alarm. It was not till nearly tea-time that the truants showed their faces again and the history of their adventures was made plain in all its surprising enormity. What had happened was this. Among Miss Enid's whisperings to Mr. Hugo in the dining-room had been the question: "I say, have you got a terrier?" Mr. Hugo, somewhat shamefacedly, had been obliged to ad- mit he had not. "Well," said Miss Enid, "no doubt Dr. Thistlewood has one. Can't we slope off to Lord Cotswold's and have a good rat-hunt there?" "Would you," asked Mr. Hugo, aghast at this bold proposal, "like that better than looking at my radium and the beginnings of life in my bottle?" "We'll see those in the evening," whispered Miss Enid, insidiously, "when the others have gone to bed. I don't see why I should turn in at half-past ten." Accordingly, Mr. Hugo, in obedience to the stronger will, had set off with his companion, bound for the Turkish Castle. " Now," she said, when they at last reached the portal, " don't be afraid of the bell. Pull it for all you're worth, or let me give a lug at it." "Who shall we ask for?" inquired Mr. Hugo, tim- idly. "Oh," said Miss Enid, "you leave all that to me. Look here," she went on to a footman, when the tall doors were opened, "will you tell Lord Cotswold that Miss Wynn and Mr. Hugo Arundel have come over to do the bit of rat-catching that Dr. Thistlewood spoke about." The man looked at her doubtfully, and could hardly forbear from smiling. "Yes," Miss Enid continued, "just look alive and find him. He'll know all about it. We'll wait here outside. And hi ! there ; I suppose they can raise a dog and fer- ret on the premises?" 265 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "I'm sure I couldn't say, miss. I'll find Dr. Thistle- wood and ask." "Well, Mr. Hugo," said Miss Enid, "this is a rum sort of castle. It's just like a birthday-cake with half the sugar melted." Presently the footman returned, and, demeaning him- self much more respectfully, said: " His lordship is at home, miss, and begs that you will step this way." "Ah," said Lord Cotswold, advancing, when the pair were shown into a library, ' ' when age loses the privilege of going to look for youth, youth makes good the loss by coming to look for age. There's your friend, Dr. Thistle- wood. We were talking about you just now. And how is our man of science ? He seems to be a sportsman also. That's just as it should be. And now," he continued, "about the great business of the morning. Dr. Thistle- wood knows of a cottager who has ferrets and who lives close by. I've sent some one to find him and bring him if he's there to bring. And, meanwhile, how shall we amuse ourselves?" "I hope awfully," said Miss Enid, with an engaging and respectful courtesy, "that we're not putting you out. I thought from what he Dr. Thistlewood told me that we could just have gone round to an out-house and had a whack at the rats without disturbing any- body." "Miss Enid Wynn," said Dr. Thistlewood, who had been watching her with critical interest, "has scientific tastes, as her cousin has. Yes, miss, I know from Dr. Gonteau that you were one of his pupils. Would you like to look at the place where the lightning struck the balcony?" " What!" she exclaimed; " did the lightning strike this house? I like anything that's to do with electricity. May we really have a look at that?" As they passed through the main drawing-room Miss Enid caught sight of a man who was turning over some 266 AN IMMORTAL SOUL large books on a table, and who, as the party entered, looked up and fixed his eyes on her. "I say," she whispered, administering a slight nudge to Dr. Thistlewood, "who's that? He looks like a swell of some sort." Dr. Thistlewood replied that this person was Sir Raw- lin Stantor, who at that moment was consulting some government blue books, the property of Lord Cots- wold. "Sir Rawlin," he continued, "you know this young lady's friends. This is Miss Enid Wynn. She's a student of electrical science, and we're going to show her the balcony." " You just be quiet," she said. And, extending a hand to Sir Rawlin with the gesture of a frank school-boy, "Ain't it a shame of him," she continued, "giving me away like that?" Sir Rawlin 's expression became grave and then sud- denly curious. "I will," he said, "come with you." And he followed the party to the tower. The broken window had been mended, but otherwise the room, looking mean and tawdry in the daylight, was much as it had been on the memorable night of the party. The window was opened, and the girl went out on the balcony. "Be careful not to fall," said Dr. Thistlewood, teas- ingly. "Make yourself easy," Miss Enid retorted. "I say, Mr. Hugo, look how this rail's twisted. I only wish I'd been there to see it happen." " I was there," said Sir Rawlin " as near as I am now. I wonder if you would have begun to ask, as I did, ' For which of my misdemeanors is the lightning trying to get at me?' " "I'm sure," said Miss Enid, bluntly, "you didn't do anything so stupid. Of course I can see you're laugh- ing. Well, if you didn't do that yourself, why do you think that I should ? I was at Nice all through the last big earthquake. The priests said it was a judgment. 18 267 AN IMMORTAL SOUL A judgment on what? That's what I wished to ask them. It just toppled their churches over like so many old ninepins, and it didn't give even a jog to the Casino at Monte Carlo. Are girls in England brought up in such a silly way that they still take for gospel whatever their nurses tell them ?" "My young philosopher," said Lord Cotswold, "you reason as well as Lucretius ; but the problems of life will wait and the hours of this morning won't. Would you and your cousin like to go down into the yard ? And if the dog and the ferrets have not yet made their appear- ance, you can amuse yourselves by examining the scene of your impending exploits." Miss Enid replied with the pregnant words: " Thanks, awfully." The two were accordingly sent off under the care of a servant, and, Lord Cotswold having said that he ex- pected them to stay for luncheon, they came back in an hour covered with dust and victory. Mr. Hugo, indeed, was so hung with cobwebs that his face gave little clew to his identity, or even his age or sex. Dr. Thistlewood, who encountered them at the top of the back stairs, had Mr. Hugo at once taken off to a dressing-room, and then turned to Miss Enid, who was keeping herself somewhat in the background. He discovered that victory in her case had not been bought for nothing. She had suffered a severe though not a dangerous wound from a nail which had scratched her arm, or, rather, torn it, above the wrist. A bandage, made out of her own and Mr. Hugo's handkerchiefs, was already getting pink with the blood that was soaking through; the result being that she had to put her pride in her pocket, and ask, in un- willing accents, for Dr. Thistlewood's aid. " I told you to be careful," he said, as he brought her to his own sitting-room. " This might easily have been a very nasty business. We must wash it with anti- septics and then bandage it properly. We'll have the things brought in here, and the housekeeper will take 268 AN IMMORTAL SOUL you somewhere where you can put yourself to rights afterward. Now," he said, at last, when the necessary operations were completed, "if you don't wear short sleeves nobody will see anything, so you need not go and frighten that excellent lady, your aunt. You can easily find an excuse for showing it to me in a day or two, and we'll see how it gets on. That wound let me warn you won't be well for a fortnight." Miss Enid, when she appeared at luncheon, exhibited to the company no trace of her late experiences, except- ing a slight paleness and a certain sobriety of manner. Her low voice and her faintly humorous smile delighted Lord Cotswold, and he presently began to realize that this pretty girl school-boy for as such he had at first thought of her was not so scatter - brained as she seemed. "Did you," she said, abruptly, during the course of the meal to Dr. Thistlewood, " ever cut out any part of an animal's brain in order to change its character?" "May I," said Dr. Thistlewood, in a tone which sug- gested that he was not surprised, " ask the reason of this sudden burst into science?" "Oh," said Miss Wynn, placidly, "it was all along of that terrier, which hadn't the spirit of a cat in it. Dr. Gonteau had a friend in Leipsic who operated on a dog like that. He took out the bit of its brain that produces fear or secretes fear. Nothing would frighten it after- ward, and it became as fit as a fiddle." "I'm afraid," said Lord Cotswold, "that I cannot en- courage Dr. Gustav to cut up this particular terrier with a view to its moral improvement, since it belongs neither to him nor me." Miss Wynn laughed. "Well," she said, "I'll make you a present of my own dog. Now's your chance. I was going to sell it, but if you like to use it, it's yours as a free gift. I used often to wonder what would hap- pen if Dr. Gonteau's friend were to operate on a nun, and cut out the part of her brain that secreted her be- 269 AN IMMORTAL SOUL lief in her rosary. You needn't look at me, Dr. Thistle- wood, as if you thought I was an absolute fool. I know quite well it would be impossible to make a nun reason- able in that way or, perhaps, in any way. Beliefs in the brain must be mixed up so just like claret and water that you couldn't take away one without taking away goodness knows what besides. But still with some feelings isn't this so? it's different. They're mixed up with others, not like claret and water, but like oil and water, and you can take the oil away and leave the water behind." "Dr. Gonteau," said Dr. Thistlewood, "ought to be proud of his pupil. Yes, you are quite right. Cases do differ, as you say they do. A surgical operation will sometimes make an idiot sane. Let us ask your cousin, Mr. Hugo Arundel, what he thinks about it all." Mr. Hugo smiled shyly; but a look from Lord Cots- wold encouraged him. "I once," he said, "made Mr. Barton very angry by telling him that one of his choir-boys, who was caught stealing some money, had probably received a blow in the neighborhood of his left ear, because the virtue of honesty has its organ in that quarter; and I told him that anybody even he himself if he got hit there in the proper way, would at once become a thief, and would probably end in prison. He looked so angry. I think he would have liked to burn me; and then he tried to give a sort of superior laugh, and said: ' If you think that honesty can be destroyed by a chance blow, you'll next be telling me that a blow can destroy man's faith in God. I hardly think you would find many Christian martyrs to agree with you.' ' Mr. Hugo, with his customary simplicity, told this anecdote unconscious that it left Mr. Barton with the honor of the last word, and went on to explain that he proposed to educate his cousin by showing her that very night the beginnings of organic life, and a diagram, re- produced from Dr. Thistlewood's, of the Microgamia 270 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Socialis, which would give her an idea of how human nature was put together, and how virtue, as Mr. Barton understood it, was a compound of many qualities, and might consequently be ruined by an adequate shock or a shake, just as easily as the flavor of a crusted bottle of Burgundy. "I wish," said Lord Cotswold, when they had gone, "that Rawlin could have stayed and listened to them. They approach life these young people like a child patting a tiger." Sir Rawlin, who was to make an important speech that evening, and had gone back to his hotel in order to complete his arrangements for it, had indeed been half inclined to remain and see something more of this stranger who had taken Miss Vivian's place. Freed as he now was from his first overwhelming anxiety with regard to the possible consequences of his mad indis- cretion during the thunder-storm, and forearmed, as he told himself, by experience against any possible repeti- tion of it, he had felt his old tenderness for the beautiful girl revive, and it now resembled an affection which might be securely cherished for the dead. Such being the case, Miss Wynn's likeness to her predecessor, com- bined with astonishing differences in point of aspect and character, had caused him to regard the rat-catcher with a friendly but somewhat critical interest. This did not, however, prove strong enough to detain him from his practical duties, and he was well content to defer any further acquaintance with her till his next visit to Cliff's End an event which could not be distant. A few days ago, for many miserable hours, he had won- dered whether he could ever venture to show himself in that house again. As for Mr. Barton, his glimpse of the new young lady who had looked him up and down so coolly when he encountered her in her aunt's drawing-room, had pro- duced in him a train of emotions widely different from Sir Rawlin's. Lady Susannah, who, as soon as she found 271 AN IMMORTAL SOUL herself alone with him, had conveyed to him Dr. Thistle- wood's hint that in speaking to this sister it would be highly desirable to avoid any reference to the other, was met by him with the curt observation that, from what he had just seen of her, he doubted if he and Miss Wynn were likely to talk much about anything; and then he had plunged at once into the subject nearest to his heart. "I suppose," he said, "you have not heard anything more " Lady Susannah laid a kindly hand on his sleeve. "About Nest?" she said. "No of course not. My dear friend, how can you ask? We don't expect to do so till she's well enough to come back to us. That won't be for three weeks. Enid is to be here instead of her for at least three weeks or a month." Mr. Barton took up the teacup which Lady Susannah had filled for him, stared at it, and then put it down again, apparently unconscious of what his hands or his eyes were doing. Then, with the ghost of a laugh, as if he were addressing the carpet, he said: " Yes, I begin to see light now. Dr. Thistlewood no doubt would not wish me to talk to this young lady about her sister, for fear I should find out what it is he has done with her. He need not be afraid. I am going to be patient for a day or two, and then, when I want information, I will go to Dr. Thistlewood himself. I can promise him that Miss Enid Wynn will not suffer from my attentions. "Don't speak like that about her," said Lady Susan- nah, gently. "Whatever her manners may be, I'm sure there is something good in her; and if she has faults even grave faults as I think she very likely has, you, no less than I, should surely try to help instead of turn- ing away from her. When I feel that I know her a little better I will write to you. If her education has been neglected, think how you might remedy the neglect! She's Nest's sister. That should be enough to recom- mend her to you." 272 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "I was wrong," said Mr. Barton. "I felt hastily and I spoke hastily. If this young lady desires any help of mine, God knows that I am willingly at her service. A great mental strain, like that which I am undergoing now, makes one at moments quite unlike one's self. Yes, write and tell me about Miss Wynn as soon as you have seen a little more of her, and if there is anything I can do for her I will do it, though I have an instinctive feeling that she will not desire my aid. I will only add one thing a thing which I came here specially intend- ing to say to you. You think me impatient, unreason- able -I could see that from your letters. Well, I am going to be patient. I shall do nothing for some days. Then I shall go to Dr. Thistlewood, tell him plainly what my relations with Miss Vivian are, and demand some account of what he has done with her, and of how she is getting on. If he refuses me this information, I start at once for Cimiez. I shall explain everything to her parents, and demand that there be no more mysteries." CHAPTER IV SUCH was the conversation which had, directly after Miss Wynn's arrival, taken place between Mr. Bar- ton and Lady Susannah regarding her; nor had Lady Susannah very long to wait before she was in a position to write to him, according to her promise, and speak of Miss Wynn's character in more definite terms. The girl, on finding that her absence at Lord Cots- wold's castle had really alarmed her aunt, had exhibited a facile contrition which secured her an immediate par- don. Lady Susannah, nevertheless, was inclined to agree with Mr. Carlton when he said to her with uplifted eyes: "My dear Susie, you've got a handful." Nor, as time went on, did she find this opinion modified. The very next morning Miss Enid disappeared again, and this time quite alone, Mr. Hugo being more or less indis- posed in consequence of the dainties he had consumed at Lord Cotswold's table. To-day, indeed, she was punctually back for luncheon; but she had, as it turned out, been by herself to the golf-club, had explained who she was, had paid the required subscription, and had spent a couple of hours in beating and astonishing a professional, who was, she observed, "very nearly a gen- tleman." From time to time, however, her high spirits would desert her, and leave her in a condition of subdued and almost sullen thoughtfulness. Lady Susannah, who no- ticed these fits of depression, viewed them with approval as signs of some latent moral sobriety, and one of them happening to occur that same day after luncheon, she judged the occasion favorable to a little serious conver- 274 AN IMMORTAL SOUL sation. She found the girl in the drawing-room on a sofa, with her eyes half closed, and inflicting an occasional kick on the cushions with a nailed boot. "My dear," began Lady Susannah, "I hope you're not going to feel dull with us," and then went on to question her with regard to her education, her reading, her tastes, and, last of all, her religion. "I'm afraid," she said, "that I'm not clever enough to know what these histories of religion are which your friends seem to have lent you, but I recognize none of the books which I should have thought it would have been right for you to read. I'm very glad, of course, that those nuns did not try to pervert you ; but it seems to me that you've been left with no religious education at all. I should have been pleased myself if I could have seen you in the morning at prayers." "My dear aunt," exclaimed the girl, "I'll come like a shot if you want me to." "I'm afraid," said Lady Susannah, "I'm very, very old-fashioned, and I don't quite understand such lan- guage; but I think that, if you were to come, it would be the right thing for you to do. But I must leave the matter to your own feelings. And now promise me one thing that you won't think of your aunt as a tiresome, interfering old woman." " Rather not," said the girl; and in order to emphasize her meaning she imprinted a brusque kiss on her aunt's somewhat meagre hair. For the time this closed the subject, but at prayer- time the following morning Lady Susannah discovered that her words had not been fruit- less. Miss Enid was present at the devotional rites of the family, and the demeanor of no worshipper could have been more modestly appropriate than hers. After breakfast Lady Susannah drew her aside. "I know," she said, "that you and Hugo are going to meet Elvira O'Brian on the golf-ground, but come with me first for two short minutes into my boudoir. Dear Enid, I was touched and pleased when I saw you at prayers 275 AN IMMORTAL SOUL this morning, and I want to know if you would be will- ing to do one little thing more. You were good enough to listen to me yesterday when I questioned you about your religious training, and I do feel sure that there are many things which you ought to have been taught and which you haven't been. One can't inflict such sub- jects on people against their will, but would you consent it could, after all, not hurt you to see Mr. Barton one day, and let him talk about them, if only for half an hour? He's a very clever and a very learned man. Dr. Thistlewood went to All Saints' on purpose to hear him preach. You'd find him quite different from those ignorant Roman Catholic sisters, or from those sly, fat priests whom I used to see at Mentone. I've always thought it a mistake, although I know it's often done, for the parents of our Church to have their children taught in convents." A slight pucker formed itself between Miss Wynn's eyebrows, and she slapped her rough, short skirt with a pair of loose gauntlet gloves. "Yes, you kind person," she said, at last, "if you wish me to do this I'll do it. Let him come and talk to me at any time he chooses this week or next, morning, noon, or night and I promise to listen. Only let me have fair warning." "I promise you," said Lady Susannah, "that you sha'n't be taken unawares. I'll write to him and ar- range a day." The prospect of this projected interview, if it did not please Miss Enid, did very little to discompose her, and before she reached the golf-course she had dismissed the matter from her mind. There, at the door of the club- house, she and Mr. Hugo discovered Miss Elvira await- ing them. Miss Elvira, who had felt herself lately neg- lected for the new cousin, eyed Mr. Hugo at first with a sort of reproachful wistfulness. On Mr. Hugo's sim- plicity this unspoken language was lost. He felt that Miss Elvira had somehow become a bore, and with genial 276 AN IMMORTAL SOUL frankness he betrayed the fact. But time brought about its revenges. Miss Enid, whom he had hoped to patron- ize during the whole morning, expounding to her the secrets of trajectories and initial velocities, had in an- other moment apparently forgotten his existence. A smart professional had greeted her with a mixture of respect and jauntiness, the latter indicative of some pre- vious intimacy, the former of admiration for her really unusual skill, and she was soon deep in conversation with him, tapping her boot with a rough walking-stick meanwhile. Then from somewhere or other appeared Miss Elvira's father, who, dressed in a suit like a chess- board, and looking for a worthy antagonist, introduced himself by a gleam of his eyes to her, and at once pro- posed a match. Miss Enid turned to the professional. "Samuel," she said, "is he any good? Oh, he is, is he? Well, I don't mind a twosome. I suppose, Colonel O'Brian, we needn't wait for your daughter to tell us who each of us is. Hugo, you and the other girl must look after yourselves. Hi, there, Samuel, I'll take you on to-mor- row again, and between now and then you might look me out another cleek." Poor Mr. Hugo could get no comfort from science; but, a simple philosophy teaching him to make the best of the worst, he returned to his old love with a glow of forlorn eagerness, and realized that she had one charm, at all events, in which her rival was obviously deficient that is to say, her play was distinctly worse than his own. The course of their game was, moreover, en- livened by an incident which enabled her to entertain him with her talents as a social critic. Leaning against a gate-post at one end of the enclosure, scanning the distant players with his large, protruding eyes, and only made aware of their presence by a ball which approached his feet, they came upon the Colonel's distinguished for- eign friend, Count Giordano. "Ha, Miss O'Brian," he exclaimed, "I wish you a 277 AN IMMORTAL SOUL very good-morning! I strolled up here from the town, thinking I might find mon Colonel. What is your dad doing? Lady-killing eh? Or what?" "I don't know about killing," said Miss Elvira, brusquely. " I think it's more likely he's being killed. You're safe to catch him at the club-house as soon as his game's finished." "Well," said the Count, "I won't balk your dad by looking at him, and I mustn't balk you eh ? by mak- ing you stop to talk to me. That would be too dread- ful. But quick, Miss Elvira, look there! You know everybody. Who is that charming person the person in the pale-pink skirt? She reminds me of a certain fair lady I once used to know in Italy." "I'm sure I don't know," said Miss Elvira, with the gravity of one who is struggling to suppress a giggle. " If I were you, I'd go and ask her ; and if you don't want to be hit" here the giggle asserted itself "per- haps you won't mind standing out of the way of my small ball." " Right you are, my lady," said the Count, with a glib smile. " In half an hour I shall be looking out for your governor at the club-house. I know the ways of golfers, and I'm not going to spoil sport." The Count, sidling along the wall, was not many steps away from them before Miss Elvira, who had been ag- ging herself with a crumpled pocket-handkerchief, dis- carded all restraint and exploded in a spasm of laughter. " Oh," she said, " he does kill me! He says that every woman he sees is like some one he knew in Italy. The pater thinks no end of him. But oh, Mr. Hugo, shall I tell you a secret? The other night, when he dined with us, the Count wore an old overcoat, and Sarah you know our parlor-maid Sarah said that in the pocket of it she found what do you think ? A circular about some patent fuel made out of Scotch peat. Sarah thinks he's what she calls a ' commercial ' ; and he told the pater that his mother was the daughter of a chieftain in the 278 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Hebrides. What fun it would be if the pater found him out! And then his impudence! Mr. Hugo, did you hear him? Fancy his talking about the pater as my dad or my governor ! Well, he's gone, thank goodness. So now let us give my ball a little initial velocity." "Eh, O'Brian, you seem to have been in luck this morning," said one of the Colonel's intimates at the club-house when, the Colonel's game being over, Mr. Hugo and Miss Enid had departed. " That was a pretty piece of goods who's been knocking you into a cocked hat." "He always gets hold of the pretty ones, don't he?" said Count Giordano. " Who is the charmer this time ?" "Oh," replied Colonel O'Brian, perspiring with social triumph, "she's a certain Miss Wynn only been here a day or two a niece of that old girl's, Lady Susannah Lipscombe. She's worth two of that relation of hers whom the Count got very sweet on at the ball. No frills; and, by Jove, you can say what you like to her! She did let the damns fly when her ball got lost in a bunker! I'd have walked her home if I hadn't had my own young un here. Now, Miss Pink -cheeks, are you ready to step it?" Mr. Hugo, when once more alone with his cousin, managed for five minutes to avenge her recent desertion of him by a sudden lordliness of demeanor, meeting her remarks on the excellence of the Southquay course with the assertion that no place was tolerable to which com- mon people could get admission. But before long he thawed, and confided to her that at his own home he intended to have a private golf-course in the middle of an enormous park, and that the mansion should have attached to it a magnificent private laboratory. Every- thing, therefore, was sunshine by the time they reached Cliff's End, and they spent the afternoon together in examining some geological charts, in forming a new esti- mate of the antiquity of the human race, and in count- ing the dark spots which had appeared in the cele- 279 AN IMMORTAL SOUL brated bottle, each perhaps destined to be the ancestor of some man or monkey in the future. Mr. Hugo's sci- entific vocabulary was so much more extensive than Miss Enid's, and he illuminated so much that was obvious by means of algebraic symbols, that he now had recov- ered his original moral ascendency, and he finally con- solidated his position by producing an electrical ap- paratus from a box, and passing from the region of speculation to that of detailed experiment. This excit- ing transition was due to the cat Peter, who suggested to Mr. Hugo by miawing for a little attention the repeti- tion of an old operation of his, throwing light upon animal psychology. A piece of liver, obtained through the old butler, was attached to a copper wire, and, being hung over the edge of a table, the pendent delicacy was electrified. At this the cat made a series of enthusiastic leaps, and every time his paws or his nose touched it a comet of sparks leaped out, which amazed but did not daunt him. Miss Enid watched this performance as if she were a child of ten till, repetition having made it in- sipid, she longed for something more exciting. " You've got a Leyden-jar," she said. " Charge it for all it's worth, and we'll give Peter a shock. Now, Mr. Hugo, you try it yourself. Touch the knob. You baby, I don't believe you dare!" Mr. Hugo, thus put on his mettle, unwillingly obeyed her orders, and not all his familiarity with occult forces of nature could prevent his starting from his chair and ejaculating a cry of consternation, while Miss Enid filled the room with a peal of delighted laughter. "Now," she exclaimed, "let's try that on Peter!" Mr. Hugo, though ferocious in his materialism, had a very tender heart. " No," he said " no ; that would make him quite wild, and hurt him." But Miss Enid's will was the stronger, and with awed disapproval, but also with considerable interest, he watched her making her preparations. 280 AN IMMORTAL SOUL " How will you manage to give it him?" he ventured to say, at last. For answer Miss Enid put the cat on the table, gave it a bit of liver, stroked it till it began to purr, and rested an edge of the jar on one of his front paws. The train was laid. An inch or two from Peter's face was a glim- mering brass ball which presently caught his attention, and he mildly approached his nose to it, as though he desired to smell it. In another second the ball and the nose touched. A globule of blinding brightness leaped into portentous existence, Peter sprang into the air as though he had been blown up by gunpowder, and then rushed into a corner, where he cowered, the very image of terror. "Poor Peter!" exclaimed Mr. Hugo, overwhelmed with remorse. " Hugo," exclaimed Miss Enid, " I shall positively die of laughing!" Then the door burst open, and Miss Arundel entered. " What have you two been doing ?" she said, as though scenting wickedness in the air. " You have not been giving Peter a shock, have you? That's your doing, Enid. How could you?" Miss Arundel's eyes blazed, and anger, a rare emotion with her, made a furnace of her kindly cheeks. Her outburst, indeed, was so violent that it ended by saving the situation. "I'm sorry," she said, relenting, " if I spoke to you too crossly. But that really was very thoughtless of you. Please don't do it again." "Nina," said Miss Enid, with a half smile, "you're a dear; and I wouldn't hurt you, and I wouldn't hurt Peter for the world!" So that incident ended; but it opened Miss Arundel's eyes to certain characteristics of her cousin which had, without her being aware of it, impressed themselves on her mind already. Miss Enid's instinct was to be on good, and even affectionate, terms with all the friends, and even all the acquaintances, surrounding her; but 281 AN IMMORTAL SOUL her consciousness of them was, for practical purposes, confined to those on whom, from hour to hour, the in- terest of her life depended. Thus for Lady Susannah she had doubtless a really grateful attachment ; and yet on the morning of the rat-catching she had never given a thought to the natural anxiety which her absence would inflict on this kindly friend. Mr. Hugo she treat- ed in very much the same way. When she wanted him he was her confidential and also her admired brother. At other times he was a forgotten toy. She had no de- sire apparently to give pain to any one, but she seemed unaware that any one could be pained by what gave pleasure to herself. For the rest, her amiability so Miss Arundel thought was almost too indiscriminate. It is true that at lunch that day. after her game with Colonel O'Brian, she observed that the Colonel had some highly objectionable friend with him, whose back and his back was all she saw of his person "gave her the cold creeps." But against this example of discrimina- tion Miss Arundel was obliged to set Miss Wynn's avowed predilection for the company of Sam, the pro- fessional, which, as she observed to her aunt, was cer- tainly " rather odd." Lady Susannah agreed that " odd" was the right epithet for it the word "odd," with such ladies as these, being a veiled and timorous synonyme for the terrible word "indecent." This comparing of notes between them took place that same afternoon, and Lady Susannah, as a result of it, wrote forthwith her promised letter to Mr. Barton. Miss Wynn, she said to him, was at heart thoroughly amia- ble. She was, indeed, even generous. She was, however, wholly wanting in moral training and discipline, never having had, so far as Lady Susannah could make out, any religious instruction from a member of her own Church. " If you take her the right way, I'm sure she will be glad to listen to you. Poor child! she told me so herself. So, if you would name a time at which you could come and see her, I will take care that she is ready for you." 282 AN IMMORTAL SOUL To this communication Mr. Barton's reply was prompt. He wrote: "I will, indeed, gladly come, and do the best I can. I am touched by what you tell me of the underlying goodness of your young kinswoman's disposition. But my visit to her, unless we postpone it longer than I think you wish, will have to take place to-morrow or the day after. I must tell you why. I have seen Dr. Thistlewood. I explained the situation to him. He lis- tened to me I must in justice say this of him with the same quickness and, indeed, the same sympathy of comprehension which he would have shown had I been some nameless patient. But when I asked for news he remained as silent as the grave. On Friday or Saturday, therefore, I am going myself to Cimiez. I can bear suspense no longer. Meanwhile, to-morrow or next day I will call, preferably in the afternoon, at any hour you choose." 19 CHAPTER V THE sense of having been detected in some more or less humiliating delinquency affects different nat- ures differently. Miss Wynn's sense of what had hap- pened to her in connection with poor Peter, if it did not produce repentance, produced a most engaging amend- ment. Lady Susannah noticed at dinner that her whole demeanor was softened; nor the following day did this change show any signs of exhausting itself. She an- nounced, indeed, at breakfast, with a slight wink at Mr. Hugo, designed as a pleasant reminder to him of his admitted inefficiency on the golf-course, that she in- tended to play before luncheon her projected game with the professional. But she no longer spoke of him, with her former familiarity, as "Sam." To-day he was " that brown-eyed man there, who's the best player, by a long chalk, I ever came across in my life." And even from this dissipation it did not take much to divert her. "Hi, Oswald!" she said, happening to encounter him in the garden as she was setting out on her expedition, "you can come along with me if you've nothing better to do. Look here! I'm going to confide in you, and ask you to do me a favor. I tore my arm the other day when Hugo and I were ratting. Dr. Thistlewood did it up, and I want him to look at it again, as the plaster is getting loose. I shall have my game first, else he might order me not to; and you, my dear boy, if you'll be mum, and if you don't mind making yourself useful, may tramp with me as far as the golf-course, and then I'll tell you what. You may go and ring at the castle, and tell Dr. T. I'm coming. Thank you. I knew 284 AN IMMORTAL SOUL you would. You haven't got that pair of obliging black eyes for nothing. I hope Nina's forgiven me showing the cat what a shock is. I did get a wigging, didn't I? Well, step out, for we haven't much time to lose." They had, however, not gone far when two persons caught their attention who, with faces set toward the golf-course, were clambering over a distant stile. " Look!" exclaimed Oswald. " One of those is Colonel O'Brian." Miss Enid looked for a moment, and then she turned sharply round. "No," she said "no. I won't play, after all. My arm really hurts, and I can't stand that man with his odious, staring friends. You go on and just tell the professional the freckled one, Samuel Walker that I'm dead or have small -pox or have gone to bed or to America anyhow, that I can't come. And don't bother about Dr. T. I'll write to him, and go to-mor- row." "You were quite wise, Enid," said Oswald, when he rejoined her on his return home, "in keeping clear of this golf-course. I never saw such a crew as there was this morning at the club-house. I gave your message to Walker, and while I was doing so the Colonel came up and stood listening, and he winked at me and said, ' How is she ?' I pretended not to know what he meant, but the creature wouldn't take a snub. ' My own young un,' he said, 'thinks that the fair cousin is an heiress.' And then, if you please, while this monster was trying to talk to me, I looked round and saw that some of his friends were listening a foreign animal among them, smiling a damned inquisitive smile, as if anything to do with you could have any possible connection with an underbred brute like him. I merely said: ' I'm afraid, Colonel O'Brian, that your information as to the affairs of my relations is considerably more extensive than my own.' " "Well done," said Miss Enid. "I'm glad that you 285 AN IMMORTAL SOUL shut them up. I'm hanged if I ever go and show myself on that beastly golf-course again." "My dear," said Lady Susannah, to whom, in more conventional language, she was before long expressing the same resolve, " I've just had a letter from Mr. Bar- ton, and" she here dropped her voice, for the party were going in to luncheon " I hope the time will suit." The girl gave a nod of placid comprehension and ac- quiescence, and Lady Susannah was again inclined to think that she had represented her to Mr. Barton as more unregenerate than she was. The old Adam, in- deed, remained in complete abeyance till the following day, when it reappeared under circumstances the in- fluence of which was not confined to herself. Lady Susannah, having started after luncheon on a long round of calls and tea-parties, the occasional payment of which was a Christian obligation of her station, her family, Mr. Carlton included, were left to the enjoyment of a subtle sense of freedom which often springs from the ab- sence of those from whom our welfare flows, and tea was to be a familiar feast in the undisturbed seclusion of the school-room. Even before the old butler had begun to bring in the viands Oswald had celebrated the occasion by starting a waltz on the gramophone, and Mr. Carlton, who had once been a renowned dancer, felt that his seventy years had reduced themselves to less than thirty. The result was that, by the time he had eaten his last tea-cake, he desired that the instrument might give them a new performance, and jumping up from his chair, and seeking an open space, he went through a pas seul in a way so vivacious and skilful that even the staid Miss Arundel was dissolved in applausive laughter. He danced, indeed, like a youth in the fancy costume of age, and he did not stop till, his wig giving certain signs of insecurity, he sank into a chair with a lady-like gasp of exhaustion and patted his precarious tresses with both of his ringed hands. "I haven't done that," he panted, "since I did it for 286 AN IMMORTAL SOUL my poor dear princess. Shall I show you how she thanked me?" And he incontinently treated them to a reproduction of a series of royal mannerisms. A rich flush mounted to the cheeks of Miss Enid. "You," she said, "all of you, just wait where you are. I won't be away for a moment." And, so speaking, she disappeared. Five minutes passed, and she was once again in the school-room. If Mr. Carlton had gasped as a conse- quence of his own activity, he gasped now to very much greater purpose. Miss Arundel, Oswald, and Mr. Hugo did not gasp, but they stared. Their new cousin was no longer a girl. She was a charming little Albanian strip- ling with a pistol and a dagger in her belt. A species of kilt just touched her knees, and up to a point some two inches below them rose a pair of scarlet stockings. At first Miss Arundel hardly knew where to look, but, fighting with the impulse to be scandalized, she finally achieved a smile. Miss Enid, however, left little time for any such preliminary criticism. "Now, Oswald," she said, "buck up and move the table. I'll show you a dance which I learned from Roy Fraser, who took the cake three times at the games at Oban." Mr. Carlton watched with enthusiasm the animation of the dancer's body, the naive and gallant effrontery of her rhythmical hands and feet, and her growing abandon- ment to an adventure which, inspired with the soul of mischief, awoke even in Miss Arundel no consciousness of indecorum. To Oswald and Mr. Hugo it was the mischief of the matter that constituted its chief charm; but Mr. Carlton, touched by mundane misgivings, would now and then raise his eyes to the ceiling and murmur: "Well, it's lucky that poor dear Aunt Susannah's out!" The proceedings, however, received a far more drastic check than any which Mr. Carlton would have been competent or indeed even wished to impose on them. Just as they were reaching their climax the door was 287 AN IMMORTAL SOUL abruptly opened by old Berry, the butler. For a mo- ment he looked round him, not seeing Miss Enid any- where; but at last, recognizing her in the strange appari- tion before him, he managed to articulate: " Mr. Barton, miss, has called to see you. Would you wish him to be shown in here?" "Not for the world!" exclaimed Miss Enid, growing sober and self-possessed in an instant. "Good Heavens I'd quite forgot! No take him to my sitting-room. Offer him some tea, and tell him I'll be with him di- rectly." Oswald and Mr. Hugo looked at each other, very much more delighted with this end to the dance than they had been with the dance itself. Miss Enid already was more than sober; she was reflective ; yet she could not refrain, as she turned to leave the room, from giving Mr. Hugo one of her slight fraternal winks. "I must," she said, "before I see him, get a fresh piece of sticking-plaster. That scratch on my arm is beginning to hurt like blazes." Mr. Barton, meanwhile, had been taken to the little room up-stairs which, during Miss Vivian's occupation of it, he had visited only once, but of which he still re- tained a recollection vivid in its solemn tenderness. His heart, when he entered, ached with a desolating sense of difference. The same chairs and tables were standing in the same places, but most of the books were gone and the little feminine ornaments. On the largest of the tables lay a novel called Market H arbor ough, a treatise on spectacular dancing, and a pocket-book full of fish- hooks. The prie-dieu in the corner was laden with num- bers of the Field newspaper, and by it was a pair of wading-boots which Miss Enid had thus far found no occasion to use. At last he saw, as a solitary relic of the absent, the violet back of the carefully bound confirma- tion manual, which he had given to the elect disciple, lying under a magazine called Sport. He saw and suf- fered ; but he had within the last few days become once 288 AN IMMORTAL SOUL more his own master, calmly prepared to use, in the ser- vice of any soul, whatever powers might be his of in- tellect, of knowledge, or persuasive spiritual sympathy. Indeed, his consciousness of these powers, whether pos- sessed by him as a man or as a priest, was on the present occasion more lofty and more distinct than usual. Presently, from the room within, his new catechumen burst on him. She was still in her Albanian outfit, and was holding, pressed against her skin, a broad strip of sable sticking-plaster, which, from one of her wrists, ran some way up her arm. From Mr. Barton's face an austere though not un- gentle gravity disappeared for a moment, but only to give place to amazement. "I'm afraid," she said, very graciously, "that I can't offer you my hand. I've scratched, or rather cut, my arm, and the plaster has not quite stuck yet." Mr. Barton, whose amazement was untinged by any- thing like offended primness for the vulgar trivialities of mere prudery were unknown to him bowed, looked her up and down, and said, with a half-smile: "Positively, I did not know you." " You find me," she said, placidly, "in a rather uncon- ventional get-up. I was showing my cousins a High- land dance down-stairs ; and then this beastly old scratch began hurting, and I had to see to it; and I haven't stopped to change, because I didn't want to keep you waiting. But I know what I'll do: it won't take me a second." She retired to her bedroom, and directly afterward reappeared, carrying on her arm a dressing-gown of thin, dark cloth, on the gilt buttons of which was the mono- gram of a well-known hunt. "If you," she said, "would kindly give me a pull-on with this, you'll find that I look then rather less of a guy-" Mr. Barton performed this office with a courteous but dry adroitness, as though, his first surprise being over, 289 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the incident were beneath his notice. If any surprise was left it had migrated to the features of the girl, and was not, perhaps, quite unmixed with some furtive traces of disappointment. Anyhow, her person assumed, when enveloped in this new garment, an aspect of ma- ture and almost severe sobriety. "Now," she said, "sit down, won't you? My aunt, who is goodness itself, was very anxious that I should see you; and really, Mr. Barton, it's equally good of you both to trouble your heads about an unprofitable creat- ure like me. I sha'n't, I'm afraid, stand very high in your estimation; but still, I may tell you honestly, it will interest me much to listen to you. I've seen so little of this sort of thing before." CHAPTER VI THE perfect propriety of Miss Enid Wynn's language and the suave seriousness of her manner surprised Mr. Barton even more than the strangeness of her late appearance, and in some subtle way he could not tell what disturbed him more. "Well," he began, quietly, "I'm not here to talk gos- sip, so I'd better plunge at once into what I have come to say. I presume that, nominally at least, you belong to the English Church?" "Well, you see," replied the girl, "I've been brought up and lived abroad, and the English Church there isn't quite what it is here. When I was a youngster I went to school, you see, at a convent, faute de mieux." "Yes, yes," said Mr. Barton; "that happens very often; but your aunt tells me that the sisters didn't make a Romanist of you. I may also presume," he went on, with a faint smile, "that you're not a Wesleyan or a Baptist or a Plymouth Sister. So I think I may take it that your Church is the presumable Church of your father, though you have, as I take it also, not been very well instructed. Anyhow, there are some things in which all Christians agree, which even children know, if they are not absolute heathens, and about which even the most heedless children must at times think seriously. For example, no one knows better than a child what con- science is. It hears in it that voice of God which Adam heard in Eden, troubling it when it does wrong. Chil- dren know that God made both the world and them, the dust of their bodies, and the souls which for a few days or years are cloaked in it; and they know that when 291 AN IMMORTAL SOUL this dust is puffed aside, as it will be, they will go, for good or evil, naked into God's presence; and though they partly desire His presence for they love their Divine Father they partly fear it, for they know how often they have offended Him. But for Christian chil- dren this terrible fear has its antidote. They are taught how God, out of His infinite love for each of them, sent His Son to take all their sins upon Himself, and to wipe out all their stains, and to bring them to His arms par- doned. You are you must be as well aware as I am that Christians of all denominations agree as to these simple points; and I presume they are as familiar to yourself as, in all Christian countries, they are to the humblest ploughboy." The girl, who had, with slightly contracted brows, been drawing geometrical patterns on the back of the book on dancing, looked up when he paused, and said, nodding assent: " That's correct enough. In what are called Christian countries most children I myself was one of them are still taught as much as that." Mr. Barton felt that at last he had found a starting- point. The girl, if not very responsive, was at all events serious and intelligent. He accordingly went on to ex- plain to her, in a matter-of-fact way, that the great truths of religion had one sort of resemblance to the things and laws of nature. A child could understand that fire would burn its finger, or that a clock on the wall would tumble down if it were not for the nail that held it. These facts it could grasp as well as the most profound philos- opher. But these isolated facts were parts of a great system; and as children grew up, and had to grapple with the world themselves, it was necessary for them to learn how these natural facts were connected. With re- gard to supernatural facts, the case was just the same. These, as we grew up, had to be grasped by us as parts of a system also ; and of this spiritual system the Church was at once the exponent and a part. She carried our 292 AN IMMORTAL SOUL knowledge back to the beginning of God's dealings with man, and to the origin of all our faults and weaknesses, and gave to each of us, through her sacraments and otherwise, renewed strength to overcome them. " I may add," said Mr. Barton, "that the Church, for each one of her children, is a conscience beyond a con- science. The conscience of the individual may sleep, but the conscience of the Church never sleeps. It is a constant reminder to all of us of the four last things things more certain for all of us than the dawn of to- morrow morning or the publication of to-morrow's news- papers: Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell." " I was," said the girl, quietly, after a certain interval of silence, " looking the other day into a little book that I found here a little book about confirmation." "Indeed!" said Mr. Barton, unable to suppress a sigh. " I am glad to hear you say so." "Of course," she proceeded, "you must know what that book says, for you've given it, I see, to somebody with some very illegible initials, who was, I suppose, once instructed by you; and the sort of things which that little book says they seem the sort of things which I remember to have been told myself." "Ah," said Mr. Barton, "so you have had some in- struction, after all! Yes, you are right. There is noth- ing in that book which you would not be taught by any Catholic instructor, no matter of what communion." " Well," said the girl, " since you've been good enough to come here and talk to me, you won't mind my asking you one or two straight questions. Where's the little book got to? It's there. Do you mind tossing it to me? Well, Mr. Barton, in the first chapter I find this. Let me read it out: ' How is it that we come to have a bad nature ? Because Adam sinned, and lost his like- ness to his Creator, and, having lost it, could not trans- mit it to his children. Thus, even a little baby, though it may not have done anything wrong, is born with a wicked nature. It is unable to do anything good.'" 293 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "Certainly," said Mr. Barton. " I remember the pas- sage well." " And then," she went on, " comes a long bit about the devil; and certain bad dispositions in us, such as sloth, anger, and gluttony, are specially mentioned as the devil's characteristic work." " I'm glad to see," said Mr. Barton, " that you've been reading the book so carefully. You know more than I thought you did. What are the difficulties about which you desire to ask me?" "Well," said the girl, looking up at the ceiling and picking her words carefully, " it's this way. You see, in Italy and France I suppose a good half of the lower classes, and most of the women among the upper classes, are under the thumb of the priests, who natter them up or frighten them, and they take all this about Adam and the devil literally; but educated men don't. Now I want you, if you don't mind, just to tell me how it is in England?" "How what is in England?" asked Mr. Barton. "I don't quite follow your train of thought. Take your time. See if you can't put it clearly." "Well," said the girl, with a curious smile, "I'll try. Except for two others and they didn't count for much you're the first English clergyman I ever met in my life. As for the rest. I only know what I've heard, but I know that some of them are in some ways exactly like the priests abroad. If they could, they'd prevent di- vorce; and if any man married a divorced woman, they would, if they could, ruin the lives of both of them, and treat them as if they were thieves or murderers. I know so much from the case of two of my best friends. But I won't let fly about that, or I might say something I should be sorry for; and, besides, it's not that which I have in my mind now. Look here what I want to ask you is this. You are the first Englishman I ever heard talk about religion, and you're clever and learned, so my aunt says, and have written very learned books. 294 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Well, do you, as an educated English clergyman it sounds awful cheek for me to be asking you this mean, when you give people books like this little confirmation manual, that things like Adam and the devil are to be taken as downright facts?" "Your question," said Mr. Barton, "is a legitimate one. I will pass by certain remarks with which you mixed it up, and for the moment we will keep to that. I am glad to think I can help you by solving your very natural difficulties. Everything depends on what we mean by downright facts. The sceptic of to-day, know- ing nothing of history, thinks that such difficulties are new that he, with his own cleverness, has been the first person to discover them, and that they are overwhelm- ing. It will perhaps surprise you to hear that the early Church saw them just as clearly as he does saw them, and saw through them. As St. Augustine has clearly shown, we are not bound to believe, and the Church does not teach us, that Adam's sin was the actual eating of an apple, or that the personal Spirit of Evil took the actual form of a snake. The Church teaches us only that Adam, the common father of us all, injured his own nature, no matter how or where, by some act of a de- liberately perverted will, that our natures have been corrupted through his, and that the personal Spirit of Evil was mysteriously accessory to his fall. So much we are bound to accept as facts, unless we are to accuse God Himself of lying to us through His own Word. We believe these essential facts, but they have been told to us through symbols or allegories. What remains of our difficulties when we look at the matter thus? Just as our own bodies prove both to you and me the existence at some time of the bodies of our immediate parents, so the discord in our own spiritual natures show that at some time or other our first parent sinned. God's reve- lation is confirmed by our natural common - sense. And as for the devil, we are aware of him every day, when- ever temptations to sloth, anger, intemperance, or what 295 AN IMMORTAL SOUL you will, beset us. "Why, then, should we doubt his activity in the remote past? Are you satisfied now? Or would you like to ask me something more?" The girl leaned back in her chair and again looked up at the ceiling, as though she thought and spoke more readily when her eyes did not meet those of her ques- tioner. "And so," she said, at last, "that's how the land lies, is it? I mean, that's how you and the Church in this country look at things? Well, Mr. Barton, it's very good of you to have come and have taken the trouble to put it all so clearly. Thank you ever so much. I understand quite enough. Would you have a cup of tea? I should only be making a mess of it if I said any- thing more." Mr. Barton looked puzzled. "You understand quite enough!" he exclaimed, with a slight smile. "Why, my dear child, thus far we've only touched on the rudiments the things every child starts with. You're keeping something back. Let me hear it. I sha'n't be able to help you unless you will tell me everything." "Do you really mean that?" asked the girl. "Can you," said Mr. Barton, dryly, "suppose any- thing else? If I were your regular spiritual director which I am not, at least not yet I should not only ask, I should order you, to lay bare every perplexity which lurks in the recesses of your mind." "Well," said the girl, "if what I say doesn't please you, you mustn't blame me that's all. Since you order me, I'll obey orders. I'd better begin by telling you just how I've been educated. I haven't had much schooling not since I left the convent; but I've known one or two of the cleverest men in France, and I knew some clever men in Egypt, too, and they liked teaching and showing things to a kid; so I've picked up a good few of the facts that are generally known. Well, Mr. Bar- ton, if you will have the exact truth, here goes. When you talk to me about Adam as a man who was originally 296 AN IMMORTAL SOUL perfect, and who then suddenly did something it doesn't much matter what which put him out of order himself, and the whole human race along with him, and about a devil whether he was a snake or no who managed to make him do it; and when you talk about the book of Genesis being the grounds on which we be- lieve this, because Genesis, even if only an allegory, is God's own Word put by Him into the mouth of Moses when you talk in this way you might, so far as I am concerned, just as well be talking about old Deucalion's stones, or the dragon's teeth of what's-his-name, or be telling me that the earth is held up by an elephant and the elephant held up by a tortoise. Why, in Egypt Mr. Barton, please don't interrupt me I've seen imple- ments that were ten thousand years old before the Church makes out that Adam was born or thought of. And when you talk about the first man having been perfect, and then having committed a sin I have been taught that the first man Dr. Gonteau has a model of his bones which were found in Java that the first man was a creature you could hardly have distinguished from a monkey. And then, Mr. Barton, about anger and all that what I've been taught is this, that men are angry, not because of the devil, but because what we call anger is a kind of protective instinct, without which no species could have survived in the struggle for existence. And as for the origin of sloth sloth comes from a bad liver or else a relaxing climate. And then, look at hounds. One hound's a bad feeder, another's what you call a glutton. Do you think the devil keeps a staff at the kennels ? That's how I've been taught to look at things. The murder's out at last, and I'm sure you think I'm not fit to stay in the room with any longer." Mr. Barton, however, showed no inclination to go. On the contrary, he seemed to be bracing himself for a far from hopeless struggle. " I suppose," he said, with an icy but not an unfriendly sarcasm, "that your preceptors, who seem to have been 297 AN IMMORTAL SOUL writers for the cheap rationalist press, forget to notice that men differ from hounds in the trifling particular that they are possessed of immortal souls." "Yes," she said, "that's just it. If you really believe in an immortal soul at all, I suppose you can believe anything." Mr. Barton's answer somewhat surprised his hearer. "Certainly," he said, with an assenting inclination of the head; "of course you can. Do but reflect on the miracle of your own soul's existence, and you'll soon realize, if you honestly desire the truth, that nothing which the Church teaches is in itself incredible. I don't despair of your finding the Light yet. But I must con- fess you poor, unfortunate child that you're not at present very fit to become a candidate for confirmation, which, I think, is what your aunt would wish you to be." "Oh," said the girl, "confirmation! She may make herself easy about that. Bless you, I've been confirmed already. I'm rather confused about time, but ever so many years ago." "You astonish me!" exclaimed Mr. Barton. "And have you ever been to holy communion?" "I very nearly didn't," she replied, "just to spite that old image of a priest who made me sick with his twaddle about the month of Mary. But the sisters seemed to wish it, and they weren't bad creatures, so I went. I shouldn't do so now. It would make me feel too much of a fraud. Besides, why should I ? There'd be no object in it." The last words, said with perfect simplicity, made Mr. Barton for the moment completely lose his bearings. He rose as though he would leave the room, but he did not. He stood looking down at her. Nothing of him stirred but his lips, which twitched with anger. Then with an effort, which invested him with a curious dig- nity, he forced himself into another mood. "And so," he began, in words whose calm had a pain- ful quiver in it, "you see no object in approaching in 298 AN IMMORTAL SOUL receiving what words shall I use? the body of Him who died for you? Unhappy, most unhappy girl you are without a Saviour I might almost say without a God I might almost say without a soul so you are determined to think till the day comes when you will be called on to face all. You will then know that you have a soul, which the hound has not a soul eternal, indestructible, responsible for every act and thought a soul for which Christ suffered, but for which for which I will pray, for at present I can do nothing else, that He may not have suffered in vain. And for what have you blinded your eyes to all that is most real in existence to the only things that will exist when this world of brute, lifeless matter shall have passed away like a shadow? You have blinded your eyes, you have abandoned reverent knowledge, for the sake of all igno- rance which may flatter your foolish pride, and call itself by the names of science and scientific history, but which really is as ridiculous for the educated human intellect as the fetish-philosophy of the most abject savages even though two of the cleverest men in France may profess it. Before I go, let me ask you have you noth- ing more to say to me?" "Yes," said the girl. "I should like to ask you one more question. Would you, like the priests abroad, if priests had everything in their power, prevent divorce ? Or, if divorced persons married, would you treat them as outcasts and set all the world against them?" " I have no objection," said Mr. Barton, " to answering you. The Church accords no treatment to divorced per- sons who marry, for in the eyes of the Church no such persons exist. Marriage being indissoluble, real divorce is impossible, and if those nominally divorced contract a nominal marriage they are no better than those shame- less ones whose very name I shrink from pronouncing to you." "Thank you," said the girl, with a sudden gleam in her eyes. " You needn't be squeamish. Among the ao 299 AN IMMORTAL SOUL shameless ones are my own parents. Yes it's just as I thought. Clericalism in England is the same as cleri- calism in France. Why don't you shut your eyes so as not to see a child of shame? Yes shut them do, for I've still something more to say. I believe people are married who suit each other, and as long as they suit each other, and the law imposes conditions on them for the sake of social convenience because of children and family property; and priests pretend otherwise, and talk about mysteries and sacraments, only because they want always to be getting the whip-hand of everybody, and they want to frighten everybody ; and they dress up a lot of bogies called sins, or the four last things, hoping that people to-day will still take these scarecrows seri- ously. That was all very well for them once, but now they're being found out. You talk about the four last things. People know now that for themselves there's only one last thing that's death ; and that for the uni- verse there's no last at all. You tell me I shall live again, and then find out my mistake; and as soon as I hear you say this, you expect me to shake in my shoes. You might just as well tell a diseased potato that it would live again, and then find out that its disease was its own fault, and be roasted forever in consequence before some ever- lasting stove. Nature makes us what we are, just as it makes potatoes; and when you ask me to believe that a bishop by feeling my head with his fingers, or shaking his silly ring at me, can make me any better or any worse than I am, or that a priest has anything to do with the rights or the wrongs of marriage, you might as well ask me to do what they did in the French Revolution stick up what you would call some shameless one, and worship her as the goddess of reason. I can tell you this you must remember that I speak by your order: if you want me to worship any individual whatever, I'd far sooner worship Dr. Gonteau or Dr. Thistlewood than " "Silence!" exclaimed Mr. Barton. "I forbid you to say a word further." And there was something in his 300 AN IMMORTAL SOUL manner by which the girl was cowed. " I will not," he continued, " ask you to consult your conscience, for you say you have none. I will only remind you that a lady, whatever her religious views, is usually sorry if she has insulted and given acute pain to an invited and a friend- ly guest. I would fain be your friend still, though no good purpose would be served by my remaining with you longer now; and if for some time to come I make no attempt to see you again, my reason is not that I re- sent your demeanor to myself personally, but that to- morrow I am leaving England for a somewhat uncertain period. You will not wish to shake hands with me; and I fear that at this moment I could not bring myself to touch yours." "Mr. Barton, look here," cried the girl, as the priest was disappearing through the doorway, "if I hit you below the belt, I'm sorry; but you should not have put my back up and pitched into my parents. It's not you I hate, it's the system you represent. Damn him, he's gone. These idiots always put you in the wrong if they can, and then run away like cowards, thinking they've bowled you out. Anyway, he won't be here to get me into a row, and when he comes back I'll let him have it again." Mr. Barton escaped from the house, sick with a sense of horror, as a man might be who for the first time has seen a human being killed or befouled by some loath- some pestilence. The general fact that a moral and in- tellectual rabble, abetted by men like Dr. Thistlewood and the excavators of bones at Southquay, were foment- ing all over the world a rebellion against God and Christ, was for him so familiar that it filled him with a chronic and contemptuous animosity ; but except in the persons of such men as Dr. Thistlewood, who were chance and distant acquaintances, and who veiled their absurdities by discretion, he had never had a bodily encounter with the accursed thing before; and now its fangs had been darted at him from the lips of a young girl. The memory 301 AN IMMORTAL SOUL of her blasphemies seemed to lick him like tongues of flame. Sometimes his heart, as he thought of her, grew hard as flint ; sometimes it was almost broken ; and then in the middle of his perturbations one thing came sud- denly back to him the words which had passed between him and her as to marriage. If she were a child of shame, what was his own loved one ? And was not he personal- ly preparing to throw himself on the good-will of those parents whom he had allowed himself so justly, yet per- haps unadvisedly, to denounce? Such reflections sad- dened but they did not daunt him. They exhausted themselves in a prayer " Lord, help me to rescue her from their unhappy hands." By the earliest train next morning he was to start on his pilgrimage to Nice. CHAPTER VII THAT evening Miss Enid was curiously silent. To Lady Susannah this seemed an excellent symptom, and she said to her on the landing, as they both were on their way to their bedrooms: " I hope, my dear, that you got on well with Mr. Bar- ton." "Yes," said the girl, demurely. "I told him every- thing perhaps even more than I had meant to do." Lady Susannah took her by the hand and kissed her. "Good-night, dear Enid," she said. "I am very, very glad. Sleep well, my dear." This last injunction, however, Miss Enid did not obey. The image of Mr. Barton haunted her and drove rest from her pillow. Had he lost his temper and stormed at her, her feelings would have been less acute. It was his self-control that exasperated her, his tone of unper- turbed superiority, his daring to speak about orders which conceivably it might be his duty to impose on her. "This solemn jackanapes," she said to herself, "talking the twaddle of his grandmother, and pre- suming to tell his dear child how the world was made, when there isn't a gamin in a state school who doesn't know ten times more about the origin of the world than he! This thing of cassocks and petticoats shaking his Adams and his sacraments at me, as if they were a baby's rattle he to pronounce his judgments on my father, my mother, and myself! He to pronounce an opinion on what his dear child ought to do or ought not to do! I'll give him," she thought, "by the time he gets back, something or other to pronounce upon ! 33 AN IMMORTAL SOUL I'll make him sit up! He shall see if he can direct m*\" Here was resolve at last, which had the effect of sooth- ing her, and, shorn of certain exaggerations, it was fresh in her mind next morning. Directly after breakfast, with a new light in her eyes, she drew Mr. Hugo into a corner and held him in a whispered conversation, of which Oswald was somewhat jealous till he happened to catch a few words of it, and gathered that it had reference to some species of mechanical invention. Whatever the secret was, Mr. Hugo was visibly delighted with it, and Oswald heard him say : " Yes, of course, you could hire one; but if I were to have one of my own, I should not expect to get it for less than fifteen hundred pounds." "Well," said Miss Enid, "you must do the best you can for me. I sha'n't go out till it comes. I'm sick of that rotten golf-course and the sort of people you meet there. I don't mean Sam. I mean the men who call themselves gentlemen, like that creature with a cringing back I've seen another back like it who wanted, so Oswald tells me, to know if I was an heiress. Sam's worth the whole boiling of them." The following day at luncheon Mr. Hugo's face was so troubled by futile efforts to suppress an important smile as to bring to Oswald the certainty that something or other had been accomplished; and the mystery of the plot was destined very soon to reveal itself. The meal was drawing to its close when the quiet of the old- fashioned room was broken by certain sounds which Lady Susannah took for the trumpetings of a brass- band at the door. She was expressing this view when Miss Enid, who was listening with grave intentness, ex- claimed, jumping up from her seat: "Mr. Hugo, it's come! it's come! What fun, Aunt Susannah! We must go to the door to look at it!" "It?" repeated her aunt. "What do you mean by 'it'?" 304 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "Oh," said Miss Enid, rapidly, "the motor I've hired for a fortnight. Didn't you hear it tootling ? I can al- most smell the petrol. I'll take you to Plymouth and back in it before you can say ' knife.' " Lady Susannah felt much like the proverbial hen when she sees the duckling hatched by her first take to the water. She was soon, however, at the front door, to- gether with the rest of the party, and there, with a man attached to it, pale of face and habited in black leather, stood a long and powerful car which would accommo- date some five passengers. "Does she run all right?" said Miss Enid, with a nod of freemasonry to the man. "Sweet as can be," he replied, with the usual taci- turnity of his class. "Now," said Miss Enid, "who's game for an outing? Don't all speak at once. You, Aunt Susannah? You, Cousin George ? I won't have you, Oswald. You look much too superior. Well, settle it among yourselves, and I'll take her down the drive and back again just to see how she climbs the hill." " My dear!" exclaimed Lady Susannah, horror-stricken by the sight of her niece, who was already in the driver's seat. " You are not going to try to manage that thing yourself! And without a hat, too! George, do you think it's right?" "Bless your heart!" said Miss Enid, "I drove a car in the race last year between Cannes and Toulon." The man, who meanwhile had got the engine in mo- tion, hereupon took his place at her side, and the vehi- cle, performing a very adroit evolution, swept away from the doorstep and vanished between the walls of laurel. "I do hope," gasped Lady Susannah, "that nothing dreadful will happen to her." "I hope so, too," said Mr. Carlton; "but there's a terrible corner at the bottom." These alarms, however, were not of very long dura- tion. Before five minutes were over a hooting was 305 AN IMMORTAL SOUL again heard, and the car burst from the laurels and arrested itself at the door-step panting. No sooner had this happened than a certain change was perceptible. The professional mechanician had been relegated to a back seat, and the seat next the driver was occupied by Sir Rawlin Stantor. "He was coming to call," said Miss Enid, "so I just made him jump up." The cordial welcomes with which Sir Rawlin was greeted, together with the obvious fact of Miss Enid's proficiency as a charioteer, combined to repress all further comments on her recklessness. Orders were given that the car should wait at the door, and Sir Rawlin was brought in to the sound of many reproaches for his late remissness in visiting Cliff's End and its oc- cupants. He explained that of late his time had been taken up with addressing electors in the outlying parts of the constituency, and that he had, moreover, been engaged in some personal canvassing also. " How soon," asked Miss Enid, " do you mean to have another go at it?" Sir Rawlin replied that he intended that same after- noon to call on some electors in a fishing town about ten miles distant. "Oh," said Miss Enid, "you just come with me. I'll rattle you to Jericho and back in less than no time, if you want it. And look here, Oswald you've some- thing to say to him about your embassy. You can come, after all ; and of course, Mr. Hugo, you. The more the merrier. Now, Sir Rawlin, are you afraid?" Sir Rawlin declared, with a laugh, that he had never been afraid of anything, and matters were actually ar- ranged in the way that Miss Enid had suggested. Sir Rawlin stipulated only that her pace should not be illegal, and that she should not kill his constituents be- fore they had had time to vote for him. Oswald, who had heard from Lady Conway that she would be back at Southquay for Easter, was no longer so anxious as he 306 AN IMMORTAL SOUL had been to start for Constantinople immediately, and was able to enjoy the expedition without ulterior ob- jects; while Mr. Hugo, who was engaged with a stop- watch in timing the vehicle by the mile-stones, and pub- lishing the results to his companions, almost felt as though he were himself the inventor, and talked about cranks and cylinders, carburetters, gears, and batteries in a manner so abstruse and impressive that the mecha- nician was struck dumb. Every one, in short, was de- lighted ; and as for Miss Enid herself, she presently found other excitement beyond the exhilaration of driving. She discovered in Sir Rawlin an extraordinarily agree- able companion. With a happy adaptability he made her vocabulary his own; and exhibited so fraternal an interest in her sports, her escapades, and her opinions, that she not only told him how, on the occasion of her visit to Egypt, she had ridden into the desert astride, and dressed up as an Arab, but also revealed in confidence the details of her encounter with Mr. Barton, "who," she add- ed, "thank goodness, has, I hear, popped over to France." Nor did matters end here ; for when they reached their destination and Sir Rawlin introduced himself to some fishermen who were lounging about the quay, she in- sisted on sticking close to him and listening to all he said. Presently she began making friends with these weather-beaten strangers on her own account, and her ready indignation at everything which they seemed to regard as grievances had, so Sir Rawlin assured her, secured for him more adherents than all the opinions or promises set forth by himself. In the shop of the prin- cipal draper she was no less successful. Sir Rawlin and the man, who was a Methodist, were discussing religious education, when Miss Enid, who was seated on the counter, interposed with a "Yes that's right. Don't knuckle under to the priests. Sir Rawlin knows their tricks every bit as well as I do." "I wish," said Sir Rawlin, as they were returning, "that I had you for a canvasser." 307 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "What!" she exclaimed; "do you mean that? I'll tell you what, then you shall have. I suppose I must pick up a bit of the lingo first, but I'll drive you about and listen. I sha'n't be long in learning." " Well," said Sir Rawlin, laughing, "if your aunt makes no objection, and if you bring these cousins of yours, or Mr. George Carlton, as a chaperon, I should often be ready to say, in your own language: ' Done with you.' " The result was that during the next few days Miss Enid Wynn, in her motor, driving the Conservative candidate and accompanied by one of her cousins, be- came a frequent sight in Southquay, though a com- plication of veils, and occasionally a pair of goggles, would have made it difficult even for Lady Susannah to recognize her. All the voters whom she addressed from shopkeepers down to knots of workmen suppos- ing her to be a relative of Sir Rawlin's, and not knowing her name, were delighted with her. On anything male she had the knack of bestowing an attention which had something in it of individual flattery, and was totally different from the condescension of any general gra- ciousness. All this had its advantages. At the same time it had its drawbacks, which Sir Rawlin explained, in answer to a question of Dr. Thistlewood's, when, be- fore things had gone far, he was dining at the Turkish Castle. "Miss Wynn," he said, "though a crude, is a very acute young lady much more so than one would fancy when first one hears her speak. She picks up political arguments as quickly as she does scientific; but she's too great an aptitude, when she talks to any voter who is not decrepit, for turning his head in addition to his prospective vote. One can see what happens from the way in which she speaks of it afterward. 'The man,' she will say, ' with the curly hair told me this ' ; or ' The man with the mole on his cheek and the laughing mouth told me that.' And I caught her indorsing her satisfaction with the views of an auctioneer's clerk by a parting 308 AN IMMORTAL SOUL shake of the hand which was certainly of needless length." "It's possible," said Dr. Thistlewood, "that I may, one of these days, have something to confide to you about the young lady myself." "She's going to take me," replied Sir Rawlin, "to a distant village to-morrow, but after that I must man- age to dispense with her sendees." Sir Rawlin felt that to do this without wounding her feelings might be difficult, but circumstances unfore- seen by him relieved him from all embarrassment. The visit to the village had been accomplished and had proved satisfactory, but the girl herself had shown no wish to quit the vehicle. Her aspect also had under- gone a certain change. She had discarded her veils ; she was wearing a chauffeur's cap; and this, together with a frankly masculine coat buttoned close under her chin, transposed her, for the ordinary observer, into the like- ness of a fresh young man. Except for a remark that a man's dress was much more comfortable than a wom- an's, she made no allusion to this change in her attire until the outlying lamp-posts of Southquay were once more drifting past them. Before them was a long, white road running close to the sea, and bordered by an as- phalt trottoir, which was dotted with groups of pedes- trians few and far between. Suddenly the girl slack- ened speed, applying the brake with such vehemence that Mr. Hugo behind was thrown from his seat with ignominy. " Find me my goggles," she said to Sir Rawlin. " Quick, please. I see in front of us that dreadful Colonel O'Brian, with one of his dreadful associates, and I don't want to have them staring at me." The goggles were found and affixed with great rapid- ity, the car meanwhile crawling. The speed was recov- ered, but it had not become too great by the time the Colonel and his sauntering companion were passed to prevent Miss Enid, bold in her safe disguise, from re- 309 AN IMMORTAL SOUL turning their careless stare with one, considerably keen- er, of her own. "That Colonel," she said, "makes me sick, and the creature with him is worse. Look here, you" this was addressed to the mechanician "you drive her the rest of the way. I'm tired, and will go behind." From that day forward her enthusiasm as a canvasser ceased. Sir Rawlin was only too well pleased to accept her explanation that the excitement of the work was too much for her; and, indeed, when he heard, as he did hear from Dr. Thistlewood, that for a couple of days subsequently she had not appeared in public anywhere, he was for the moment inclined to accept this explana- tion as correct. When a few more days had elapsed he saw reason to reconsider his opinion. Early one afternoon she arrived at the Turkish Castle, where Sir Rawlin happened to have been lunching, her object being to secure from Dr. Thistlewood some treat- ment for her wounded arm. This Dr. Thistlewood very promptly applied in the room which contained his gramo- phone and his other sets of apparatus; and the gramo- phone in especial having attracted his patient's notice, he proposed that she should commit to it some utterance of her own and enjoy the experience of having it given back to her. Sir Rawlin and Lord Cotswold were sum- moned, in order that they might be present at the per- formance, and Sir Rawlin, drawing her aside, suggested in a confidential whisper that she should speak into the receiver an account of her duel with Mr. Barton. The girl started slightly, but did not appear displeased, and the others, though ignorant of the event to which Sir Rawlin alluded, begged that she would do in earnest what had been asked of her half in joke. "Well," she said, "don't any of you give me away. Come, Dr. Thistlewood, stick me in the right place. How must I speak? So? All right. Here goes, then. My good aunt, who fancied I was a bit of a heathen, wanted me to see that tame cat of a priest of hers; and partly 310 AN IMMORTAL SOUL to please her for she's an awfully good sort and part- ly to see what an English priest was like, and whether he were really of the same breed as the rest well, I just said I would." So she began, in tones placid enough; but as she proceeded her memories of the scene de- scribed seemed more and more to excite her, and she spoke of Mr. Barton and the things which he held sacred in language compared with which what she had actually said to him was mild. If it had not been for the agree- able modulations of her voice, which gave to what she was saying a certain air of burlesque, Dr. Thistlewood himself would have felt that the exhibition was painful. "Thank you," he said. " You have given me a very interesting document. Here is the special little box in which I shall preserve your record. And now, young lady, I've got something else to ask of you. I've heard about your famous motor, and I should like to have a drive in it myself with you. Which day will you take me?" The girl frowned. "Will the end of- the week do?" she asked, after some reflection. " I believe I shall be free then, and I'll take you, if you like it, to the other end of nowhere." "Then that," said Dr. Thistlewood, "is an engage- ment. Look, Lord Cotswold is speaking to you. Would you like to go with him and see the outside of the house ? He'll show you the great crack made in the wall by the lightning." She assented to this proposal with alacrity, and when she and her guide were gone Dr. Thistlewood addressed Sir Rawlin with a face graver than usual. "You're lucky," he said, "in having got rid of your canvasser. That young woman is a very remarkable person. You, it is probable, only half understand her. You told me yourself a few odd things with regard to her. I can tell you some others, and I think I may as well do so. She's no more fit have you ever suspected this ? to be trusted with a man especially a man some- AN IMMORTAL SOUL what below her in station than a child is to be trusted with a box of matches and gunpowder. My nurse here, who went with Miss Vivian to Malvern, was my first in- formant. She told me that Miss Wynn, driving a motor alone, has more than once been seen to pick up some pedestrian in each case a well-dressed male whom she happened to overtake in one of the country roads, and has carried him off with her on a drive of unknown duration. One of these males was Martin, a clerk in an auctioneer's office. Another was a farrier from Win- combe. But that's not all. There's a man staying in this town who calls himself an Italian count, and who has managed to get some access to what here calls it- self society. Of this gentleman I believe that I know something. My Italian servant has been inquiring about him at the Italian pastry-cook's. If I am right, he's an impostor of the vilest kind. At all events he looks it, for I've passed him twice in the street. Well, it appears that this man is the last of the favored group that Miss Enid Wynn has been taking with her on these famous country excursions. She met him, apparently by appointment, at a place about three miles off, where the road crosses the railway, and the man who has charge of the gates it's odd how these things come round to one declares that the same man, walking with a military gentleman, the gates being then shut, had accosted the same young lady there two or three days before; that a sort of scene ensued because she declined to engage in conversation with him, and that she nearly knocked him down with her car as soon as the gates were opened." "Good Heavens!" exclaimed Sir Rawlin. "Why, that must be the very man a friend of Colonel O' Brian's the very man whom she passed in the road when she was driving me home from a meeting. She had out her goggles the moment she set eyes on him, and when we went by him she stared I remember noticing this as though she were not quite sure whether he were an old 312 AN IMMORTAL SOUL acquaintance or no. From her conduct directly after- ward I now conclude that she recognized him, and had every desire that he should not recognize her." A curious smile formed itself on Dr. Thistlewood's lips. " I felt sure I was right," he said, with a slight nod. " I am, as you are aware, in the confidence of the young lady's family, and of the family doctor also. So for that reason, and perhaps for others, my mouth is sealed about some things. Could I only tell you all I know, and all I suspect as well, you would be both surprised and interested. Anyhow, Sir Rawlin, you may be really thankful for this: that Miss Wynn's aberrations have nothing to do with you. I only hope that they may give no trouble to her excellent relations here. About that I am not so sure. I shall do my best to pre- vent it." CHAPTER VIII WHATEVER Miss Wynn's faults in other respects might be, she was, at all events, true to her engage- ment with Dr. Thistlewood. Alone in her motor, the mechanician having been left behind, she reached the Turkish Castle at the hour and on the afternoon ap- pointed, and greeted him with a smile, as he did not fail to observe, the unusual composure of which had a hint in it of malicious triumph. "I told you," she said, "that by this time I should be free. I am; and I'm game to drive you to any mortal place you wish. What do you say? You want to go in the direction of Stoke Abbot ? Well, if we do that I must put on some new goggles. They cover one up better, for the dust on the Stoke road is simply enough to smother you." He noticed that, while in the town, she avoided the more frequented streets and drove with almost needless caution; but, even so, faces would be turned to look at her, expressive of a mystified and semi-derisive interest. "It's a pity," Dr. Thistlewood began, as soon as they were out in the country, "that you don't happen to be standing for the Southquay Division yourself. From various little things I've heard, and from what I have seen just now, I gather that you've made a greater sensa- tion here than the man who is the actual candidate." The girl looked at him quickly. "Do you mean that for a sermon?" she said. "Your tone is like Mr. Bar- ton's. I hope you're not going to remind me of that double-distilled idiot. Look here, Dr. Gustav, have some of the fools been telling you that I drive too fast ? AN IMMORTAL SOUL I've only knocked down one child I wish it had been a certain man but the brat wasn't hurt a bit; and I also went over two dogs and a chicken. But in each case I made things right on the spot. The child cost me a fiver little blubbering fool. I say, has any one been making complaints to my aunt? Please, if they have, tell her I've a bee in my bonnet, and that nothing I do means anything. Don't preach any more, but say where you want to go. Three roads branch off on the other side of the railway crossing. I shall take you at a rush past that, for I can't bear being hung up there; so hold on for all you're worth." "I will ask you," said Dr. Thistlewood, "to take the first turning to the left. I've studied the map, and I know how the roads run. That one goes to a place which I'm very anxious to see a town on the bor- ders of Dartmoor, with many curious buildings. King's Hampton, its name is. We can ask the way farther on, if we're ever in any doubt about it." "King's Hampton," said the girl, frowning. "That's a rotten sort of place to go to, if the guide-books tell the truth. Still, if you've set your heart on it, I don't care. Why should I? We can just spin through the town and come back by another road." Dr. Thistlewood hereupon let the subject of their destination drop till the old-fashioned market-town, overlooking a wooded valley, came in sight, with its mellow red - brick houses and the huge tower of its church, beyond which slopes of moorland ascended tow- ard a realm of crags. The girl at this point was be- ginning to quicken her pace, as though bent on giving King's Hampton as little of her presence as possible, when Dr. Thistlewood observed that his reason for wish- ing to visit it was his interest an historical interest in one of its public structures. "Well," said the girl, "structures are nothing to me; and if there's anything I hate, it's waiting in a country street where every child in the place comes buzzing 3*5 AN IMMORTAL SOUL round the car like a blue-bottle. If you want to look at your structure, I'd sooner wait for you here. I sup- pose half an hour will do you, and I promise not to run away." Dr. Thistlewood assented, declaring that his project- ed exploration would probably be accomplished in a time even shorter than that named by her. His esti- mate was justified by events, and in less than half an hour he was again seated by her side. "I did not," he said, as they started on their home- ward journey, "find that King's Hampton was a rotten little place at all. Many of the houses looked to me particularly interesting. I went into only one of them. It was called the Lion Hotel. It was built in the reign of King William and Queen Mary. Under these sov- ereigns some strange events occurred in it. I had learned that from one of the guide-books. Another strange event has occurred in it during the reign of King Ed- ward. I learned that from rumor, but I wished to be satisfied as to its accuracy. It appears to be really true that a young lady of some position, driving a motor whose number has enabled certain gossips to identify her, brought a stranger to this hotel a man of curious aspect and gave him luncheon in a private sitting- room with a very fine plaster ceiling. The gentleman, who drank a bottle of old Burgundy and expressed him- self in a foreign language, became so excited at one stage of the proceedings, and stamped with such vigor on the floor, that the maid, approaching the door with an apple- tart in her hands, thought there was going to be murder and cautiously called the landlord. By the time the landlord appeared the violence of the quarrel was sub- siding; but both the listeners heard the young lady bring her guest to order by some threat spoken in Eng- lish, the meaning of which was that she somehow had the whip-hand of him. I got this out of the landlord, and I managed to make light of the matter by telling him that the young lady was a foreigner, and that the man a 316 AN IMMORTAL SOUL disreputable cousin of hers, obliged for political reasons to escape from his own country had been trying to extort money from one relative after another, and had come to Southquay in order to victimize her. 'It's a pity,' I added, 'that he hasn't committed an offence against the laws of England, for then we could shut him up.' " Dr. Thistlewood fancied but he could not be quite sure that he heard his companion mutter be- tween her teeth, "He has!" "I was happy to find," he continued, "that mine host both accepted my explana- tion and was disappointed by it, and a little present which I made him will, I think, have the effect of pre- venting the spread of any gossip which will do much harm to anybody." The girl's face, during the course of Dr. Thistlewood's narrative, had gradually clouded ov r er, the color on her cheeks had deepened, and she had affected an unnatural preoccupation with the management and mechanism of the car. At last, without turning to her companion, she said, in a low and constrained tone : "You're a ripper! though you don't know one-half, nor even a damned quarter, of what you're talking about. Why," she continued, presently, as if repenting of her magnanimity "why didn't you say what's true that I met that man at the golf-club? Damn these stones! They tear one's tires to pieces. You've heard every- thing wrong. What right have you to meddle? How did you hear what you did hear?" " Hear it !" said Dr. Thistlewood, with a laugh. " There was not much difficulty in hearing it. It will be all we can do to prevent your aunt hearing it also. But this is not all I've heard. There's an auctioneer's clerk called Martin. You had a little flirtation with him in the office, when you played at canvassing. Your driv- ing that man into the country with you was an act of incredible folly. When you look back over certain past events, don't you think so yourself?" " I dare say it was silly," the girl answered, ungracious- AN IMMORTAL SOUL ly. "But what harm does it do me? Thank God, I'm not dependent on the tittle-tattle of Southquay trades- men, though you, it appears, consider their conversation interesting. My driving that man Martin was only a bit of a lark ; and the same thing is true about that other man whom I met with old O'Brian on the golf-course. Your friend the landlord will bear witness that I knew how to put him in his place. And, damn it all, Dr. Thistlewood, why should you put your oar in? When Dr. Gonteau told you I'd been a bit off color, and he and my people asked you to bring me to Cliff's End, I thought you were a brick. You made everything easy. I never fancied you would turn into a second Mr. Bar- ton, and preach to me. I'm as strong as a horse now, and can manage my own business. Have I lost my nerve? Watch me as I dodge between those two carts." " I am not preaching you a sermon," said Dr. Thistle- wood, "on the ten commandments. Except for your own sake, and so far as I am concerned personally, you would, if you broke the whole of them, be only the more interesting. I am preaching to you, for your own sake, on the eleventh 'Thou shalt not be found out'; or, if you like it better, 'Always keep an eye on the con- sequences.' Look back, as I said before, on certain past events. Have they been barren of consequences from which, at this very moment, you would be glad enough if a friend like myself could shield you ? Think it over, and don't speak till you've done so." An expression of doggedness, mixed with sullen, ob- scure anxiety, had been gathering on the girl's face, and it was not until they had turned into the main road to Southquay that either of them spoke again. She, how- ever, more than once had stolen a glance at Dr. Thistle- wood, and had noticed, with a growing irritation, that he seemed to be unconscious of her existence unless, indeed, it were some thought of herself that fed his eyes with the light of a half-cynical smile. AN IMMORTAL SOUL At last she could stand it no longer. "Well," she said, "what's the matter with you? Do speak out, and have done with it. What are those mysterious con- sequences, and what are those past events? You are surely not still making a Mont Blanc of a mole-hill I mean because I lunched with that man I've forgot- ten his very name by this time whom I met on the golf - course and snubbed when he became imperti- nent? I never want to set eyes on his beastly face again." "I am glad," said Dr. Thistlewood, turning to her, "that you have taken my advice, and thought. You say, however, that you have forgotten the name of the impertinent gentleman in question. Myself, I am quite familiar with it. Do you may I ask, since you talk about past events remember a street, older than the Lion Hotel, and perhaps even richer in associations, called the Via Caterina? In that street is an Albergo, frequented chiefly by Italians. And do you also this is taking you rather a long jump remember another inn at a place called Tarbat? Tarbat is in one of the Hebrides. It is well known for its homespuns." The girl made no answer, but the car suddenly swerved a little. It swerved for a second only, and her hands regrasped the steering - wheel. The force with which they seemed to cling to the wooden rim was remark- able. " In the books of those two inns," Dr. Thistlewood continued, presently, "certain facts are recorded. They are these." He stooped toward her, and said some- thing to her in a measured undertone. The girl's feel- ings were already highly strung, and the last word of this communication caused her to give a violent start; but the words which followed were not addressed to her companion. " Hi, you there!" she shouted to the driver of a baker's cart in front of them, "what the hell do you mean by not sticking to the right side of the road?" AN IMMORTAL SOUL "For Heaven's sake," exclaimed Dr. Thistlewood, "look out where you're going!" He had hardly time to speak before the girl, agitated by her own emotions, had, in an effort to avoid touching the cart, run her right-hand wheels on to a road-mender's heap of stones. The car was not capsized, though the resulting shock was considerable, the driver with in- stinctive skill restoring it to its normal course; but in executing this manoeuvre she failed to see that in front of her was a second vehicle, which had been hidden from observation by the first a large wagon laden with pro- truding fagots. Again her instinctive skill saved her from a direct collision, but some of the twigs, or rather branches, struck her violently on the face, tearing the goggles from her face, slightly scratching her cheeks, and throwing her, with a lurch, against the body of the man beside her. Luckily the car by this time was as- cending a steep hill. "Quick!" said Dr. Thistlewood, laying his hands on the steering-wheel. "Change places at once. I can drive as well as you can." The girl turned on him a pale, consenting look. The change was effected, she was hardly conscious how, and, subsiding into her new position, she pressed her hands to her eyes. "Are your eyes hurt?" he asked, curtly, but not un- kindly. "The scratch on your cheek is nothing." She removed her hands and looked at him, like a child obeying orders. " I can see you," she said. " Damn it, I'm not blind!" She spoke with intelligence, but yet with a certain apathy. "Listen," said Dr. Thistlewood. "Do you think you can understand what I am saying to you? I'm not going to frighten your friends at Cliff's End about you. I shall tell them one thing only that some sticks in a wagon hit you that your eyes are inflamed that you've had a severe shaking that you will have to be kept and 320 AN IMMORTAL SOUL looked after in a dark room for a week and that, in- stead of taking you home, I have, on my own respon- sibility, committed you to the care of a nurse at the Turkish Castle, where I shall myself be able to watch you from day to day." CHAPTER IX "\/OU may," said Dr. Thistlewood to Lady Susannah, J a few days later, "be quite easy in your mind about Miss Wynn. She has suffered no damage not even a scratch which nature and a darkened room won't very soon have cured. The wonder is she was not killed. One thing, however, my dear lady, is plain she mustn't come back to you. If she did, there's no knowing what mischief she would be up to next. About that matter her father is quite determined." "Yes," said Lady Susannah, with an odd, whimsical smile, "I have heard from him myself also. I don't think I could, with the best will in the world, be re- sponsible for her much longer. You'll allow me to come, won't you, and see her before she goes? There'd be something so forlorn in her slipping off without a word." Dr. Thistlewood shrugged his shoulders. "Well," he said, "in a day or two you might do that, if you wished it, but she's not yet in a mood for any family inter- views. She knows she has made a fool of herself, though her obstinacy won't admit it; and you may take the state of her temper as evidence of her physical strength. I honestly believe that the kindest thing you can do is to let her go off quietly, without what she would feel as the humiliation of any parting scene, and she can say her adieus to you and thank you I'm sure that she wishes this through me." " If that's still your opinion when the time for her de- parture comes," said Lady Susannah, with kindly re- luctance, "I'll be guided by it. I see your point. What 32? AN IMMORTAL SOUL seems the unkind thing is sometimes really the kind- est." "And now," said Dr. Thistlewood, "I think, though I'm not perfectly certain, that, without raising false hopes, I may tell you something that will please you. Miss Vivian, from what I have learned this morning, seems on the road to her own recovery also ; and I hope it may be my pleasant office, when I have seen Miss Wynn off safe and sound on her journey, to bring Miss Nest back to you equally safe and sound. I can't name the day, but it won't be very far distant." Lady Susannah's face lit up with pleasure. Her mis- givings with regard to Miss Enid disappeared from her consciousness, and when she communicated to her fam- ily the prospect of Nest's return a spirit of pleasure and excitement diffused itself through the entire house. Days, however, went on, and, so far as Dr. Thistlewood was concerned, nothing further was heard of this de- sired event; but one morning, from quite another quar- ter, Lady Susannah found herself the recipient of news relating to it. The news came through a letter, and the writer of the letter was Mr. Barton. He wrote: "DEAR LADY SUSANNAH, I thank God very humbly for the light which He is now permitting to shine through my doubts and darkness. You will, I believe, understand the conflict of feelings with which I prepared to approach, in the mood neces- sary for the occasion, a parent whose marriage is no marriage in the eyes of any true Christian. When I called first at their villa Captain and Mrs. Vivian were absent, but were expected back shortly, so I waited at Cimiez for their return. At last I saw him. The ways of the human heart are wonderful. It seems to me that his errors have been due to weakness. He is kind and generous to the poor here. It is grievous to think that he cannot work with the Church. This thought grieves me. He received me with perfect courtesy, and when I had finished my explanations he treated me with a kindness which brought tears to my eyes. He told me that my wishes had his entire ap- proval. There, however, he stopped short; for when I asked him where she was, he absolutely refused to tell me. I ought here to admit one thing. The father's reticence shows me that 323 AN IMMORTAL SOUL I was wrong in my suspicions that all this mystery was of Dr. Thistlewood's making. Captain Vivian himself insisted that till his daughter was absolutely recovered no friend was to write to her or approach her or hold any communication with her whatsoever, or find out where or how she was being treated. But while this conversation was in progress a singular thing happened Captain Vivian received a telegram. As he read it a change came over his whole expression. He handed me the telegram to read, and what do you think it was ? ' Recovery of N. V. in a few days almost certain. Will bring her back to Lady S. probably in course of week.' The telegram had no signature. I presume it was from Dr. Thistlewood. I did not even think of asking. Thank God thank God! If possible, I shall start by earliest train to-morrow, hoping soon to see you all again, and to take my thankful part in our own Easter services." The following morning, not long after breakfast, Dr. Thistlewood himself inquired for Lady Susannah, and she saw from his face that he brought with him some in- telligence. "Miss Vivian will be back," he said, "before the end of the week. As for Miss Wynn, please be guided by me, and don't attempt to have any parting scenes. She doesn't wish it herself. Leave her to me and the nurse, and suppose that she has gone already. And now, my dear lady, I can't tell you any more, for I'm on my way to the station. I have to be in London for a night, and I'm travelling with our friend Sir Rawlin. Have you seen the morning paper? He's in Sir Rawlin is in with a five-hundred majority. I dare say that, with these domestic anxieties, you'd forgotten that the poll was yesterday or that there was to be an election at all." "I am," said Lady Susannah, "indeed, delighted to hear that for our own sakes, and for his sake too. Sir Rawlin was devoted to Nest, and you know what he's done for Oswald. We've hardly seen him lately. I suppose he hasn't had much time. And now, before you go, I should like to show you a letter. I'm not be- traying secrets, for I know you are in the writer's con- 324 ' AN IMMORTAL SOUL fidence. The telegram he mentions was, I suppose, sent by you." Dr. Thistlewood took a rapid survey of Mr. Barton's closely written pages. "Yes," he said, "the telegram was mine. Poor man, I had divined his secret long before he confided it to me. Don't you think he may find that he's reckoning without his hostess?" "No," replied Lady Susannah, "I assure you you're quite wrong there. Nest has told him quite plainly I had this from himself that her feeling for him was the same as his for her. They quite understand each other. There's no doubt about that." " Indeed !" said Dr. Thistlewood. " That interests me. I suppose this confession took place let me see if I can guess when. Was it on the afternoon of the day after Lord Cotswold's party, when the invalid had had a temporary recovery and came down-stairs for a little? It was was it? I thought so. Well, we shall see what happens. I hope that everything will turn out as he wishes. And now, good-bye. Most likely when we next meet I shall be bringing the young lady with me." Mr. Barton, while his affairs were being thus discussed, was already approaching Paris the happiest and the gravest passenger on the slow train called a "rapide." The French Riviera had at one time been well known to him. On his outward journey he was blind to all its remembered beauty; but its blue skies, its aloes, and the sparklings of its white houses, seen through the windows of his carriage, as he started on his way home, shone for him like the celestial city, and were charged with a prom- ise which he never had known of old. He looked out in the glow of the dazzling noon at the ancient towers of Tarascon, remembering bits of building which he had himself once sketched, or fixed his eyes on some far-off mountain sanctuary to whose immemorial pieties his heart made a new pilgrimage, thinking that some day he might kneel there with another life beating at his side. 325 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Then, as he sped northward, and cypress and olive van- ished, and Gothic spire and pinnacle showed above half- fledged branches, he saw himself bringing at Whitsuntide his bride-elect to her confirmation. Then would follow the day of her first communion, and then, a week or so later, the sacred rapture of marriage, with a voice from Eden breathing through pointed English arches. It was midnight when he reached South quay, and he remained, after a hasty supper, for a long hour in prayer. The act of prayer itself, he found, had acquired a new character. No less intense than formerly, it was accom- panied by a less painful strain. Approaching the feet of his Master hand in hand with the loved one, her love seemed to surround him, and his Divine Master also, with an atmosphere of reconciliation altogether strange to his experience. Lines of poetry some of them from Shelley, the unbeliever mixed themselves with his orisons, and became a congruous part of them. Next morning when he went into the garden, before the dews were dry, the air and the fresh scents went through him with their promise and welcome, and with bent head, and in words almost articulate, he ejaculated: "Lord, Thou hast married me to Thy creature, the Spring, also." He even found himself repeating lines which to him had before been meaningless: " What are all these kisses worth, If she kiss not me?" Trivial things tread on the heels of the serious. They did so in Mr. Barton's case when, before sitting down to breakfast, he handed a note to his maid-servant which informed Lady Susannah of his arrival, and which he desired that a messenger might take to Cliff's End at once. He was not much given to casual conversation with his attendant, but often, when he had, as now, returned after some days' absence, he would ask her how she was and whether there were any news. He did so on the present occasion as he put the letter into her 326 AN IMMORTAL SOUL hands, expecting nothing but a smile and the custom- ary formal answer. The smile, indeed, came punctually, but it was at once much broader and more charged with meaning than usual, and was followed by news of a very definite kind. "You won't have heard, sir," she said, "what's been going on at Cliff's End." Mr. Barton in general discouraged all private tale- bearing, but necessity knows no laws, and he hastily ex- claimed : "No. What?" "Why, since you've been away, sir," said the maid, who needed little encouragement, " the young lady who's been staying there has set everybody in the place talk- ing. She began by going about with Sir Rawlin Stantor canvassing, till he couldn't stand it no longer. She was hand and glove, they say, with all the young fellows in the town, and she took Martin, the auctioneer's clerk, and some others, and an outlandish foreign nobleman, quite alone and loverlike, for jaunts with her into the country; and she nearly smashed the car for 'twas all done in a motor when the strange doctor was with her, and she hurt her eyes I don't think she was blinded and was taken to the Turkish Castle to be under the doctor's care." Mr. Barton contracted his face into an expression of appropriate disapproval, under cover of which he said, quickly : " And is the young lady at the Turkish Castle still?" The maid replied that she did not know for certain, but had heard "as how the young lady was to be took away." "When I saw her," said Mr. Barton, "I thought she was likely to be rash. I trust that nothing serious has happened to her. Very well, Susan ; you will give that letter to Richards. And stay did the organist come here to see me yesterday?" 327 AN IMMORTAL SOUL The intelligence which he had just heard was, in one way, not displeasing to him, since it showed how per- verted principles translated themselves into monstrous acts; and the annoyance caused him by what seemed at least the chance that Miss Wynn might be in the neighborhood still, real though it was, was slight. She had, in any case, left Cliff's End, even if Miss Vivian had not actually come, and there was, he felt convinced, no danger of her returning. For the rest, the thought of all those indecent follies merely renewed, and indeed gave a sharper edge to, the indignation which she had originally aroused in him by the atrocities both of her mind and language. An insult to things and beliefs which they hold supremely sacred affects such men as Mr. Barton like a blow struck at themselves, except for the fact that they hold themselves bound to avenge, not pardon it. Had there been an Inquisition in Eng- land, Mr. Barton would have been an Inquisitor, and Miss Wynn might well have been in danger of the dungeon, if not the stake. The Inquisitor's bitterness, however, sank at once into abeyance when a tray was presented to him, on whose black japanned surface lay a letter from Lady Susannah her prompt answer to his own. He received it with the reverence due to some gift from heaven. Its contents, though not quite all, were nearly all he had hoped for. "Enid," it said, "who was finding this place too dull for her, received the other day a shock when driving herself in a motor-car. She only just escaped what might have been a most frightful accident. Dr. This- tlewood, who has some rooms which he has furnished for future patients in a wing of the Turkish Castle, is taking her under his care till she leaves, and will bring back Nest to us at the earliest possible moment, as soon as poor Enid has taken her departure for good. This will probably be to-morrow, or at latest the day after. I will send you a note as soon as I know for certain, and I believe I shall be doing right though I cannot be 328 AN IMMORTAL SOUL quite sure in arranging that you shall meet her at the very first opportunity." There was one phrase here which gave him some slight disquiet. What did Lady Susannah mean by saying that "she was not quite sure " ? It was obvious, he said to himself, when he had thought the matter over, that Miss Vivian's extreme youth, and the chance of her thus not knowing her own mind, had been troubling Lady Susannah with scruples, which in her case were natural enough, but which were to himself ludicrous. The ob- ject of his love had, with the perfect candor of inno- cence, made an avowal of her feelings for him even be- fore he had dared to ask it, and the only temptations to any change of mind which might threaten her were merely such physical weaknesses as would call for a hus- band's aid. Throughout that day, which he gave up to parish busi- ness, he was agitated by what he knew to be the pre- mature hope that the post or a messenger would bring him another letter summoning him to Cliff's End at some stated hour to-morrow; but night came without any such letter reaching him, and, waking early next morning with a lover's pleasurable restlessness, he found himself sallying forth toward the well-remembered path by the sea, where he and Miss Vivian had indulged in their first intimate conversation, and his personal attach- ment to her had troubled him with its first obscure pre- monitions. His shortest way to this path lay down a sloping field, from the higher parts of which the turrets of the Turkish Castle could be seen on one side and the ilexes of Cliff's End on the other, and from both homesteads silvery streaks of smoke were beginning to go up toward the blueness in the wake of the singing larks. All the youth of the world and all the purities of the spirit blew up to Mr. Barton from the bosom of the morning sea. Like Wordsworth, "he read unutterable love" in everything. The seaward path, toward which he was descending 329 AN IMMORTAL SOUL slowly, hidden though it was at intervals by gorse bushes, clumps of trees, and the irregular configurations of the ground, was nevertheless visible to him for the larger part of its course. He fancied, as he looked, that he could almost identify her footprints at certain places which he associated with certain words of hers and cer- tain expressions of her face. There she had quoted Shel- ley to him ; there a little farther on some uplifting of the spirit had brought tears to her eyes; and there he had given her his gifts the incense and his Secret Way. All these memories now tingled with happy promises not for to-day, perhaps, but for to-morrow, or the day after. He could afford to wait, since waiting seemed itself to be such an act of rapture. Experiences of this kind are enhanced by, if they do not always require, those conditions of silence and se- clusion which Mr. Barton was now enjoying. His feel- ings, therefore, suffered a momentary though not a very serious disturbance when he suddenly realized that from the direction of the Turkish Castle two figures were mov- ing along the path which he was about to join, the one following the other at a distance of some dozen yards. Both were women. The hindmost of them was evidently of a sober age, and moved with a determined and not very elegant stride. The other, as evidently, was young; she had the gait of a lady, and, in accord- ance with a tendency very common among expectant lovers, to see the expected object in any distant figure of the same age and sex, Mr. Barton was visited by what he recognized as the fantastic idea that the foremost of these matutinal wanderers was none other than Miss Vivian herself. To this idea, like most lovers under similar circum- stances, though he did not accord it his belief, he sur- rendered the control of his actions, and hastening his pace he made for a small thicket which the seaward pathway traversed, and from which, if he could reach it soon enough, he would be able, without exposing him- 330 AN IMMORTAL SOUL self, to observe the grotesque difference between his fancy and actual fact. His activity was such that he was hidden in a shelter of firs and brambles just at the moment when both the figures observed by him were approaching a difficult stile at a level somewhat lower than his own. For a minute he could see neither of them, but he heard with extreme distinctness the elder of the two calling out to the younger: "I really can't allow you to go a single step farther. Dr. Thistlewood's orders were that I was to bring you back by nine. And you've been and put on those things which I told you not to wear. You know that they're not yours. They were left in the wardrobe by mistake." At the mention of Dr. Thistlewood's name Mr. Barton started violently, and shifted his position so as to see who the speaker and her companion were. The speaker was evidently an attendant who had some kind of au- thority, and the person addressed Mr. Barton could hardly believe his eyes. It actually seemed to him that his wild idea was true; for the person addressed, unless his senses were playing him false, was the living image of Miss Vivian. Surprise paralyzed him. He stared again to see if he was not deceiving himself. Then his heart sank, and he felt that he had been his own dupe. The hat and coat she was wearing he knew them only too well. They were those worn by Miss Wynn on her arrival in her aunt's drawing-room. He had never seen such articles on the person of a lady before. What madness could have induced him to take this girl for her sister? He looked once more, and then he understood the reason. Her hair, which she was accustomed to wear so ar- ranged as to suggest a boy's, had now been crimped and curled in close imitation of Miss Vivian's, and had thus given to her face the likeness which had deceived his fancy. He also noticed that the edge of a braided skirt, which appeared below her coat with its large masculine buttons, closely resembled one which he remembered AN IMMORTAL SOUL Miss Vivian wearing. It was doubtless to this garment that her companion had just alluded. So Miss Enid Wynn had not yet gone, after all! But what, he began to ask himself, was the meaning of these new oddities? His mental question was interrupted by the sound of the girl's voice. " I had to come out," she said, in a tone which was not distinctive. " I couldn't find some of my own things, so I took what I could lay my hands upon. And look here is it necessary for me to keep this on any longer ?" "Oh," said the woman, reassuringly, "you're worry- ing about that, are you? No. Dr. Thistlewood said particularly that that was to come off now." Mr. Barton moved forward for an inch or two in order to see what fresh point was at issue. The girl was lean- ing against the stile, and one of her hands was resting on the topmost bar. From the wrist, for a distance of some inches up the arm, Mr. Barton recognized the long strip of black sticking-plaster like that which, as he well remembered, Miss Wynn had been fixing in its place when the character of the costume in which she appeared before him had only astonished him less than the con- versation that followed it. In a moment an illuminating thought made him feel that he had solved the riddle. This girl, Miss Wynn, before finally quitting the scenes of her recent misde- meanors, was preparing to cover her retreat with one last reckless prank. She was going to revisit Cliff's End dressed up as Miss Vivian, and convert the welcome that would meet her into the comedy of a new farewell. In all probability her part was being now rehearsed. Ex- cept for the hat and coat, her disguise was complete already. In the course of the morning these defects would be doubtless remedied, and then, unless she should be hindered, the play would be played out. No wonder, so Mr. Barton reflected, Dr. Thistlewood was anxious that these sisters should not meet, and that one of them should not arrive till the other was safely gone. As to 332 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the trick itself, Mr. Barton, though he had no humor in him, could yet imagine that fools might find in it food for laughter, and the idea of it having once occurred to him caused him no surprise. Degrading as it was, there was morally no great harm in it. It might, moreover, never be carried out, and for various reasons he felt no call to interfere with it. One of these reasons was a re- luctance, now intensified, to come into personal contact again with this girl whom his presence might exasperate into fresh blasphemies; and a fear that if, as during the course of the present day, he should call at Cliff's End to hear when Miss Vivian was expected, Miss Wynn might still be there in the act of deceiving the family, made him resolve that his visit should in any case be put off till to-morrow, by which time the possibility of any such incidents would be over. All at once it occurred to him for he was naturally a most honorable man that, in lingering where he was, he was playing the part of an eavesdropper, and that nothing would justify him in remaining to hear more. He accordingly managed to withdraw himself to a dis- creet distance, his movement being favored by a hedge, and, feeling that to look was more legitimate than to listen, he presently satisfied himself that both the sub- jects of his observation were taking their way back again in the direction of the Turkish Castle, and that he, on his homeward course, would be safe from the attention of either of them. Meanwhile, at Cliff's End preparations were in happy progress for the absentee's return. Dr. Thistlewood him- self made his appearance in the morning, and, closeted with Lady Susannah, gave her various hints, which he requested her to communicate to her family, with regard to the manner in which her niece should be treated ; nor was he content till he had interviewed Miss Vivian's maid also, securing attention to his orders by a very handsome gratuity. Of Miss Wynn he merely said: "We couldn't get her off our hands quite as soon as 333 AN IMMORTAL SOUL we had hoped to do ; but every trace of the accident has by this time disappeared, and her father will assure you, should you wish to make inquiries though I don't ad- vise you to do so, for I think it would only trouble him that for some time at least she'll get into no more mis- chief. As for Miss Vivian, I shall meet her and bring her, when we reach Southquay, to the Turkish Castle for an hour or so a step I could not take before and then drive her over, and restore her to you, late in the after- noon to-morrow." The whole of the following morning Miss Arundel and the discreet maid devoted themselves to the task of getting Miss Vivian's rooms in order. Her boxes were unpacked; her clothes were disposed in wardrobes; her books were taken from their hiding - places and ar- ranged in their old stations. Even the box of incense again stood on the chimney-piece, and the properties of Miss Wynn, from her wading-boots, her fish-hooks, and her sporting novels upward, were relegated to their old receptacles, ready to be forwarded, when necessary, as her parents or Dr. Thistlewood might direct. Late that evening Mr. Barton received a letter from Lady Susannah, which threw some light on the nature of Dr. Thistlewood's communications with herself. She wrote : " DEAR MR. BARTON, At last I have good news for you. Dr. Thistlewood called this morning and told me certain things which throw some sort of light on the nature of Nest's late ill- ness, and which, when we talk to her, he wishes us all to remem- ber. Like most people, he says, who have suffered in the same way, she has no idea of the time for which her illness has lasted. It seems to her to be no more than a week. Indeed, she fancies that during this supposed week, except for the last two days, when she was taken away for change of air, she has been kept at the Turkish Castle, where she fell asleep, as you know, di- rectly after the thunder-storm. It all seems very odd and mud- dled, but Dr. Thistlewood says that there's nothing in it at all unusual. He says, however, that at first the right thing is to humor her and accept what she appears to think, and not puz- 334 AN IMMORTAL SOUL zle her by making a fuss about it. For this reason he has put off her return till to-morrow, for he wants, before bringing her here, to take her to the Turkish Castle, where some of her things have been sent, so as to keep up the illusion. You will, I am sure, agree that the little deception is harmless. I tell you all this so that you may do what we are doing, and avoid saying anything which might show how long she has been unwell really. .You would probably wish that your first meeting with her should be private, so I will not ask you to be here on her ar- rival. I will tell her, unless I hear from you to the contrary, that you will call to inquire for her the day after, at your usual hour; and, of course, I shall not hint at any suspicion on my part as to your intention in coming or her expectations in re- ceiving you." CHAPTER X EST, my dearest Nest!" such was Lady Susan- nah's exclamation when, gently pushed forward by Dr. Thistlewood, Miss Vivian made once more her appearance in the Cliff's End drawing-room; and Miss Arundel and her brothers, together with Mr. George Carlton, who, from motives of economy and affection, was condescending to prolong his visit, each added a contribution to the general chorus of welcome. As Mr. Carlton afterward put it, in his own elegant language, " she stood there as if she were just out of a bandbox, all slimness and e"cru, with her coat caught in at her waist, and her delicious little black gloves match- ing her crisp black hat, whose distracting brim had a curl in it like a breaking wave." For a moment she hesi- tated with a laughing apology in her eyes, as though her absence and illness had been due to some fault or folly of her own. A moment later her aunt's arms had been round her, Miss Arundel had made a maidenly peck at her cheek, she was drinking a cup of tea, and was no longer a stranger. In the opinion of all her friends she had never been looking better, and in honor of the occasion Dr. Thistle- wood, though not dressed, was readily induced to re- main at Cliff's End for dinner. Lady Susannah was not slow in divining that one of his reasons for doing this was a wish by his own behavior to set an example of how his late patient should be treated. He did not fail to say that she had made a very rapid recovery, nodding to her pleasantly over a glass of champagne as he did so, but his tone and manner made light of her whole malady, 336 AN IMMORTAL SOUL and his sole further allusion to it was not expressed di- rectly, but only implied in his telling, and inviting others to tell her of various events which had happened while she was, as he said, " laid up." Nor was she, as she sat among them in her tea-gown, whose rosy silks whitened round her throat and wrists in a foam of lace and chiffon, a spectacle to invite condolences. One of the pieces of news which gave vivacity to the occasion was that Os- wald's departure for Constantinople was now definitely arranged, on hearing which she forthwith discomposed him by an allusion to some of his romantic Eastern sketches. " You will soon yourself," she said, " be mak- ing love in a turban." Oswald's blushes, however, had ample time to subside while the further news was being imparted to her of the Southquay election and its result. Then the blush was transferred from Oswald's cheeks to hers, and she showed a considerable reluctance to quit this important subject until, as the meal was ending, the fact was casually mentioned that Sir Rawlin had gone to London to take his seat in the House, where he had met with the most nattering reception. Over the bright- ness of the girl's face there passed something like a faint cloud-shadow. Her eyes fixed themselves on her plate, and Dr. Thistlewood, whom nothing escaped, saw a movement of her silks and laces which, while masking, revealed a sigh. "Of course," he hastened to add, "when this session is over, as it will be in a few days, our member is coming back for Easter, to thank his loyal constituents." The girl threw a quick glance at him, which she no less quick- ly withdrew, and a movement of her laces followed, even more unmistakable than the first. " I'll tell you what," he said to Lady Susannah, "you mustn't allow that young person to go sitting up late this evening. Put her to bed. That's my parting prescription, and let us hope it will be long before she wants another. As for me, I must be getting back to my host. Sleep well," he said to the girl, who smiled at him with confidential 337 AN IMMORTAL SOUL gratitude, " and pleasant dreams to you or, better still, no dreams at all." Dr. Thistle wood's parting benediction had apparently the best results. Miss Vivian, next morning, somewhat pensive indeed, but with a pensiveness which was highly becoming to her and did nothing to dim her freshness, took up the threads of her life again as though nothing had broken; and Lady Susannah, on mentioning Mr. Barton's name to her, and the fact that he was hop- ing to come and see her that afternoon, was interested to observe the pleasure with which she received the news. As for Mr. Barton himself, everything was done that could be done to render his visit easy for him. Lady Susannah despatched a further note to him to say that her niece would expect him at half-past five, adding that he need not trouble himself to inquire for anybody else, but would find her, on his arrival, awaiting him in the green boudoir. As the hour drew near his agitation increased. Occu- pation became impossible for him; his own rooms felt like a prison, and once again he did what he had done yesterday he went over the hill to the path by the cliff's edge, so that even before he met her he might enjoy the sense of her neighborhood and watch the tops of the ilexes whose shadows again sheltered her. The landscape to-day held no other human being but him- self. The sinister figure of Miss Enid Wynn was absent. Whatever mischief she had been planning two days ago she had gone without accomplishing it; for the fact of departure was now beyond a doubt, and the air seemed lighter in consequence. And yet, for a moment, the recurrence of her image troubled him, coming like a cloud between him and his own approaching bliss. Here, he reflected, were two immortal souls, committed by God to bodies in many ways closely similar, and sur- rounded also by closely similar conditions, yet mak- ing such different returns to Him for His love and for 338 AN IMMORTAL SOUL His gift of life. " That wretched child," he said to him- self. " She received the sacrament of confirmation snickering at it. What must have been her first indeed, her only communion? That single act of sacrilege would be enough to account for everything. A case like this, at all events, teaches us one thing that no likeness whatever between two physical organisms can impose any common fatality on the two souls which inhabit them. It's a pity that men like this wonderful Dr. Thistlewood are blind to the meaning of facts which are lying at their own doors." Here was a thought which braced him, and under its stimulus the image of Miss Wynn faded, and its place was occupied wholly by one to whom spiritual aspiration was as natural an act as breathing, and to think of whom was to praise God. "Tantum ergo sacramentum," he mur- mured, with his coming marriage in his heart. He looked at his watch. The appointed hour was near; and at once, with eager strides, he began to hurry toward the garden gate. In spite of the delay he had imposed on himself, he was a little before his time; and when he was ushered into the green boudoir he found himself alone with his expectancy. The air was alive with sacred and over- powering memories. There were the china cups with which Miss Vivian had trifled as she stood coming to terms with her own inmost thoughts, just before her manner had undergone its abrupt change, and she had turned round at last and begun to open her heart to him. There, too, by the fire, was the chair into which, like a drift of rose-petals, she had sunk when she called him to her side. On one of its walnut- wood arms he could still see her hand resting. He could still see the mystery of the heavens in the invitation of her languid eyes. There, too, was the spot where he himself had knelt. For a moment he knelt again, and kissed the piece of walnut carving on which her hand had rested. He had just risen when a shadow crossed the window, 339 AN IMMORTAL SOUL and he caught sight of a flicker which he knew to be Miss Vivian's dress. A few seconds later the door had opened, and she was before him. "Mr. Barton! " she exclaimed. "How glad I am to see you again !" In her manner there was a slight melan- choly, but her eyes sparkled with welcome, and her hand in its white glove held his with a firm pressure, unlike the brusque withdrawal familiar to him in former days. Still he experienced a certain perplexed disappointment. This was not quite the greeting he had counted on, when he rehearsed the scene in expectation. She was not re- suming their intercourse where it had left off. He was able, however, to make infinite allowances. A young girl, whose feelings were naturally of an exquisite deli- cacy, might not find it easy, he reflected, to bring her- self, after a long separation, into the mood which ha,d accompanied an unconventional expression of her love; and his chivalry was already forbidding him to take any premature advantage of it. He was, indeed, beginning to feel embarrassed himself, though his own love, under the surface, was more wildly alive than ever. He would take his time. Their complete reunion should be grad- ual, and, meanwhile, he withdrew his eyes from their reverent contemplation of her lips. "They say," she continued, "that I've been ill for I don't know how many days. Well, I suppose it's true. Something like this has happened to me once or twice before. Do you know, it seems to me, if I went by my own impressions, that I saw you only yesterday." "Does it!" exclaimed Mr. Barton, his voice at once growing eager. " It seems to me not only that I saw you yesterday, but that I have seen you always every moment since your illness kept you from us. It seems to me that I have never seen anything else." " You," she said, gently, " have always been very good to me. If things were ever to go wrong with me, I feel that I should turn to you and you would show me the 340 AN IMMORTAL SOUL way out. But I can't quite tell yet. Last night, Mr. Barton, I was reading your own book again." "Were you?" said Mr. Barton. "Were you? I gave my soul to that book. May I think that my poor little book is giving my soul to yours? Look at me. Look at me. I was beginning do you know what I was be- ginning to do ? I was beginning to wonder, for a mo- ment, whether you had forgotten our last meeting. Tell me tell me truly do you still remember what we said at it?" Miss Vivian sank into the chair which she had occu- pied on the former occasion. "Do you think," she said, with a glance of friendly reproach at him, " that I am at all likely to forget ? You must think me very superficial if you do." Mr. Barton took a chair near hers, murmuring as he did so: " Yes, sit there sit there. You were sitting there when I left you." "Dear Mr. Barton," she continued, "I remember all our meetings. This wretched little illness of mine has not made me a fool. I remember what you said at each of them. The last one yes, I remember that best of all." Mr. Barton leaned quickly forward, and laid his hand on hers. Her own was at once withdrawn; but, as though to atone for this proceeding, she leaned in turn toward him, and fixed on him eyes full of that inward sadness which requires so little to turn it into the long- ings and the dreams of a devotee. " Yes," she continued, " at our last meeting you spoke about the soul which cannot die, which can be injured by itself only, and which will be our living fate forever. You spoke, too, about the blessed sacrament, and about the uplifting of our whole natures; and you said that God demanded these of us, and would satisfy all their longings for what is high and beautiful, giving us even more than we can imagine. You are the only person who has ever really shown me how religion means the AN IMMORTAL SOUL satisfaction of our natures taken as a whole, and is not merely something that we have to do with in church- time or during our private prayers. And you asked me to think of you this touched me very much as being yourself my companion and helper in efforts which must be made by both of us. No, you see I have not for- gotten what you said at our last meeting." Mr. Barton, as he listened to these words, had grown gradually paler, and his head had begun to swim. "I think," he answered, faintly, "that the meeting when I said all or any of these things to you was not our last." "I'm sure it was," she said, with a semi-playful in- sistence. "Not that it makes much matter whether it was the last or first, for, whichever it was, I should re- member the impression you made upon me. But still, if you insist, I'll prove that I'm right in a minute or two. There's a pin or something which is pricking me. Just let me put that right first." As she spoke she rose and, unbuttoning one of her gloves, went to the window, whose shutters were pan- elled with strips of looking-glass. In a state bordering on stupefaction, Mr. Barton rose and followed her. The idea had occurred to him of helping her in the impend- ing rearrangement of her toilet, of thus getting posses- sion he hardly knew how of her person, and forcing her to acknowledge that interview which she could not mean to repudiate. By the time he reached it she was busy with a small brooch. The glove which she had be- gun to unbutton had now been at length drawn off. The evening light shone full on her delicate hand and wrist, and there, from the wrist upward, disappearing into the shadow of the sleeve, Mr. Barton saw a scar pre- cisely corresponding in its course to a strip of black plaster which, on another occasion, had been pressed to the arm of a girl habited as an Albanian boy. "Now I'm all right," said Miss Vivian, with a slight laugh, the brooch having been rearranged and the of- 342 AN IMMORTAL SOUL fending pin refastened. "And now, Mr. Barton, I'll prove to you, by a few dates, that the last time we met here was But what in the world is the matter with you ? Why do you look like that at me ? Are you ill ? I'm afraid you must be." Mr. Barton's face was by this time colorless. "A little." he faltered " a little, perhaps. But it's nothing. It will pass." His voice ceased, and she stared at him. " I am feeling," he said, " slightly dizzy. May I, for just one moment, ask you for the support of your hand?" She did as he asked, and, aided by her, he managed to reach the chimney-piece. He leaned against this for a minute or so, while the girl watched him anxiously. Then, unable apparently to bear the heat of the fire, he jerked his body forward, gained a neighboring chair, and, extracting his pocket-handkerchief, began absently to mop his forehead. "Tell me," he said, gasping, "how did you hurt your wrist? I hardly know whom I'm talking to." "My wrist!" exclaimed Miss Vivian, with surprise. " I can't tell how I hurt it. Dr. Thistlewood knows. I must somehow have got it scratched when I was ill by a nail in the bedpost he told me I forget. It was something like that, I think. But my scratch is nothing. The mark will soon be gone. Don't let us talk of my wrist. Mr. Barton, what is it ? Let me ring the bell for some one. Shall we send for a doctor? Shall we send for Dr. Thistlewood?" Mr. Barton's arms were by this time crossed on a table, his body was bent forward, and his face was help- lessly buried in them. "Not for the world," he exclaimed, raising himself with a spasmodic effort, " though I believe I shall have to go to him! It was only a little giddiness. It's pass- ing away already. But I won't stop longer this after- noon. A walk in the open air that will make me all right again. Good-bye. Don't ring, I beg of you. I can find my own way out." 343 AN IMMORTAL SOUL He had opened the door and was disappearing, when Miss Vivian called out after him: "Mr. Barton! Mr. Barton! aren't you going to take your hat? Look, you were going away with my aunt's knitting instead!" That evening Dr. Thistlewood received the following letter : " Doctors, like priests, are men accustomed to confidences, so this probably will not surprise you; but seeing that our views of life are as the poles asunder, you may, perhaps, be surprised at my bringing any secrets of my own to yourself. I have told you, however, one secret of mine already. When I asked you in vain for certain news of Miss Vivian I explained to you the nature of my interest in her. I may add in passing that I have now explained myself to her father, and my wishes have his full sanc- tion. I must ask you to be patient while I put the matter more minutely. Miss Vivian, just after her recovery from the first effects of the thunder-storm on a day when you yourself pro- nounced that she was fit to receive a visitor told me, with the utmost deliberation and with an emphasis the sincerity of which it was quite impossible to doubt, that she entertained a sentiment for myself similar to mine for her. " I have seen her to-day. Your treatment of her has been so far justified that she has come back in the enjoyment of complete health, but, to my astonishment indeed, it seems hardly credi- ble she denies all recollection of everything said or done by her at the inter Mew to which I have made allusion. What is the meaning of this? I would stake my life on her integrity. Can it be that her intellect is still, to some extent, clouded over by her late illness ? In the name of common humanity, tell me the naked truth! Yes and tell me this, too. The half-sister, Miss Wynn, while she was here, managed to wound her arm. Miss Vivian's arm, as though by a kind of witchcraft, bears the scar of a wound which closely one may fancy absolutely corresponds to it. What have you been doing to her? What have you been allowing her to do? I hardly know what to think or what to ask; but you will recognize, as a man of the world, that I have a right to demand the truth, and I positively will have it. When can I see you? We must have it out to- gether, face to face. Yours, THEOPHILUS BARTON." The following reply from Dr. Thistlewood was brought back by Mr. Barton's messenger: 344 AN IMMORTAL SOUL " DEAR MR. BARTON, You are right at least as to two things. Like a priest, I am surprised at nothing. I am certainly not sur- prised at the contents of your own letter. I agree with you that, since things have happened as they have happened, a re- sponse to your questions is no more than your due. To-morrow morning, if this suits your convenience, I will do myself the honor of calling on you, and will then tell you what I can. But I fore- see two difficulties; the one is that you will be reluctant to believe the facts: the other is that you will be slow to understand them. Yours, with sincere respect, "GUSTAV THISTLEWOOD." BOOK IV CHAPTER I MR.. BARTON was like a man who, unkilled, has fallen from some Alpine height, and hardly dares to conjecture the extent of his own injuries. His hopes lay in ruins round him; his late exaltations mocked at him; and from time to time he would shiver with a vague fear of a something behind his sorrows more ter- rible than these sorrows themselves. Weariness at last brought him its brute relief. He lay down, dressed, on his bed, and slept like a log till morning. "Can I, in common humanity, tell him all the truth at once ? He would hardly understand it if I did tell him. No; poor creature, he must have it in small doses. If he will only be wise, I need never tell him more than half." Such was the tenor of Dr. Thistlewood's reflections as he walked to Mr. Barton's house. Mr. Barton greeted him with a brave effort at self-possession, but his face was haggard, the rims of his eyes were red, and when, having seated himself, he leaned his head on his hand, his gaze was the gaze of one who sees everything round him waver. Dr. Thistlewood's first impulse was to ply him with some moral restorative. "Well," he began, in a voice which was grave but not too solemn, "as you've made me your confidant before, I quite understand your position or I think I do. If I'm not right, tell me. Let me do the talking first. That will make things much easier. Miss Vivian, before her illness, made you some avowal or other which distinctly implied that she was willing to become your wife. The 349 AN IMMORTAL SOUL moment she gets her health back you see her, you remind her of the incident, and this curious young lady disclaims all knowledge of what you are talking about. You are also startled by observing a certain scar on her arm. You think, perhaps, that during her illness she has been the victim of some dark experiments. Any- how, here are your mysteries, and you want me to clear up these." Mr. Barton nodded, adding faintly the words: "I do." "I'm afraid," said Dr. Thistlewood, "that to clear them up entirely would be rather a long business. We couldn't manage that this morning. But Miss Vivian's behavior to yourself that, unusual as it is, is a com- paratively simple matter; and though, when I explain it, I can't promise not to pain you, you will, on the whole so I think find yourself much relieved. Now, my good friend, listen. You as a priest have seen many cases of fever. People in fever exhibit many freaks of forgetfulness." "Yes," said Mr. Barton, wearily, "that's common enough. Once, when skating, I fell and knocked the back of my head. When I'd picked myself up I'd for- gotten my way home. But don't try to gull me with this kind of false analogy. To forget a detail is one thing. To have lost, apparently, an inmost disposition of the heart to have had it wiped out in a week or two this is quite another." "Wait a bit," said Dr. Thistlewood. "We as yet have but half the story. I began with the phenomenon of mere forgetfulness, so as to put you on the right track. Let us now go back from the forgetfulness to the details of the thing forgotten. The meeting at which Miss Vivian gave you reason to believe in her affection for you do you remember that I called on you the morn- ing after it occurred ? I had no suspicion, at the time, of the subjects that were discussed between you. I had no desire to find out. The questions I asked you were of a purely medical kind. Did you notice in Miss Viv- 35 AN IMMORTAL SOUL ian's demeanor any unusual symptoms ? You did, and you told me what they were. I may tell you now, though I don't think I said so then and there, that they were just what I had foreseen they would be from my knowledge of kindred cases. In the course of the inter- view Miss Vivian's manner changed. It had been dull and apathetic at first. Then, with a marked abruptness, it became just the reverse. Then, you remember, she asked you one or two questions which you yourself at the time noticed as being rather odd. She spoke of your having come back, as though you'd only just left the house; and she asked you if you'd entered through the conservatory, when no such mode of entrance at Cliff's End was possible. She also made use of a rather curious locution. 'So and so,' she said to you, 'is what Mr. Barton tells us.' ' "Your own memory," said Mr. Barton, with a sort of aimless sarcasm, "shows no signs of failing you. To me these little peculiarities all seemed very natural." "You admit," Dr. Thistlewood continued, "that fever may cause forgetfulness. You cannot be less familiar with the fact that it may produce delusions. You have doubtless seen patients tossing about in their beds who fancy that a bedroom in London is a veranda in Hong- Kong. They constantly make mistakes as to the identity of the people round them a nurse is taken for a mother, a doctor for a son or husband. Also, hallucinations of this kind here you have another familiar fact will develop themselves quite suddenly and will cease as suddenly as they developed themselves." "Well," said Mr. Barton, with an air of quickened at- tention, "I am listening. Pray go on." "I should like," said Dr. Thistlewood, "to give you an interesting example of this, supplied by the case of a young woman in America, of which some day I may tell you more. A whole book has been written about her by a well-known Boston doctor. The young woman, who had been disordered by a severe nervous shock, AN IMMORTAL SOUL exhibited symptoms like those we have just been talk- ing of, and she would sometimes do so with a sudden- ness by which her doctor himself was bewildered. One day, when her health was seemingly quite restored to her, she called at the hospital of which he was the dis- tinguished head to consult him in his own room. When she entered she struck him as being so listless that she had hardly go enough to tell him what was the matter with her. But presently, without any warning, she gave a start as if she saw him there for the first time, and began to talk to him about matters of which he un- derstood nothing. In a minute or two he realized that she was calling him by a name other than his own. When he told her what his own was she insisted that he was talking nonsense. Not till long afterward did he dis- cover that, there before his very eyes, her mind let us put it this way through some infirmity of the body, had been playing her one of those curious tricks we spoke about. Several years of life had disappeared from her memory. To her the physician now appeared to be a former lover, and she imagined herself to be completing a scene with him which had been interrupted several years ago. I tell you this anecdote, Mr. Barton have you any idea why ? I tell it you because the in- cident I have just described is undoubtedly parallel to that which took place between Miss Vivian and your- self. At a given moment, as you noticed, there was an alteration in her voice and manner. Up to that mo- ment she knew you for what you are. From that moment onward she took you for some one else. She believed herself to be in some different place, and to be continuing with that other person an incident, or a series of incidents, belonging to a different time." Mr. Barton's face was pale. At last he managed to stammer: "Impossible! What incidents? And with whom?" "How can I tell?" said Dr. Thistlewood, avoiding Mr. Barton's eye. "The incidents and the other person 352 AN IMMORTAL SOUL were most likely imaginary. For Miss Vivian the scene, at all events, had no association with yourself. Well, Mr. Barton, this fact, though it very naturally disap- points you, has yet a consolatory side to it. It entirely does away with any possible supposition on your part that Miss Vivian has been guilty of intentional lev- ity toward yourself. Further, on your own showing, though she took you for somebody else, and could in consequence have had no intention of flattering you, she spoke of you with very deep regard, and quoted with deep feeling your own words to her imaginary hearer." Mr. Barton's pallor was at last tempered by a blush. "I am conscious," he said, "of the delicacy with which you touch on these private matters. If facts are as you say they are, I may perhaps find some consolation in them. But, God help me, Dr. Thistlewood, I feel that you are only playing with me. I feel that there is some- thing in the background to which as yet you have not even alluded. How did she get that scar? Yes, Dr. Thistlewood, how did Miss Vivian, at the time in a state of torpor, and under your own care, or the care of one of your subordinates, come to have her arm mutilated in a manner so closely imitative of the wound received by Miss Wynn it doesn't matter how at Southquay? Don't try to put me off by referring to your story of the twins who both, on the same day, were scratched on the right cheek. But I don't want general analogies. I want specific facts. Miss Vivian must have been wounded by something which lacerated her own skin, even if a hundred others had been lacerated in the same way. Have you been hacking her and cutting her about, and unhinging her mind, so as to see if she bears pain in the same way as her sister?" "Come, come," said Dr. Thistlewood. "I could see by the way in which you looked at me that your mind was haunted by some wild idea of that kind. If to watch a patient is to experiment with her, it is perfectly 353 AN IMMORTAL SOUL true that I have used Miss Vivian as a subject; but the experiments have been proposed by the young lady on herself. You may possibly compel me, if you are ob- stinate, to tell you everything some day; but for your sake and for hers I would much rather refrain, and in no case could I tell you now. The matter is much too complicated. Look here, Mr. Barton, your feelings are still unsettled. You left Miss Vivian abruptly, and took away distorted impressions of her. Before you decide on acquainting yourself with things that would only trouble you, see her again; see her in the company of others. Lord Cotswold has asked Sir Rawlin and the Cliff End party to dinner to-night. Lord Cotswold has commis- sioned me to say that he hopes you will come, too. Yes, my dear fellow, come. It will do you all the good in the world." Pleased with this unexpected suggestion, Mr. Barton assented. His mind was still haunted by some jealous and inexplicable fear, but in part of what Dr. Thistle- wood had told him there was some ground for hope. It might, after all, be possible for him to rebuild his tem- ple, though the original fabric, which he had reared so high, was in ruins. Meanwhile, breathing the sunlit air without, Miss Vivian herself, accompanying Miss Nina Arundel, had gone for a walk along the heights of the New Drive. The turquoise-colored sea below, breaking among the hidden bowlders with its drowsy, eternal murmur, the blossoming tops of the laurels thrusting themselves from the subjacent gardens, the horse-chestnuts, whose green cressets were alight among the gloom of the macrocar- pas, filled the girl's nerves and veins with that buoyant trouble of expectation which is the soul alike of youth, religion, and poetry. The two ladies were proceeding at a pleasingly slow pace when a carriage, just a little less slow, overtook and pulled up beside them. The occupant was old Mrs. Summerfield, whose voice, issuing from the shades of 354 AN IMMORTAL SOUL her poke - bonnet, was saying: " I can't distinguish your face, but surely this is Nina." Miss Arundel admitted her identity. "And here," she said, "is my cousin Nest." "Oh!" said Mrs. Summerfield, "that's pretty Miss Nest Vivian, is it? She's a very nice young lady. How are you, my dear? Nina, my good soul. I want your help about something." Hereupon there ensued a long conversation with re- gard to stockings for some old women in almshouses, which was, however, at last interrupted by an exclama- tion from Miss Vivian. "Look!" she said. "Nina, look! Here comes Sir Rawlin Stantor!" Sir Rawlin's thoughts of Miss Vivian had, during her prolonged absence, grown, for several reasons, insensibly less frequent. One of these reasons was the awakening of prudence and principle caused by his accidental es- cape from the natural consequences of his folly. An- other was his work at South quay, which had grown more and more engrossing as the day of the poll approached. Another was the welcome he had met with from his party chiefs at Westminster, and the transforming stimu- lus received by him from a renewed contact with affairs. Now, however, when victory had brought its hush with it, and he returned, as he had done last night, to the scenes of his late folly, old interests showed signs of reviving, and his thoughts began to flutter, although at a cautious distance, round the heroine of the hockey- field, the shepherdess with the poppy-colored cap. He had not come out either hoping or expecting to see her. But the moment he did so he was reconciled to the morning's accident. "Sir Rawlin," said Mrs. Summerfield, "I'm not able to distinguish you; but give me your hand, and allow me to congratulate you on your victory. Come, if you can, and see me one night at dinner. I can offer you some very old port, and I'll ask that young lady to meet you who, they tell me, is a great favorite of yours. And now 355 AN IMMORTAL SOUL I'm going to take this dear Nina Arundel with me to choose some stockings for me in the town. Get in Nina; and you, Miss Nest are you there still? I've no doubt our new member will be gallant enough to take care of you." The eyes of the young shepherdess, her smile, and the clear freshness of her complexion relieved him of his last uneasiness. There was no reproachful hint in them of any unpaid debt. " I can't tell you," he said, with a sense that he might be safely cordial, "how glad I am to see you again, and to find that you're no worse indeed, I think you're all the better for your illness. Let me examine the invalid. We'd all of us have a rest-cure could we hope for the same results. And there are her violets, and she's got on the same red cap that was tilted over her left eyebrow when I saw her first in the mist." "I'll tell you what," said the girl, "if you look at me with such a critical eye these people who are coming along will think my clothes don't fit. Come down into the gardens. We'll find a bench with a view. I'm quite well again, but I haven't quite got my strength back." A seat was found, and Sir Rawlin, with a renewed in- terest in her, and also with a renewed caution, took his place at her side. Thoughts, as he did so, came back to him of the one woman who had many years ago fused, despite all obstacles, his spirit and his flesh together, and associated all his aspirations with his longing for her lips and eyes. No such self-surrender he knew it was now possible for him. Between himself and his present companion, however close he might be to her, he mentally placed this fact as though it were a drawn sword. They looked at the sea. They spoke in appropriate terms of its beauty. The subject was a safe one, but it could not last forever. Sir Rawlin felt himself wonder- ing what was to take its place. When the time came instinct guided him. 356 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "I shall never forget," he said, pitching his tone care- fully, "how frightened I was on your account when the lightning struck the balcony. I was quite prepared to catch you up like a child, and carry you away from it to the other end of the world." Here was a speech which met all the demands of the situation. It did not repudiate any fragments of the past that might be remembered by her, but it subtly withdrew from them all inconvenient meaning. " Dr. Thistlewood told me," she said, "about the light- ning, and how close we were to it. To me it is all a blank. Anyhow, it's a comfort to know that I made no foolish scene." "You weren't nearly so pale," he said, "as you were that day on the hill, when the thunder did nothing but give the ghost of a rumble, and Miss Hazel and Miss Elvira O' Brian were afraid you were going to tumble down." "I should have," replied the girl, looking up at him through her long eyelashes, "if you hadn't let me catch hold of you. You must have thought I was very for- ward, but everything seemed convenable in such a mist. Whatever else I've forgotten, I haven't forgotten about that." "And have you forgotten," said Sir Rawlin, "my first introduction to Mr. Hugo and to James and to Peter's altar and to Mrs. Morriston Campbell?" "Poor Peter," said Miss Vivian. "Mr. Hugo, when I was ill, gave him an electric shock, and he's never been the same since. Mr. Hugo says that if he'd only the right sort of battery he could, by giving shocks to peo- ple, change their entire characters. It's a pity he doesn't change his own. He still thinks a man or a beetle is going to appear in his glue-pot." The conversation, from this point onward, found a course along which it could flow and sparkle, neither stagnating in pools too deep and too full of reflections, nor losing its intimate character in the shallows of the 357 AN IMMORTAL SOUL merely commonplace, and at last, when Miss Vivian de- clared that it was time to go and that the shortest way to Cliff's End would be down through the gardens into the valley, their exchange of trivialities had brought them so close together that the presence or absence of any closer bond was indistinguishable. But when they had reached the lodge at the entrance of the Cliff's End drive she turned and confronted him with a smile in which lurked a half-possessive seriousness. "Well," she said, "are you going to come in and lunch with us?" Sir Rawlin's prudence was instantly up in arms. " I can't," he said, "much as I should like to. But, my dear, I was forgetting. I am going to meet you to- night at the dinner which Lord Cotswold is giving in special honor of your convalescence. Good-bye till then good-bye. I'm delighted to see you so well again. What are you going to wear to-night? No, don't tell me. You shall surprise me at eight o'clock." As Miss Vivian ascended the drive her thoughts of the late conversation were busy with what she had failed to find in it rather than what she had found. Those gray eyes of her friend, however they might seek her own eyes, were grave with an inward vision of which she formed no part. CHAPTER II BY the time it was necessary for him to start for the Turkish Castle, Mr. Barton had pulled himself together, and when he entered Lord Cotswold's drawing- room he was rigid with self-possession. A new anxiety, of a comparatively trivial kind, had indeed helped to sober him, as such anxieties often do. What, he had begun to ask himself, would Miss Vivian think of him in view of his own behavior on the occasion of their last meeting ? Would it, in vulgar language, have struck her that he had made a fool of himself? She should, at all events, have no reason for forming such an opinion now. So far as this matter went he was presently set at ease. As soon as he had been welcomed by his host, Miss Vivian and Lady Susannah both came up to him with smiles of such cheerful frankness as to show him that in their eyes he had done nothing unusual. How was he ? they asked, in tones that all the room might hear. Much better, they hoped ; and, full of elegant sympathy, Mr. Carlton approached and added his hopes to theirs. Mr. Barton heard himself declaring that his malady had been a passing trifle; and Miss Vivian confided to him, by a private little glance of her own, her pleasure in finding that a pain, which she knew to have been acute, was over. The irony of the girl's unconsciousness of her own share in his trouble was inflicting on him a new pang, when, before he had time to dwell on it, the accents of his host distracted him. "I haven't seen you, Mr. Barton," Lord Cotswold was 359 AN IMMORTAL SOUL saying, "since the night of my evening party, though I've heard of you from Dr. Gustav; and I have always been wanting to express to you the interest I felt in your very remarkable sermon and in the hymn which followed it I presume by the same author. It seemed to me that you gave us the whole Christian philosophy." And, drawing Mr. Barton aside, he repeated, in a low, rich tone: " ' Lord, when place and space Are not, and the skies Hold no worlds, and eyes Cease to obscure Thy face ' I remember it all," he went on; but the butler's voice announcing dinner interrupted him. At dinner the conversation was of an ordinary and cheerful kind. Lord Cotswold and Lady Susannah de- veloped an unexpected friendliness by getting on the topic of some mutual though not very near relatives, and Mr. Carlton annotated this pleasant discourse by sundry anecdotes illustrative of the private absurdities of the great. Mr. Barton, his silence observed by Dr. Thistlewood only, sat in a kind of dream; but his eyes, within certain limits, were closely though cautiously vigilant. Their scrutiny was confined to Miss Vivian and those to whom she spoke or who spoke to her. The girl, though not noticeably wanting in any of her accustomed vivacity, had, so it seemed to him, developed some new composure, as though all the world were fa- miliar to her and she were meeting it on equal terms. He was specially struck by the aplomb with which she suppressed a sally of Mr. Hugo's. Mr. Hugo, who, feel- ing himself under Dr. Thistlewood's scientific protec- tion, judged that the occasion was favorable to some oblique annoyance of Mr. Barton, contrived to publish the intelligence, in a voice sufficiently audible, that he had just finished making a kaleidoscope designed to show by analogy how the brain could be shaken up into 360 AN IMMORTAL SOUL different patterns of character. To Mr. Barton, in his present mood, such nonsense was itself indifferent; but he felt to the bottom of his heart the implication of the girl's tone when he realized that she was appealing to himself, and saying: "You must shut this boy, with his horrid, dirty hands, up. But no I won't trouble you. I can see you have your headache still." The unconscious irony of her friendliness wounded him once again. The lips which had just smiled at him had once pressed themselves to his own. He made no answer. He could hardly smile in return. He could not even continue to observe her until she had turned away. When he looked again she was in communication with Sir Rawlin Stantor. They were leaning a little toward each other, across the segment of the round table that divided them. Sir Rawlin's face and manner were in- stinct with a deferent friendliness, but he seemed to be sending his words to her from the other side of some stream which he would not or could not cross. Mr. Barton watched the incident. It was over in half a minute. Others of a similar kind occurred from time to time, and after each the girl was subdued and silent. At length a change came over her. The glances cast by her in Sir Rawlin's direction ceased. She talked with a feverish eagerness to Mr. Carlton, who sat beside her, and presently began to exhibit to him the beauties of her painted fan. Then came the voice of Sir Rawlin, still remote though friendly, begging that he, too, might be allowed the privilege of inspecting it. Miss Vivian, hardly looking at him, passed it over with an extended hand and arm. The arm was gloved to the elbow. The white gleam of the kid arrested Mr. Barton's eye. The glove on that arm, it occurred to him, had not been taken off at all. He thought of the scar hidden by it, and he pushed his plate away from him. Miss Vivian, meanwhile, had resumed her conversation with Mr. Carlton, and was drawing the other glove on with un- necessary and ostentatious care. AN IMMORTAL SOUL "By-the-way, my young friend," said Lord Cotswold to Mr. Hugo, when the ladies had left the room, a prom- ise having been given to them that they would not be long left alone, "what was that I heard you saying about a kaleidoscope? Mr. Barton, come here and sit by me. These sprigs of the rising generation are determined to go beyond both of us." "I should rather," said Mr. Barton, with an acerbity which he could not control, "say that the thought of to-day was going back to the earliest beginnings of thought, and that persons like our young friend there were its very appropriate mouth-pieces. I dare say our young friend has never read Lucretius, or even heard what Lucretius said about the human mind " ' Principio esse aio persubtilem atque minutis Corporibus factum constate.' That means, Mr. Hugo Arundel, that, according to the modern science of ancient Rome, the soul is a heap of independent little bits of dust, some of them shaped like hooks, some of them shaped like eyes, which collide by accident and form into a kind of cluster, and that, as soon as this dust-heap is formed, it begins to talk and think, just as if the dust in a dust-cart were to begin to drive the horse. That's what Lucretius said two thou- sand years before modern science was thought of, and modern science is saying no more than he did." Mr. Hugo's youth, thus attacked by mature scholar- ship, enlisted general sympathy in his favor, and Lord Cotswold was considering how best to come to his rescue, when Mr. Hugo, recovering from a moment's bashful- ness, fought his own battle with a weapon for which Mr. Barton was not prepared. "If Lucretius," he replied, with a smile of elaborate calmness, "really said all that in seven or eight words, he certainly did what nobody could do to-day." Not all the consideration and courtesy due to Mr. Bar- ton and his position could prevent the explosion of a 362 AN IMMORTAL SOUL certain amount of laughter, Oswald's eyes being filled with generous tears of appreciation. "Come," said Lord Cotswold, his own eyes still smil- ing, as he laid a confidential hand on Mr. Barton's ad- jacent shoulder, "you won't be in a hurry to leave us. We'll have our talk by-and-by, when our ladies and these young men have gone. And now I suggest that we have our coffee in the drawing-room. Mr. Barton, we smoke everywhere." Mr. Barton was no sooner in the drawing-room than he found himself being asked to play. The request was twice repeated before he seemed to take in its nature. " I beg your pardon," he said. " I would have played with the greatest pleasure. I'm afraid, however, I must confess to a slight nervous headache." "Then don't try," said Lord Cotswold. "The young people shall amuse themselves. Let them play some game. Can you think of a game, any of you?" Mr. Carlton, who, when youth was present, always felt himself younger than anybody, immediately began to propose one well-known game after another, and, as though to avenge Mr. Barton for the affront that had lately been put upon him, proceeded to make a butt of the unfortunate Mr. Hugo. "Let Hugo," he said, "go out of the room, and then come back and impersonate some celebrated woman of history Semiramis, or any- body he likes and we, from his acting, have to find out who she is." "Yes," exclaimed Miss Vivian, who appeared to have recovered her spirits, "let Mr. Hugo act Semiramis. If we can't recognize her, you, Mr. Hugo, win. At this game you'll win to a certainty, so you needn't be afraid to try." Mr. Hugo remained mute, a monument of annoyed obstructiveness, and Mr. Carlton, having indulged in a variety of other suggestions, at last hit on bouts rimes a pastime which, when he had explained its nature, was received with sufficient approbation. "Somebody," he "4 363 AN IMMORTAL SOUL said, "gives two words or more for the likes of us, two will be quite enough. Each word must be the end of a line of poetry, and two other lines must be added which will make sense and will rhyme to them. Shall I give you an example? You must all have pieces of paper. Ah, Dr. Thistlewood, how good of you! And I see you've got pencils, too. Well, here are two words lace and dressed. See what you can make of those. Now, you've only got five minutes." A silence followed, broken by the sound of pencils; but nobody, when the time was up, had produced a pre- sentable poem with the exception of Mr. Carlton him- self. Mr. Carlton 's poem was this, which he recited with a glance at Miss Vivian : " Who has the best lace f The best-dressed girl with the prettiest face. Who is the prettiest and best dressed f A young lady, in crepe de chine, called Nest." "Capital!" said a chorus of voices. "A poor thing, but mine own," said Mr. Carlton, modestly. "Now, two more words. Who'll give the words this time?" Various words were now set in succession, but the poems into which they were woven were not very re- markable. "What's Hugo about all this time?" exclaimed Miss Vivian, rising. "He hasn't given us a verse. Let me see, Hugo, what you've been up to." The very mention of Mr. Hugo's name had the pleas- ant effect of producing a general smile. Even Mr. Bar- ton slightly curled his lips and observed: "It's a pity that so much talent should be wasted." "Look here," said Miss Vivian, "Hugo hasn't written a word. Here's merely a paper scribbled over with lines." "I was merely trying," said Mr. Hugo, with noncha- lance, "to work out a little problem in Euclid. Do 3 6 4 AN IMMORTAL SOUL you want two words? I dare say I can give them to you." "Yes," said Miss Arundel, "let Hugo give the words if he can't manage the verses." "Perhaps," replied Mr. Hugo, loftily, "I might be able to do both if they were about anything sensible. Here's a word, then square. Oh, you want another? Is that it? Well, thenangles." "That's difficult," said Lord Cotswold. "What can anybody make of that?" "Nest," said Mr. Carlton, "I've thought of some- thing. Come over and sit by me, and we'll do it to- gether." Mr. Barton watched her movements. Her demeanor, inexplicably changed, had now begun to sting him. She sank with her fan and laces close to Mr. Carlton's side; her face, alive with smiles, seemed almost to be resting on his shoulder, and bursts of laughter escaped from her as the work of composition proceeded. "Now, Cousin George, time's up," said Oswald. "We've nearly finished," said Mr. Carlton. "You read yours out first." "Very well," replied the diplomat. "Mine has the merit of brevity ' '- " If a poet would square His loves with his morals, Let the poet beware, Or good-bye to his laurels." "My dear fellow," exclaimed Mr. Calton, "you've not rhymed to angles at all! Now, listen," he continued, as Oswald was obliged to confess his error. "Nest and I can do better than that, though we're neither of us pro- fessed poets: " A young lady whose dress was cut square, Wore a lovely assortment of bangles; She'd a little aigrette in her hair, And her bodice and sleeves were all spangles. 365 But the sleeves of the gown Got detached and fell down, And showed that her elbows were angles. Whereupon she exclaimed, 'Let the laundress be blamed, All the buttons are broke by the mangles."' A burst of applause followed. The proceedings were at last growing animated. Lord Cotswold clapped his hands. "I ought to tell you," said Mr. Carlton, "that the bit about the elbows was Nest's. I think that, at any rate, between us we've exhausted the rhymes to angles." " Not quite," said Mr. Hugo, solemnly looking up from his paper. "My poem is this: "Let nobody with my conclusion wrangle. Suppose a figure has four equal sides And one rectangle. Every angle, if tried, Will be found equal to every other angle." Mr. Hugo's effort, especially the scansion of his last line, filled the room with merriment. It was further- more pointed out to him that he was just as bad as Oswald. Oswald had left out angle, Mr. Hugo had left out square. "Come," said Mr. Carlton, "think of another word. We may as well stick to square, but we don't want any more angles." Mr. Hugo responded by emitting the monosyllable side. "Very well then, side," said Mr. Carlton. "Now side, square. You must all of you bring in both." Lady Susannah cast a glance at the clock. "This," she said, "must really be the last. Nest oughtn't to be kept up much longer. Poor child," she whispered to Mr. Barton, "for all her smiles and laughing, she looks tired out of her very life." Mr. Barton watched, but he could not trust himself to speak. 366 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "What, Rawlin!" said Lord Cots wold, "are you enter- ing the lists , too ? Let me see what it is you've written. ' ' He read, nodded, and, despite a gesture on Sir Raw- lin's part, passed the paper to Dr. Thistlewood. With the exception of Mr. Carlton, nobody else appeared to have made much progress. Oswald declared that his inspiration had failed him. Mr. Hugo could get no further than the somewhat irregular couplet " If a person should take the square Of the hypothenuse, or a triangle's third side " "Well, then," said Mr. Carlton, "you'll have to fall back on mine. It's called 'When the Cat's Away,' by a Heroine Below-stairs: " When I ride from Belgrave Square In my lady's coach and pair, With the butler at my side, Don't my sunshade blush with pride!" While the applause, somewhat perfunctory, elicited by this was subsiding, Mr. Barton heard his name being uttered by Miss Vivian. "Get Dr. Thistlewood," she was saying to him, "to read out Sir Rawlin's." Before the author could enter any effectual protest, Dr. Thistlewood had complied. "Here's something," he said, "in another style." And his voice, as he read, had a musical and grave note in it which slightly an- noyed the author and surprised the rest of the au- dience : " Where the city lies foursquare, Where the Spirit and the Bride Call us to the taintless tide Oh, my fairest of the fair, We have drunk our cups beside Other streams than these, and we shall not be there." It seemed to Mr. Barton, as he listened, that a sudden revelation had been made to him of another man's in- 367 AN IMMORTAL SOUL ner history the history of a heart long dead. These lines, ostensibly a trifle, though too serious for the occa- sion, had, he felt, been written in blood. Meanwhile he was watching Miss Vivian, and he knew that she felt this, too. Her eyes, too, had been opened. They were fixed on Sir Rawlin, who himself had become engaged with a newspaper, and for a second a tear shone in them. They were eyes, thought Mr. Barton, surprised by his own insight, which were "wild with all farewells." CHAPTER III MR. BARTON," said Lord Cotswold, when the guests from Cliff's End had gone, "the night is still young. We might now resume what we were saying about our friend Lucretius. If your headache has not disappeared, you've a first-rate doctor at your elbow, who, I hope, will prescribe philosophic discourse as a remedy." "Allow me to examine him," said Dr. Thistlewood, genially. "Let me have five minutes with him alone. It's a mild moonlight night. Let us, Mr. Barton, go out on the terrace. We can get our hats and coats in the hall. A breath of fresh air will be good for you." Mr. Barton bowed and obeyed. They gained the gravel walk which ran between the castle and the sea. The wind blew faintly from the waves over the battle- ments and the clumps of rosemary. Mr. Barton lifted his hat so as to catch the coolness on his forehead. "Well," began Dr. Thistlewood, lighting a long cigar, "what I want to ask you is this: After what you have seen to-night, do you or do you not wish me to go on with my explanations ? Before you answer me, I must beg you to remember one thing. There is only one ground on which I recognize your right to question me as to the present matter at all. I refer to the fact that you regard yourself as Miss Vivian's possible husband. She gave you, I admit, an excuse for so regarding your- self. Since then she has shown you that this excuse was illusory. She has, as I shrewdly suspect, shown you something more to-night. Such being the case, then, is it still your intention to secure, if you can, that affection 369 AN IMMORTAL SOUL which she has not yet bestowed on you, and which she has bestowed to speak plainly on a certain other per- son?" "My intentions," said Mr. Barton, "are precisely the same as they ever were. I won't pretend to misunder- stand you. Those lines of Sir Rawlin Stantor's, though he no doubt scribbled them off in a mood of cynical idle- ness well, they lit up for me, like a match struck in the darkness, an impression which I had formed already, though I did not consciously understand it. He is a man whose heart is buried in the past, or worn out by the past whether sinfully or otherwise it is not for me to say. If any woman were to love him, she might as well love a figure in a dream. Do you expect me, Dr. Thistlewood, to accept that as a reason for concluding that no other man will ever give her reality?" "On the contrary," replied Dr. Thistlewood, "though I can do no more than conjecture, my opinion is that, if you tried long enough, you might succeed." "Oh," said Mr. Barton, "so you are of that opinion, too! Well," he went on, impatiently, "what more do you want ? This morning you seemed to be bent on ex- plaining difficulties away. Why do you now insist on them? One would think that you had some interest in parting us." "Yes," said Dr. Thistlewood, dryly. "Since you put the matter bluntly, I have." Mr. Barton started. "I was right, then!" he ex- claimed. "I was right from the very first! And may I ask your reasons ? Were you or her parents afraid of her falling under a priest's influence? That's why she was snatched away from me. Or you and her friends, perhaps, have some other and more ambitious union in view for her; or you think she would be a brilliant ornament to the house of some rich nephew of your own?" "If," said Dr. Thistlewood, "I had a son or a nephew of my own, there is no woman in the world, no matter AN IMMORTAL SOUL how depraved, to whom I would not sooner see him married than I would to Miss Nest Vivian." Mr. Barton stopped short in his walk and turned on Dr. Thistlewood, speechless. At last he managed to articulate: "You must account to me, sir, for those monstrous words." Dr. Thistlewood met the priest's angry and astonished eyes with a something like pity in his own. "My dear, good friend," he said, "I believe I shall have to do so. As a man, I would rather not. As a man of science, nothing would interest me more than to see how you take my news. To-morrow, if you insist on it, this ex- periment shall be made." "No, sir," said Mr. Barton, "not to-morrow, but in- stantly. You have dared to slander to slander with the vilest insinuations Dr. Thistlewood, I do not leave this spot till I have made you explain everything." "Your tone at this moment," Dr. Thistlewood an- swered, quietly, "shows me how difficult the task of explanation will be. Be patient, and do not waste your anger. But stay. Now I come to think of it, I can give you even to-night not, indeed, the explanation you ask for, but something that may serve as a preface to it. What I have to tell you about Miss Vivian is something she does not know herself." Mr. Barton drew a deep breath of relief. "Come," Dr. Thistlewood continued, "let us go back to Lord Cotswold. I must, for ten min- utes or so, attend to one of the servants here a woman called Sarah Davies, whom I sometimes send to sleep by hypnosis. You and our host, meanwhile, can beguile the time with Lucretius. You are not in a mood for phi- losophy, but still, if I know Lord Cotswold, what he says to-night may have a bearing on what I shall have to say to-morrow." The spectacle of Sir Rawlin still absorbed in a news- paper, which he civilly put down when the two ab- sentees re-entered, helped to restore Mr. Barton to a semblance of normal calm, and when Lord Cotswold, 37i AN IMMORTAL SOUL with evident pleasure in his eyes, proposed to renew the discussion which Mr. Hugo had prematurely closed, Mr. Barton felt it would be a relief to listen if not to argue. " You were quite right," said Lord Cotswold "though the boy could, of course, not know it in what you said of the Lucretian view of matter, and the poet's leap from matter, as understood by himself, to life. But, if I may venture to say so, you are quite wrong as to this the conception of matter which is forced on us by the dis- coveries of modern science when these discoveries are rationalized by the logic of modern philosophy. With respect to the conception of what matter is, and what we know about it, the scholastics are Lucretians, only they jump from matter to movement, and the movements of life especially, and they have, too, the advantage of Lu- cretius, by the aid of a perpetual miracle. You have studied Thomas Aquinas, but have you ever studied Kant? If you had, you would realize that matter, for the modern thinker, is not, as it seems to you, a collec- tion of boy's marbles, which only move when a mind apart from themselves plays with them. They are sym- bols of the mind universal. They are the gleaming on the fringes of its garment. Between matter and mind Mr. Barton, I am not dictating to you; I am merely trying to express to you the ideas of the modern thinker between matter and mind the antique opposition dis- appears. In the thought of Kant they become one for the thinker. They become one for the physicist in your brain and in mine. Thinkers of your school, Mr. Bar- ton, think and speak of the brain merely as it appears to their eyes generally to their eyes unassisted by so much as a microscope. Could they only see it as it is, by some gift of the double vision, that gray pulp, which disgusts them when it oozes from a broken skull, would be a flame that burned and quivered with all the colors of the rainbow, with the emerald of all leaves growing, with the jasper of the celestial city, with the blue of the 372 AN IMMORTAL SOUL sapphire pavement that was under the throne of God. Forgive me for my seeming dogmatism. I am merely throwing down the glove to you. Some other day or night, I hope, it may interest you to take up the chal- lenge." Dr. Thistlewood, who had been out of the room dur- ing most of Lord Cotswold's allocution, had returned in time for the end of it, and was now in the doorway lis- tening. "I want," he said, "to show Mr. Barton some- thing which, when that day or night comes, he may pos- sibly find of use to him. Will you, Mr. Barton, come with me into the big room which you once honored with your presence when some moving photographs were ex- hibited there. I am going," he continued, as Mr. Bar- ton followed him, "to show you something which bears on your conception of the brain and the transcendental. The indivisible self uses the divisible organism as its tool such is your own argument; but the tool, though it may sometimes fail to obey the master's orders, is incompetent, being itself lifeless, to dictate orders to the master. I am not going to weary you to-night with any philosophy of my own. I am only going to show you a simple though not a very common experiment. In there, in the big room let me tell you this before I open the door we shall find the woman who has asked me to secure her a good night's rest. I have often done this by hypnotism, a process to which she is very sus- ceptible. Hypnotized subjects pass through different phases, of which the first two are called technically the lethargic and the cataleptic. We shall find Sarah Davies in the second. You watch what happens. That will teach you more than any learned words of mine." Dr. Thistlewood opened the door, and at the end of the room within, which was now brilliantly lighted, Sarah Davis, with Dr. Thistlewood's servant near her, was seated like a thing of wax. Dr. Thistlewood, as he and Mr. Barton approached her, took from a shelf a small box containing crochet-work. This box he 373 AN IMMORTAL SOUL placed in the woman's hands. "Sarah/' he said, "I should like to watch your stitches." The woman made no answer, but at once began to ply her needles, in the use of which she exhibited great dexterity. Dr. Thistle- wood allowed her to proceed for a little while uninter- rupted. Then turning to Mr. Barton, as though to secure his attention, he said: "Now, watch what hap- pens." Laying a finger on the woman's left eyelid, he drew it downward over the eye, in which position it remained. The moment this was done her right hand fell on her lap, as though it were a lifeless model, carrying the crochet with it, but the left hand, though now not ac- complishing anything, still continued in the air the pantomime of its previous work. "Well," said Mr. Barton, with a sigh of impatient weariness, "and what does that prove?" "We all," replied Dr. Thistlewood, "know that we have two eyes. It is well, though not so generally known, that we have two brains also. The left brain works the right hand, the right brain works the left. There is the same crosswise connection between the brain and the two eyes. If the right eyelid is closed the left brain becomes lethargic, and the whole right side is paralyzed. If we lower the left eyelid it's the other way about." "Well," said Mr. Barton, doggedly, "that fact, if genuine, is curious. But what then ? If you shoot one horse of a pair the coachman must get on with the other. But the coachman himself is unaltered. You can easily apply my parable to your two brains, or your twenty brains, if you like it better, and the self." "I told you," said Dr. Thistlewood, "that I wasn't going to argue to-night. I'm just going to show you one experiment more. Francesco yes, yes, now she will do nicely come a little closer to her and speak into that ear. Tell her her brother's drowned. Mr. Barton, watch her face." 374 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "Sarah," said Francesco, into her left ear, "your brother was drowned last evening." "Sarah," said Dr. Thistlewood, into her right ear, "your brother has arrived at Plymouth." The result was singular. One half of the woman's face was distorted with sudden anguish, the other half smiled with joy, and the eye lit up and sparkled. It seemed as though two half faces, belonging to two dif- ferent people, had been stuck together with glue in order to produce one. "Thank you, Francesco, "said Dr. Thistlewood; "that's all for the present. Now we'll send her to bed and order her a good night's rest. Mr. Barton," he contin- ued, when the woman had left the room, "once more let me tell you that I'm not going to moralize now. I will only say one word of comment on what you have just witnessed. An operator, by performing the purely physical act of raising or lowering the eyelids of another human being, is able, through the connection of the eyelids with various parts of the organism, to divide that being's individual self into two. You admit that such facts are curious. 'Curious' was your own word. You mean by that that you had never thought about them or even known of their existence before. Well, all I ask of you is that you think them over between now and to-morrow morning, and then, since you are de- termined to extract it from me, I will go to the very root of my meaning in what I said about Miss Vivian's character. I must ask you to come here. I shall have to use certain appliances which, unluckily, are not port- able." CHAPTER IV MR. BARTON'S belated discovery of the nature of Miss Vivian's feelings, coupled as it was with his discovery that Sir Rawlin made no response to them, had not inflicted on him any new dismay. On the con- trary, it had afforded him a sort of solemn encourage- ment. It had also lightened his heart by suggesting a reasonable explanation of the facts which Dr. Thistle- wood that morning had left involved in mystery. If matters had ended here Mr. Barton might possibly have slept in peace, the strange scar and its origin being for the time forgotten. But the latter part of the even- ing had undone the work of the first. Why had that woman with her crochet-work been brought in to mop and mow at him? Even the sound of Lord Cotswold's voice, as it talked about the double vision, and the brain cells with their jewelled fire, made in his ears an echoing which was vaguely sinister. These things, however, were trifles. They might have passed out of his mind if it had not been for Dr. Thistlewood's statement, made by him with such a ghostly emphasis, that the most depraved of women was fitter to be an honest ma'n's wife than Miss Vivian. All that night his sleep was a conflict with distorted dreams. Now he saw eyelids being torn from living faces, now arms being wounded for some diabolic purpose, while the operators smiled and watched. Now he saw brains in bottles, burn- ing like unhallowed lamps and filling dissecting - rooms with gleams of blue and carmine. Now he saw girls with prayer shining in their eyes, while allurement lurked in their laughter as they lounged on sofas and 376 AN IMMORTAL SOUL hid their lips behind fans or fragments of foolscap paper. The following morning, when he entered Dr. Thistle- wood's large, bare room, he felt like a man about to sub- mit to an operation. The very aspect of the place had something in it austere and formidable. There were signs of preparation, he could not tell for what, and Dr. Thistlewood himself was busy arranging a series of ob- jects which lay in a row on a long, narrow deal table. His manner when he greeted Mr. Barton was not in- deed unfriendly, but it seemed to put friendship aside, as though it were for the moment an irrelevancy. "If you look about you," he said, slightly smiling, "you will realize why it was necessary for you to come to me in my own quarters. Do you see that big white sheet drawn across the end of the room? Do you see that big gramophone and the other machine standing near it? Do you see those things on the table a row of portraits, framed together in twos ? Do you see that by each pair there is something of the nature of a memorandum? I shall have to make use of all these appliances in order to give you the answer which you still are bent on forcing from me. Come, let us make a beginning. Our concern being with Miss Vivian, the young lady whom you desire to marry, we'll start our proceedings with something very closely connected with her, though after that it will be necessary for us to make digressions. In the gramophone at this moment is the record of a very interesting speech. You shall hear a word or two now. By-and-by we will have the whole of it." Dr. Thistlewood, as he spoke, set the instrument in motion, and out of its trumpet-shaped throat issued Miss Vivian's voice, with every nuance of articulation perfect. "What shall I say?" it asked. "Shall I re- peat some passage out of a book?" "Good Heaven!" exclaimed Mr. Barton, under his breath. 377 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "For the moment," said Dr. Thistlewood, "we'll put that record by, and you shall hear a word or two from another. Now, Mr. Barton, do you recognize this?" The instrument spoke again, and with equal fidelity to life the following words saluted Mr. Barton's ears: "Come, Dr. Thistlewood, stick me in the right place. How must I speak? So? All right. Here goes, then." Mr. Barton's face of mixed pain and disgust showed that he recognized the voice of Miss Enid Wynn. "Of that speech, too," said Dr. Thistlewood, "we will by-and-by have the rest. I use the gramophone system- atically for making psychological memoranda, but be- fore we come back to it I must show you some other documents, which bear on the cases of people who are closely alike physically. On that table will you come to it? I have arranged a series of photographs. We'll take this pair to begin with. These two young men, as you see, are strikingly like each other. There is the same mole on the left cheek of each. The hair from both fore- heads grows in the same way." "Yes," said Mr. Barton, "the difference seems mainly one of expression. One of them looks good and amiable, the other has all the look of a thoroughly depraved young ruffian." "Those," said Dr. Thistlewood, "are photographs of the two Fourriers. Here is a series of similar pairs the Dantons, the Voirons. You needn't look at all of them, but you must not omit this pair. Here are two photographs representing the two Desmoulins. In each pair you have the same thing a striking resemblance of feature and a striking difference of expression. Now you shall hear them talk. Each pair of portraits are numbered one and two. We'll begin with the two Fourriers. In this box is a gramophone record of some utterance characteristic of each of them. We'll begin with Fourrier I. the good Fourrier." The record was placed in position, and a voice emerged from the instrument describing in grateful accents the kindness with which 378 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the speaker had been treated by certain Belgian fathers, the sincerity with which he repented of his early religious levity, and his constant sense of the goodness and pres- ence of "le bon Dieu." " Now," said Dr. Thistlewood, "I'll give you Fourrier II." The voice which emerged presently seemed at first to be identical with the pre- ceding; but it quickly changed its tone, and Mr. Barton found himself listening, almost before he knew it, to the obscene rant of an anarchist, who declared that the priests and the bourgeoisie should alike be killed like rats, and boasted of the rapes and thefts which he had committed, and which he threatened to repeat. "Here," said Dr. Thistlewood, "are other similar records Voiron I., Voiron II.; Danton I., Danton II., and, I dare say, twenty more. But the two Desmoulins will be enough for us. Before you listen to them come and examine their photographs. I have, for the mo- ment, covered up everything but the faces. Except for a difference in the manner in which they do their hair, the faces of these two women can hardly be called dis- tinguishable. The hair of Desmoulins I. is arranged after the fashion of a nun. The hair of Desmoulins II. is tousled over her eyes like the hair of a dancer at a cafe chantant. Would you like to see the figures?" Dr. Thistlewood drew a sheet of paper aside, and one of the figures revealed itself habited in a plain black dress. The hands were clasped devoutly. On the breast was a large cross. The other figure was empha- sizing the studied deficiency of its clothing by the man- ner in which a foot was extended and a portion of the skirt raised. Dr. Thistlewood then, as before, gave by means of his gramophone a specimen of the voice cor- responding to each picture. "Listen," he said; "this is Desmoulins number one. Do you hear ? She calls herself ' Sister Martha of the Five Wounds.' She doesn't talk of 'my' dress. She talks of 'our' dress, as a nun would, and she has all the intonations of a nun. Now for number two. I must apologize for asking you to *s 379 AN IMMORTAL SOUL listen to what's coming." What Mr. Barton heard was a snatch or two of a French song, the unrepeatable mean- ing of which he divined rather than understood, mixed with addresses to some favored or desired cheri, the meaning of which was equally unrepeatable and very much less obscure. Dr. Thistlewood stopped the gramo- phone before the performance was complete. "Well, Mr. Barton," he said, "I have now given you a few illustrations, and could easily have given you more, of the fact that characters of a violently contrasted kind may belong to organisms which exhibit no perceptible differences except those which the characters impose on them by modifying facial expression, dress, the doing of the hair, and so forth. I suppose you follow me thus far." "I do," said Mr. Barton, at last showing some anima- tion, "and what you have shown me shows, if you will permit me to say so, that your whole conception of the relation between the organism and the self must be groundless. For if two organisms are alike so you told us at Cliff's End the two selves associated with them must be proportionally alike also; but everything which you have just shown me what does it do? Why, it blows this conclusion to pieces in the most striking way, in the most convincing way, imaginable. It seems to me that your philosophy has been hoist with its own petard." "That," replied Dr. Thistlewood, "is a criticism which deserves an answer, but before I attempt one we'll have one demonstration more. We have heard from the gram- ophone already the few opening words of something that was said by Miss Vivian and of something that was said by Miss Wynn. Let us now listen to the rest. What Miss Vivian spoke for me was a passage from a favorite book. She named the author. It may inter- est you to note her taste. Her first words you've heard already. Listen to what comes next." Mr. Barton lis- tened, and what he heard was this: "Our souls, stirred 380 AN IMMORTAL SOUL by the imagination, long to follow those ships, for to us it seems that they are going to some better country to some land of the heart's desire. But in the lands where the journeys of those ships end the heart is not satisfied. Sorrow will come down and meet them as soon as they touch the quays. So it is with all the fair things of nature. They awake in us a hunger which they themselves cannot satisfy. What, then, can satisfy it? As Augustine says, He only by whom all these things were made." Mr. Barton listened in absolute stillness. Then he averted his head. His eyes swam with tears, and Dr. Thistlewood, divining that this was inevitable, made a noise to proclaim his inattention as he busied himself with a new record. "Now, Mr. Barton," he said, " I am going to give you something which, though it is certain to cause you pain, it is absolutely necessary, for your own sake, to inflict on you. You will hear an account of an incident in which you played a part yourself." The gramophone hummed, and the voice of Miss Wynn leaped from it. "Come, Dr. Thistlewood," it began, "stick me in the right place. How must I speak? So? All right. Here goes, then. My good aunt, who fancied I was a bit of a heathen, wanted me to see that tame cat of a priest of hers, and partly to please her, for she's an awfully good sort, and partly to see if he was of the same breed as the rest well, I just said I would." Absolutely re- producing the placidity with which the actual account opened, and the growing excitement and virulence which soon began to infect it, the mimic voice proceeded. "I'd meant at first," it said, "if I could, to have kept my temper and merely draw the fool out. I managed to stop pretty cool I must say that for myself even when he was trying to come over me with his Gods and his Hells and Heavens and his Spirit of Evil and his Fall and his Book of Genesis and his Judgment and AN IMMORTAL SOUL his Immortal Life and his silly little Sacraments, which he rattled at me like a baby's rattle; but when he took to telling me that my parents were under his severe dis- pleasure, and talked of his giving orders to me yes, me! as my spiritual director, then at last I let fly, and I gave it him hot and strong." Then some phrases fol- lowed relating to the redemption of the world which had given a kind of shock to even her original auditors, and the voice wound up by saying, with a half laugh: "I should have liked to have given him a taste of one of his own sacraments myself, and confessed to him then and there. I think that some of my faults, my own faults, my very grievous faults, would have sent him away cured of any wish to absolve me." "Horrible!" exclaimed Mr. Barton, "horrible! I can listen to no more. Who can doubt, when confronted with depravity and malice such as that, that a living Spirit of Evil makes certain souls his prey? Not only in word to myself, but by the precocious wickedness of her acts, that wretched girl has outraged the sacred sacraments which she derides. Besides baptism she has already received two others confirmation and the holy eucharist and she laughed, though merely a child, at the moment of receiving both yes, even at the mo- ment of receiving her Lord's body. I ought, perhaps, to be only sad when I think of her. But I can't contain myself. I am devoured by indignation also." "I understand your feelings," said Dr. Thistlewood, more gravely than ever. "Were I in your position they would be mine. Miss Enid Wynn, of whom I know a great deal more than you do, represents every- thing which is bound to sadden and horrify you. Her intelligence is considerable. It is deliberately directed against all that you hold sacred. She is cruel, after a fashion which is calculated to shock anybody; and the fact that in a selfish way she is very far from unamiable does but exhibit her perversities in a yet more heinous light. For the moment, however, we will drop Miss 382 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Wynn. Mr. Barton, come back to these photographs. There they lie in pairs, one after the other Fourrier I., Fourrier II., and the rest of them. I have a confession to make to you. For simplicity's sake in explaining things, I took you in just now. I led you to assume that those pairs of human beings, so similar in their ap- pearance, were twins. They are not so. Be good enough to look again at the two Fourriers. Fourrier I. and Four- rier II. are not twins. They are one and the same per- son. The first photograph that showing the good face was taken at noon on August 5, 1899, just after he had said what you heard about his gratitude to the Belgian fathers. The second photograph was taken at noon, August qth, just before or just after that speech of his about rape and murder. In the interval he had been the victim of an attack of hystero-epilepsy, fol- lowed by a stupor which lasted thirty-seven hours, and that mild and devout young man woke up from it a blaspheming ruffian. In these two conditions Louis Fourrier is two totally different characters, and in each condition he knows nothing of what he said or did in the other. Here we come again to the Dantons. There's a note of this case though the ink is rather faint on the margin: 'Alexis Danton, a native of Aries, educated by his uncle, a priest. Up to the age of fourteen, a nervous boy, exceptionally gentle and religious. At that age, frightened by a viper hidden in a bundle of twigs, is thrown into convulsions, then becomes uncon- scious; then, on recovering his senses, exhibits wholly new dispositions, knows nothing of his past life, and five weeks later murders an old man in a wood. Is tried for the crime, and while the trial is proceeding a second crisis conies. His original character is restored to him, and all memory and knowledge of his second state dis- appear.' Here are the two Voirons. That note is by Dr. Remusat. Voiron I. changed into Voiron II. sud- denly, and, as it seemed at first, without any change in his physical state whatever. But a change, of course, 383 AN IMMORTAL SOUL there had been a profound change and its stigma was soon detected. The entire surface of his skin had suddenly become insensible. Here are the pictures of Bourne, Barnes, Hanna (Hanna was a clergyman like yourself), Harris, Alma, Gregson, the celebrated Felida, and so on. But the great case which will illustrate the matter most clearly is that of Louise Desmoulins." "Go on," said Mr. Barton, resignedly. "I have been face to face myself with the depths of human depravity. Whatever you may show me, if it must be so, I can en- dure." "I will begin, then," said Dr. Thistlewood, "with a sketch of this woman's life. But first, if you will ex- cuse me" and here he touched a bell "I must say something to my servant. Francesco, you will be good enough to push the bioscope forward. I shall want the lime-light presently. Well, Mr. Barton," he resumed, lowering his voice somewhat, "Louise Desmoulins, be- tween the ages of seventeen and twenty, lived a life of the lowest profligacy. She was then rescued and placed in a convent near Dijon. Her reformation was rapid and remarkable. Her acts of mortification were con- stant. She was constantly on her knees in the chapel. Angels visited her, and in ecstasy she saw the Virgin. At the end of two years comes a violent nervous crisis, caused by a fall down-stairs, and followed by a long lethargy. She wakes up and her religious life is ob- literated. She has the look, the manners, and the lan- guage of a vicious woman of the street. You have heard her speak under both conditions. This change from one condition to another continued to recur at intervals till her death at the age of thirty. Generally the transitions were too slow, being accompanied by an intervening tor- por, to be susceptible of reproduction by the bioscope. Her case, however, was under my observation for a somewhat prolonged period, and I had my appliances in readiness should a suitable opportunity arise. It came at last. Louise, who for six months had been in 384 AN IMMORTAL SOUL a condition of sanctity, fell asleep one morning after breakfast, a thing which, as it was not usual with her, roused the attention of my assistant. He carefully watched her when she woke up a few hours later, and then he hastily sent for me. 'The change is coming,' he said, 'but it's hardly begun yet.' And, so far as I could see at first, her demeanor was still that of Sister Martha of the Five Wounds. In a locked closet open- ing from Sister Martha's room I had secreted that very apparatus which my servant has just finished preparing for us. I told my assistant to get it ready for action, and to start it when I gave the signal. You shall now see what it recorded. Francesco what's become of you ? I want you to close all the shutters. That's right as tight as you can. And now go to the bioscope." Presently, in the darkness, the sheet at the end of the room exhibited a huge circle of blank, unilluminated whiteness. Then the whiteness turned into walls and furniture, bleak and meagre, and depicted in brownish monochrome, and standing among these was a woman of weak demeanor, who began, having first crossed her- self, to dust and arrange the chairs. Her expression was sweet and spiritual, and her movements slow and placid, till she came to a poor looking-glass, before which she abruptly paused and set herself, as though fasci- nated by the sight, to examine her own reflection. As she did so her hands began to busy themselves with her dress and hair, the severity of her compressed lips re- laxing very gradually into a smile. First her hair was pulled forward till it nearly touched her eyebrows. Then the body of her dress, buttoned high at her throat, was loosened, and as much of her figure was displayed as the circumstances of the case made possible. Meanwhile her eyes were losing their late spiritual quiet. As they ogled themselves in the glass they sparkled, and pres- ently, as was quite evident, her lips hummed some song. Then her feet moved, and she slightly raised her skirts. At this juncture Dr. Thistlewood came into the field of 385 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the picture. The woman turned and saw him, and her transformation was at once complete. She advanced toward him with a dancing step, raising her skirts light- ly. Her face was bent somewhat downward and her leering eyes were lifted. He was seen to watch her in- tently, as though she were some curious animal, and then to check her progress with an imperious gesture of the hand. Then the scene flickered, and the illumi- nated sheet was white again. Dr. Thistlewood, when the exhibition was over, left Dr. Barton for the moment to the company of his own thoughts, and, telling his servant to open one of the windows, added, in a low tone: "Give me box g$A the locked box the box containing the series which I took and developed in Gloucestershire. And then you can go. I've something to say to this gentleman of a very private kind." Mr. Barton, when Dr. Thistlewood returned to him, wore a somewhat dazed expression. "I feel," he said, "as if you'd been taking me through all the horrors of a mad-house." Dr. Thistlewood gripped his arm, and with an al- most solemn severity, said: "Let me look at you. Are you well ? Can you bear what is bound to shock you?" "Yes! yes!" replied Mr. Barton, impatiently. "God help me, speak out and have done with it!" "So be it," said Dr. Thistlewood, his solemn manner persisting. "You have seen what has happened to my little fiction of the twins. You have seen how these persons represented by these pairs of portraits I use the word ' person ' in its commonly accepted sense are severally not, as they seem to be, two persons, but one. You have seen this with special vividness in the case of Louise Desmoulins. Mr. Barton, since you will have it, the case of Miss Vivian and Miss Wynn and the case of Louise Desmoulins are the same. Whether the names of Wynn and Vivian are the names of different souls is a 386 AN IMMORTAL SOUL question which you must settle as you please. They are, at all events, names for the same body." Mr. Barton stared. His jaw fell. For some seconds the entire room was silent. "Come," said Dr. Thistle wood, brusquely, "sit down and recover yourself. Let me get you a glass of brandy. There, drink that, and don't try to speak for a minute or two. Meanwhile I'll arrange something else. We may possibly find it necessary." He was still engaged in his operations, over which he had intentionally lingered, when Mr. Barton, with re- covered voice, interrupted him. "Do you mean to tell me," he gasped "do you positively mean to tell me but no, this is lunacy do I understand you to be seri- ously asserting that Miss Vivian in reality has never been away at all that Miss Wynn was Miss Vivian her- self masquerading in different clothes that Miss Vivian made a mock of religion? But no the whole thing's incredible." Dr. Thistlewood was somewhat relieved by Mr. Bar- ton's apparent calm, though he knew it was the calm of a consternation which as yet did but partly understand itself. "I admit," he said, "that it's confusing. Let me tell you the whole story. Miss Vivian, at the be- ginning of her illness, did go away for a day or two. She was sent to my house at Malvern. Her parents are naturally anxious that her peculiarities should be kept secret, and by the advice of Dr. Gonteau, at Nice, she was called in her different conditions by two different names. In her case these changes, which have several times occurred, are gradual, and such being the case I was able, by taking her away for a day or two, to bring her back in her other condition as though she were really a sister. A contingency of this kind had been foreseen by her parents from the first, and two alternative ward- robes were sent with her when she came to Southquay. Her elderly French maid a discreet and very well-paid person knows the secret; but poor Lady Susannah 387 AN IMMORTAL SOUL little does she guess what those two wardrobes mean! As to what happened after the accident with the motor- car, that is simplicity itself. Knowing the turn which events might possibly take, I brought the young lady here, the severe inflammation of her eyes providing me with a good excuse, and here she remained in a very curious state till one fine morning she woke up as Miss Vivian again, believing herself to have been lying here, unconscious through fever, ever since the memorable storm ; and she only knows about that because I thought it best to tell her. I see I see it in your eyes and in- deed I can hardly wonder at it that the whole story even yet seems nothing to you but a bad dream. If one's in for a painful business, it's best to get it over and have done with it. Let me show you one thing more which will probably quicken your comprehension. Will you stay where you are? I am going to close the window again. Now watch the sheet. What the lens is about to throw on it is a room in my house at Malvern, and in that room will take place an incident like the in- cident which you have already witnessed from the life of the woman Desmoulins." Again on the sheet came a circle of blank whiteness. Then the whiteness again gave place to a room, this one being daintily though very simply furnished, and there, on a sofa, was lying a female figure whose dark hair, un- bound, was dishevelled on a pale pillow. The eyes were closed, the limbs were quiet as a statue's. Mr. Barton held his breath. He was looking at Miss Vivian. The limbs were quiet, but he realized in a few seconds that a movement, though not of the limbs, had already begun somewhere. It was a heaving of the beloved breast. Suddenly, with a start, she that seemed dead rose. With her eyes wide open she lifted herself into a sitting post- ure. She stared, blinked, frowned, and her mouth opened and moved like the mouth of one who shouts. Then from behind some curtain a woman, evidently a nurse, approached, stroked her hair, and spoke to her 388 AN IMMORTAL SOUL with reassuring gestures. Whereupon a little dog sprang up and scratched at the invalid's coverlet. Mr. Barton, meanwhile, had heard a humming behind him, followed by Dr. Thistlewood's words, "Listen, they are going to talk," and a voice which he recognized as the voice of Miss Enid Wynn cried: "Hi, there! where am I? What the devil is all this?" "It's all right, miss," said the nurse. "You've been ill since that day in the hunt- ing field." The invalid blinked again, and then, catching sight of the dog, "Take the little brute away," she said. "Why the dickens have they brought it here?" Then the gramophone ceased and the pictured scene vanished. " Mr. Barton," said Dr. Thistlewood, who was now opening the window-shutters, "the last veil has been withdrawn from the seclusion of Miss Nest Vivian. I have withdrawn it only because she is the woman whom you have hoped to marry." From Mr. Barton there came no word of answer. Still seated, as though in profound meditation, with his head bent forward, he was resting his chin on his high, clerical waistcoat. At last he rose, drew himself up with an air of suppressed haughtiness, and, turning to Dr. Thistlewood, broke into an unnatural laugh. " Prob- ably," he said, in a voice hardly less unnatural, "you don't believe in the New Testament. But this is a case of possession. I recognize every symptom. For such evils even to-day there is One who can provide a cure. I thank you. You have done your duty. My God, let me go out and think!" CHAPTER V AS a rule, any great calamity is, in proportion to its /-\ magnitude, inadequately realized by its victim at the moment of its actual incidence partly because it inflicts a shock by which the mind is at first paralyzed, partly because its effects are complex, revealing them- selves to the victim's consciousness slowly and one by one. It is never, indeed, borne so easily as it is at the first moment. Of this fact Mr. Barton's case was an il- lustration. " Here is an example of possession. Through my aid, under God, she shall be delivered from the un- clean spirit." This thought, which he carried with him when he left the Turkish Castle, was in its own way staggering, for it brought before him the dread power of evil in an almost visible shape; and yet, like a gleam of sunshine, it cheered him till he reached his home, for it offered a solution of his perplexities, and also a prac- tical hope, both of which were in accordance with his own beliefs. But as soon as he found himself in his library, and exercise no longer distracted him, his in- tellect became like a caldron over whose ferment he had no control, and thoughts began to rise like clouds from it which blotted the pale gleam out. That a devil should be permitted to oust Miss Vivian from her own body from that temple of the Holy Ghost by means of an attack of influenza or an electrical condition of the atmosphere, neither of which were con- nected with any fault of her own this, so his intellect urged on him, was not a very welcome conception ; but that the devil should be exorcised, not by any spiritual agency, but by the physical shock resulting from the 390 AN IMMORTAL SOUL vagaries of a motor-car, was a conception more unwel- come still. It would open the door to a materialism more grotesque even than Dr. Thistlewood's. Perhaps, however and here was a new suggestion the weakness of her body, which rendered possession possible, might be cured once for all through the strength which would soon be imparted to her by confirmation. This sugges- tion had hardly had time to form itself before it was ex- tinguished by the reflection, forced on Mr. Barton now for the first time, that this being whom he called Miss Vivian, and whom he had learned to love while prepar- ing her for that great sacrament, had received it already had received it years ago. Then his mind, like a mechanism which developed some new movement, sud- denly swept these intellectual problems away from him, and began to torment him with an alternation of two pictures and of two sets of verbal memories. He saw Miss Vivian looking at him as she had looked at him out- side the church on that sacred and remembered morning when he had taken his first walk with her. He saw her as she was when he had talked to her about God and human affection. He saw her as she was when, although then unwittingly, she had given her lips to his. And each of these visions brought with it the tones of her appealing voice, charged as they were with the uplift- ings and the tremulous susceptibilities of the soul. Then came a second image associated with the name of Wynn and a voice from the very thought of which he still re- coiled in horror. With a spasm of incredulity which fought in vain against conviction, he asked himself if the lips of prayer which had once touched his own were those very lips which in his hearing had been foul with malice and blasphemy. From intellectual, from moral, and from emotional tortures such as these there seemed to be no escape. One passed from his consciousness only to give place to another, till the series began anew in a fatal and closed circle. 39 1 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "Luncheon is ready, if you please, sir," said the voice of his maid, interrupting him. "Leave it on the table," said Mr. Barton, wearily. "I'll take what I want when I'm ready for it. And stay run across to the vicarage and say that I've just been with a doctor. I have what the doctors would call a neuralgic headache, and for a day or two may be unfit for anything. Ask the vicar to arrange about the ser- vices with Mr. Moore and with Mr. Entwistle. Or, no I'll write a line myself. Don't go telling people that I'm ill. All I want is to be left absolutely quiet." When the note had been written and despatched a new impulse took possession of him. Quitting his house, which he now felt to be intolerable, he wandered off with his sorrows to a little, unfrequented bay, where he threw himself down on the softness of the white sand, and the sighs and the murmurs of the water lulled him out of the sense of time. When at length he roused himself, he was conscious of a bright and tender thought stealing into the blank misery which now made up his being, bringing to him a new hope. It was the thought of Miss Vivian as she must have been when a little child, be- fore her troubles, whatever might be their nature, fell on her. Here, at all events, was a soul fresh from the hands of God, which could not be lost or sullied except through its own perversity. However its life might be hidden, it was impossible that its life should cease, and, come what might, he never would let it go. When he re-entered his house he found a note from his vicar saying all that was suitable, and this note had been placed on a bulky packet, the direction of which was in the writing of Dr. Thistlewood. Still disposed to be sanguine, Mr. Barton tore the packet open, and found that among its contents were these few words from the sender: "I said that there were many details which I could not ex- plain this morning, but now that you have time to realize the 392 AN IMMORTAL SOUL general character of the situation, the enclosed documents may help you in forming a clearer estimate of it. They are notes of Miss Vivian's case, made by Dr. Gonteau, of Nice, who has known her from her birth onward." These notes, written in French, were encumbered with much medical detail. Mr. Barton, to facilitate his com- prehension of them, had to make notes of his own. Thus aided, after many hours of study, he discovered that the most important portions of them were as follows: "Enid Nest Wynn Vivian, aged nineteen in 190 . Single; born in France; the child of wealthy parents. The father Welsh; the mother Belgian. Traces of religious excitability in father's family. Want of moral balance in father's character. Caught cheating at cards, though in no pecuniary difficulties. Left his own country in consequence. Maternal grandmother attached to court of King of . Beautiful; very devout; reputed to be King's mistress. Mother divorced from first husband. Accomplished, open-handed, sceptical in matters of religion. " Enid was, from the first, a mischievous though a clever child. To all appearance her health was perfect. She was always alarming her attendants by making her escape from the nursery. On two occasions (aged four) found her way into the streets. Discovered on first occasion playing with three strange boys; on the second had been taken to police-station. Discovered sitting on table talking and laughing with inspector. Her nurses. Catholics, complained of her disinclination to say her prayers, or of her irreverent manner of saying them. She was constantly reproved for her use of slang and profane expressions, her delight in these being increased by the perception that they shocked her elders. " At the age of six she caught a severe chill and was laid up for a week, bearing her illness with very great impatience. This was succeeded by a long period of somnolence. After the dis- appearance of this symptom it was noticed by both nurses that her disposition had undergone some change. She was quiet, gen- tle, talked no slang, said her prayers with remarkable diligence and devotion, and asked many questions about religion. "This change persisted for twenty-one days, after which she was frightened by the falling of a china jar. The fright was suc- ceeded by a violent throbbing of the temples, and this by a deep 393 AN IMMORTAL SOUL sleep, which was evidently hypnoleptic in character. When she woke it was observed that her disposition had reverted to that which it had been three weeks ago in other words, the dispo- sition which she had manifested from the cradle. "Except for this interval of three weeks, the development of her character was continuous up to the age of ten. At the age of seven she was sent as a day pupil to the convent at Cimiez. She spent much of her leisure time with three boys, the sons of an English gentleman, occupant of a neighboring villa, romping with them and getting into all kinds of trouble. At the convent she was precocious in her studies, but was constantly in disgrace for laughing at the sisters, at the books supplied for study, and at the character of the instruction generally. "At the age of ten fell when climbing an olive-tree, and was carried home insensible. Remained so for twenty hours, and woke up with no memory of her past life except the three weeks preceding the fall of the china jar, which she seemed to imagine had only just taken place. Her first question was : ' What has happened to the bits ?' Her disposition, too, was similar to what it had been during the weeks in question. She was gentle and religious, said her prayers devoutly, and often accompanied a lady, an acquaintance of her parents, to the English church. She exhibited, moreover, a strong taste for poetry, and was very fastidious as to her dress, rejecting with contempt the clothes previously worn by her. In this idiosyncrasy her mother was delighted to indulge her, allowing her to buy hats, boots, gloves, stockings, and lingerie as she pleased. As to her general health, she was not so robust as formerly, and for two years was taken care of by an English clergyman's widow, who lived alternately at Mentone and a small village near Geneva. During this period she called herself by her second name, Nest, having always been known previously by her other and her first name, Enid. "At the end of this period she, being then just twelve, was thrown from a donkey between Mentone and St. Agnese, was much shaken, and experienced a kind of paroxysm at the sight of her injured clothes and especially her disfigured hands. An illness of three days followed, ending in hypnoleptic torpor. On the fourth day woke up with character and memories of Enid, and unable to account for the situation in which she found her- self. " An Anglo- Jewish stock-broker, with a wife superior to him- self, took her with them to Cairo, to a lodge in Scotland, and to a hunting-box in the English midlands. During this period, at her parents' desire, she drops the name of Vivian and is known as Enid Wynn. Her present protectors not perhaps 394 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the best judges report nothing objectionable in her conduct. In the winter of 19 , at the age of eighteen years and two months, she has an attack of influenza, induced by a chill caught in the hunting-field. This lasts ten days. She then quits her bed and is taken out-of-doors. A relapse ensues, resulting from a fresh chill. A few days later complains of violent headache; light pains her ; she is kept in a dark room ; exhibits fear of every one; mistakes people for snakes. Gradually these symptoms disappear; she becomes so weak that she can scarcely swallow, and sinks finally into a sort of trance-like collapse supposed, at first, to be death. " On emerging from this state, though her weakness somewhat disguised the fact, she exhibited a change of manner which her friends and attendants thought curious. An account of her was sent to her parents, and to myself also, and we at once divined what must have already happened or be impending. Arrange- ments were promptly made for her transference to the care of an aunt who resides in the southwest of England, a considerable payment being made by the parents on her account, with a view to her remaining under the aunt's care permanently. I went myself to England to superintend her removal. She was brought to the house of my friend Dr. Maddison, in Harley Street, still in a state of very imperfect consciousness. There, after a few hours of profound torpor, she awoke, to all appear- ance well, but she awoke in the character of Nest; and when she was told that she was being taken to her relations in England, in order to regain her strength, she imagined herself to be just recovering from the effects of the thunder-storm at Mentone, more than two years ago, the storm and her own terror being the last things she remembered. " I took her to Southquay, and she has been under my obser- vation since. Her nervous condition is still highly unstable, but a healthy life, not too dull, yet wanting in occasions of agita- tion, may lead to restoration of health and possible permanence of present condition." It was midnight before Mr. Barton had finished ex- tracting these salient passages, and writing out, as he did, a careful and literal translation of them. He was, when he had finished, too tired to reread them or con- sider their general significance before he succumbed to sleep, nor did his mind in the night pay any conscious attention to them; but when he came down the next morning to his early toast and coffee, and drew his docu- *6 395 AN IMMORTAL SOUL ments forth from the drawer in which he had placed them, he realized, before he had time to reread a single sentence, that they were fraught with a meaning to which overnight he had been blind. He had gone to sleep still drawing comfort from the thought of his loved one in her earliest childhood, when her soul, her true self, had been free from all strange vicissitudes, and of the beautiful years which gave earnest of others which were yet to be. He now realized in a flash that, if Dr. Gonteau's records meant anything, all thoughts such as these were founded on the most vain of dreams, and their place was taken by others whose import was pre- cisely opposite. If the child as born into the world, the little child as baptized, is the true soul, the true, indivisi- ble self, and if any other self supervening is not a true self at all, then the true self in this case was not the Miss Vivian whom he loved, but the portent that had been called her sister. Enid Wynn Vivian so the pitiless record assured him had, till she was ten years old, been recognized by all who knew her, her religious teachers included, as a perfectly healthy and excep- tionally clever child. What was the difference between her and any other of those unhappy children who, from childhood onward, prefer evil to good ? Of all the facul- ties possessed by the God-created human soul, none at- tested more clearly that soul's divine origin than con- science the mystical faculty by which good and evil are distinguished; and the presence of this faculty in Enid Wynn was conspicuous ; for ill-doing, even in the nursery, had afforded her an impish pleasure. Unless it could be maintained that all sinners were phantoms and if this were so, why should Christ have died for them? the soul of Enid was as real as the soul of the greatest saint. And on this consideration there followed the stupendous question if his own one, his beloved one, were not a true soul, what was she ? Was she merely an iridescence, a phosphorescence, on the quagmire of organic matter? Here the passion of the lover expanded itself into that 396 AN IMMORTAL SOUL of the believer and the theologian. " If such is the case, " he cried out to himself, "with one soul, is it not the case with all? What, then, shall become of us? Is not our whole faith vain?" Both these passions were tor- menting him when the morning's post arrived, bringing him a letter from Lady Susannah Lipscombe. It helped to separate them, and it also inflamed each. She wrote: "DEAR MR. BARTON, I was so sorry to see, the other night at Lord Cotswold's little party, that you were still suffering. I could see it now and then quite clearly from your face; and now my maid has heard from one of your servants that you had been ' dreadful bad,' as she called it, with a sort of neuralgic headache. I hope it's quite gone by this time; but if it is not, will you let me send you a stick of something I have which is made up with peppermint, and if you rub it on your temples it will take the pain away. "And now, Mr. Barton, I want to say something else, too; and if I ask you a searching question you must not think that I do so out of any prying curiosity. Since your return from Nice, though you brought with you her parents' approval, you have said nothing more to me about Nest I mean about your hopes and intentions. Has there been any misunderstanding? Nest has been just as silent about the subject as you have. I thought at Lord Cotswold's party that your behavior to her was rather odd. I ask you this because Nest herself seems suffering. I noticed this at the party first, and since then she has become, not physically ill, but pensive. I went yesterday to see her about something in her sitting-room, and I found her poring over that beautiful book you gave her, with pictures of the visions of the saints in it. She was looking at them I hardly know how to put it well, as a girl might look who was looking at a picture of her fiance, and I have my suspicions that she was in your church before breakfast, I don't know for how long, without having eaten anything. You remember our old anxiety about her on this score. I won't ask you for any secrets, but if there's some trouble which you know about, cannot you make things straight one way or the other ? When are you coming to see her again about confirmation ? Or do you think But no I won't say more till I hear from you." Confirmation ! The word was like a blow, driving into his flesh a thorn whose point had been already fixed in 397 AN IMMORTAL SOUL it. Miss Vivian's confirmation was a fact accomplished long ago. How could he prepare her for a sacrament which could never be received again ? Or, rather, had she received it ? Was the child who had been confirmed she? How could Christ be Belial? How could she be identical with the adolescent Enid Wynn? He felt, as he asked these questions, that his forehead was grow- ing wet and cold. She herself his dearest who so desired this holy rite, was now, in the disappointment arising from a misadventure of her young fancy, seeking consolation among the saints, and in good time she would learn, aided by his own care, that love had meanings of which as yet she had hardly dreamed. He could see her turning the leaves of that book the Visions of the Saints his own gift to her with those delicate hands But his imagination here recoiled. He struck his forehead sharply, as though to dispel the image. He had seen that one wrist was branded with the beginnings of a red scar. Yielding to his volition, the detested detail dis- appeared. She was dearer to him now than ever, but he dared not yet intrude on her. He must, for a few days, leave her to learn her new lesson in secret. He must also, meanwhile, learn new lessons himself. He must learn to endure the recurrence of thoughts which at pres- ent scalded him. He must make himself master of dif- ficulties which still he could not deny this escaped his grip and reformed themselves, like the coils of some endless serpent. But Lady Susannah's letter must, in any case, be dealt with now. His answer was brief. He wrote : " So far as I am concerned, no complication has arisen of a kind to distress your niece. Things may have to be postponed. I shall be the only sufferer. If anything which strikes you as excessive church-going continues, will you let me know, but do not check her unless it seems absolutely necessary. I am still rather out of sorts, and one of the other curates will, for a day or two, undertake my confirmation classes. As to her, a per- plexing fact has just come to my knowledge. A communication has reached me from Nice to the effect that she has been con- 398 AN IMMORTAL SOUL firmed already. This, it appears, was in her childhood, but a nervous attack, like that from which she has just recovered, has erased the fact from her memory, and her parents Heaven help them never thought it worth their while to tell her. A little later, when I have had more time to reflect, I will explain the matter to her myself. You may trust me, I think, to do my best for her." The effort of writing brought him a moment's ease. When the letter was finished and despatched the old troubles began again, but once again their activity was interrupted by an extraneous incident. A parcel was brought to Mr. Barton which apparently contained books, and the parcel was accompanied by a letter to the follow- ing effect from Dr. Thistlewood: " I shall be interested to hear your opinion when you have read Dr. Gonteau's notes, but I beg you to be in no hurry. To- day and to-morrow I am engaged, and in any case I think that it would be better that, before we resume our conversation, you should have ample time for thinking things over by yourself. I am sending you three books. One is a modern treatise on psychology, by Father M., a Roman Catholic priest; the two others are monographs dealing with two well - known cases similar to Miss Wynn Vivian's. I won't ask you to wade through the whole each of the two monographs contains some five hundred pages but I have made notes of the parts to which 1 wish to draw your attention. In Father M.'s book there is only one. This one passage is, at all events, enough to show that he recognizes the necessity of facing the problems which such cases raise. Were I you, I should go away for a day or two. Rest and a change of scene would, I am confident, do much to clear your thoughts." CHAPTER VI THE suggestion contained in Dr. Thistlewood's clos- ing words Mr. Barton had made already more than once to himself. He had longed, herein resembling many other troubled men, to take himself far away and fight his fight in the wilderness. If this were to be done at all it might as well be done now. No actual wilderness of the traditional kind was available no Bo-tree, no Mount of God; but some twelve miles off was a watering- place, at the present season always empty, whose in- habitants and whose streets would be strange to him, and where he could wander about the beach alone. This would suit his purpose. He would start within the next hour, and these books of Dr. Thistlewood's they could go with him, and he would read them there. Often as he had passed this quiet bathing-resort in the train he had never before entered it, and now when a station omnibus had set him down there at an Old- World inn he could have fancied himself in a foreign town. Here he spent two days, and here in the blank hours, with nothing to interrupt him, he felt that by some gradual and not very orderly process his confused troubles were assuming some coherent order. He came to realize, as he had not done at first, that these troubles were of two distinct kinds. One related to his own pure- ly personal affections, the other to his entire conception of the nature of man and God, and the question of whether all he held sacred were not merely some mon- strous dream. So far as he personally and his own affections were concerned, his case, so he told himself, did not differ 400 AN IMMORTAL SOUL essentially from what it might have been had he dis- covered that the woman he loved was the daughter of a murderess, or that she herself was liable to fits of homicidal mania, or that she had been over-persuaded by somebody to assist in an act of forgery. Facts such as these might, it was quite conceivable, divide him for- ever from her and from his own happiness ; but any mere private affliction, however desolating its character, would be bearable with the aid of prayer, and of resignation to the Divine Will; and love, if thwarted here, might count on attaining its fit reward hereafter. But in his own case, behind and beyond his merely personal difficulties were others which at once rose out of and interpenetrated them, which threatened the very foundations of the fortitude by which they might have been borne otherwise, and which were not personal but universal. Here were problems connected with the very foundations of the Catholic faith, with the entire sacra- mental system, with the redemption of man by Christ, with that high philosophy of soul from which, as from a solid rock, he had looked down hitherto at the turbid foam of materialism. Here were problems connected with the very nature of conscious existence, and the significance of the human race. Miss Vivian's case could not possibly stand alone, and if her soul were really a vessel which could be broken into different parts, his own soul and every soul was susceptible of disintegra- tion likewise. It was bound to be disintegrated by death. The supreme thinkers of the past, no less than the saints, were wrong, and an urchin like Hugo Arundel was nearer to the truth than they. All the universe collapsed in a heap of ruins. By an effort of the will he freed himself from the thought of his private sorrows, and fixed his mind on these fundamental, these all-comprehending, questions. He turned them over and over as he wandered in be- wildered misery along the mile of silent esplanade which ran between a common and the sea. He wan- 401 AN IMMORTAL SOUL dered to and fro, moving rapidly now, now slowly, till his pale, abstracted face and striking figure became a familiar perplexity to the few loiterers, whose presence, like his own, accentuated rather than broke the solitude. At last, yielding to mere physical weariness, he seated himself in one of those wooden shelters which were frequent here, as they are at other sea-side resorts. When he entered it the little structure was vacant ; nor was he aware that two nurses, whose charges were dig- ging on the sands, had settled themselves shortly after- ward in the corner opposite his own, and looked at each other as some murmured words from time to time es- caped him. At last he was himself startled by the sound of his own voice. "My God," he heard himself ejacu- lating, "my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" To the women his words were audible only as a more em- phatic murmur, but he, fearing that he had exposed himself, rose and went away. To escape the chance of recognition he left the neighborhood of the shore, and betook himself to an inland road lined with scattered houses and leading he knew not where; and by-and-by, recessed between two small villas, he came on a build- ing which he recognized as a Roman Catholic church. He turned and entered; and this home of another com- munion, though that communion was, according to his theories, schismatical, provided him with a subtle com- fort which he might not have found so readily under the arches of his own chancel. It filled him with a sense of the majesty of the holy Church universal of the saints, the martyrs, the confessors, the scholars, the great philosophers, and all those whose broken hearts hold the spikenard of divine contrition. It was a sense of those countless myriads who, whether great or hum- ble, have, age after age, and in all countries of the world, borne witness by their lives and deaths to the faith by which he lived himself. He did not fight alone. All these were with him; and he felt that under him was the support of the everlasting arms. 402 AN IMMORTAL SOUL He emerged from the building strengthened but not cured of his troubles. Like sea-sick passengers on a ship, who, convinced though they may be that they will not lose their lives, continue, none the less, to suffer the throes of death, he experienced doubt as a torment, though he did not experience it as a danger, and it still made him sick and dizzy with its recurring and subsid- ing spasms. Strengthened, however, he was, and that such must be indeed the case he realized by his own actions. Instead of returning to the company of his own thoughts he went to his hotel, unpacked Dr. This- tlewood's books, and resolved, by a study of those parts of them which Dr. Thistlewood had commended to his notice, to face the facts of the situation in their most specific and most formidable form. In each volume Dr. Thistlewood had placed a slip on which, together with the numbers of certain pages, was a note relating to the scope of the volume's contents. Of Father M.'s psychological treatise, what he had written was this: "The author argues throughout from your own theological and philosophical stand-point. He assumes that the soul is separate from its bodily mechanism, and uses his knowledge of what the details of this mechanism are for the purpose of ex- pressing this separateness in modern scientific language. You will find nothing that was not implied in your sermon, with the exception of his reference to the case of the woman Felida. Felida's is one of the classical cases of what are called divided lives. He takes the records of it, and seeks to show from these that the so-called separate lives were not divided in reality." Of a second volume, what he had written was this: " Here is an account, given in minutest detail, of a young woman, Miss B., who developed in the course of her life four characters at least, each of which had its own separate memories and had no knowledge of the existence of the three others. One of these characters persisted for eight years. What will mainly interest you here are the pages mentioned below, which will show you with what singular exactness some of the incidents 403 AN IMMORTAL SOUL of Miss B.'s divided lives resemble details known to you in con- nection with Miss Wynn Vivian. See especially the scene in which she mistakes her doctor for a former lover; also the tabulated accounts of her different tastes and feelings with re- gard to dress, books, amusements, prayer, religion, etc., as ex- hibited by her in two of her contrasted and mutually hostile phases." Dr. Thistlewood's note as to the third volume was of a similarly explanatory kind: "This is an account of Mr, Hanna, an accomplished American clergyman. Mr. Hanna one day fell on his head out of a pony- cart, and was put to bed unconscious. When he woke again to consciousness his entire past life was gone from him, and a new life and character had to be built up from the beginning. He had no religious feelings. He was taken to his own church. It woke in him no memories. He was to have been married. Of this fact he knew nothing, and fixed his affections presently on a new object. Formerly a teetotaller and an enemy of all frivo- lous amusements, he now drank beer in music-halls and devel- oped a lively delight in the antics of half-nude dancers. See undermentioned pages. Note specially the manner in which the second character constructed itself." Mr. Barton took the books with him to a lonely part of the beach, determined to tear out the heart of them under Dr. Thistlewood's guidance. He not unnaturally began with the treatise of the Roman priest. He agreed with Dr. Thistlewood that it would be needless for him to read the whole of it, he could see at a glance that its reasoning was so absolutely parallel to his own. He accordingly went at once to the passage which dealt with Felida. When he had read it he laid down the book delighted. It was as he had known it would be. To refute the arguments of the materialists, one need but examine carefully the facts on which they profess to found them. It was no doubt true such was Father M.'s admission that Felida's life did go through certain phases, each of which might, by a superficial observer, be taken for a separate life independent of all the rest. 404 AN IMMORTAL SOUL This was the conclusion at which the doctors who at- tended and observed her leaped. But what did we learn from the records of these very men themselves? We learn, Father M. proceeded, that, though certain cir- cumstantial memories were peculiar to each phase, and were not possessed by her in the others, yet all these phases alike had a stock of memories in common memories of a general kind, like a stem from which they all grew. Such were the woman's memories of the French language and the multiplication table, and a host of others, which she had obviously possessed in every phase alike. Here was a fact which the material- ists at once admitted and overlooked, and the moment its significance was grasped it was fatal to their whole position. Such cases as Felida's might be interesting in many secondary ways, but they did nothing such was Father M.'s conclusion to cast any doubt whatever on the unity of the human soul. This brilliant piece of criticism, though it did not solve all his difficulties, encouraged Mr. Barton in the convic- tion that they were all ultimately soluble, and he turned to the two long monographs on the cases of Miss B. and Mr. Hanna, feeling that to study them would be now almost superfluous. He did, indeed, cast his eye over the passages which Dr. Thistlewood had commended to him, and now and then sighed when he realized the startling likeness between many of the incidents recorded in connection with Miss B., and others no less staggering, with which he was but too familiar; but nowhere in the passages which Dr. Thistlewood thought so important did he catch the suggestion of anything like a new idea. In both these volumes, however, he succeeded in discov- ering something which Dr. Thistlewood had either over- looked or had certainly forborne to mention. This was the fact that the historians of Miss B.'s case, and of Mr. Hanna's, exhibited as to one point a most striking and unlikely agreement. In defiance of their own theories, they alike systematically assumed that the subjects of 405 AN IMMORTAL SOUL their respective studies, however their lives might be disintegrated, had each a true self somewhere, if only it could be found and fixed. In each volume, let him open its pages where he would, he came upon such phrases as the "true" or the "real Mr. Hanna," the "true" or the "real Miss B. "; and, so far as his hasty reading would enable him to form a judgment, the doctors in each case declared that they had at last succeeded in restoring this self to its natural and full integrity. This significant fact dawned on him that same evening in his bedroom, where he continued, by a flaring gas-jet, the studies which he had begun on the sands, and which had there been interrupted by the chill and the shades of twilight. At once his mind sprang into new activity. A host of theories, competing for his final selection, formed them- selves, by means of which faith and hope might recover their intellectual basis, and in view of which Dr. Thistle- wood himself, when he heard them, would be obliged to reconsider his position, and then unwillingly to surrender it. The defeat, indeed, of Dr. Thistlewood in fair and open argument would be, Mr. Barton felt, the best as- surance for himself of his victory over his own per- plexities, and he made arrangements, before going to bed, for returning to Southquay by the earliest train next morning. It was not yet eight o'clock when he entered his own door again. His first care was to ask whether any let- ters had come for him. There might be one from Miss Vivian such was his secret thought. But there was not. He saw on his desk a single envelope only, ad- dressed in a hand unknown to him the hand evidently of a clerk. He turned away from it with a sigh, and while his customary coffee was preparing he stole into his own church. The whole atmosphere of this edifice was poignant with memories of Miss Vivian and of the prayers and of that memorable sermon which had been filled and fired with his love for her. The thought of her was mixing itself with his prayers in the shadowy 406 AN IMMORTAL SOUL chancel now, when suddenly in the background of his consciousness stirred the image of Miss Enid Wynn. Pain, acute though not hopeless, was once more gnaw- ing at his heart; and feeling, when he rose from his knees, that his troubles were not ended yet, he stole on tiptoe down one of the side aisles, as though fearful of observation, toward a small door of exit. All at once he became aware of the presence of one kneeling figure. It was not far away. With a rapid movement he drew back behind a neighboring pillar, and, hiding himself as completely as possible, he ventured to look again. His first impression had been correct. The kneeling figure was Miss Vivian herself. There was little chance of her observing him unless some sound disturbed her. Her eyes, which for him had now a more than earthly beauty, saw, if they saw anything external, the chancel and the altar only, and her thoughts were far away. A passionate longing filled Mr. Barton's heart to kneel down at her side and bury every hateful difficulty in a union of his prayers with hers. But a trembling rever- ence, united with the dictates of common - sense, re- strained him, and only his unspoken words, unheard by herself , went out to her. "How could I doubt? How could my faith fail me ? However your earthly vest- ure may at times disguise and hide you, I have seen the self, the soul in you, which nothing can take away." Unnoticed, and moving noiselessly, he gained the door and departed, taking care not to disturb her by so much as the clinking of a latch. When he re-entered his library, where his coffee-pot was now glistening, he perceived an object which had not been there before. During his absence in the church another letter had arrived for him. It was lying by the one which he had hardly cared to notice. At the sight of it his heart palpitated. It was a letter from Miss Vivian herself. He tore it open, and devoured the fol- lowing words : 407 AN IMMORTAL SOUL " DEAR MR. BARTON, I have had no real conversation with you since the day when you came to see me, and when you had to go away almost directly because you felt so fll. I don't count that time at Lord Cotswold's. Nothing like real talking was possible then, of course, and everybody was rather foolish and everything was at cross-purposes. I want to tell you that, since then, I have been growing to understand many things things about which you, and you only, of all men, have ever spoken to me, and I think that before long I may have to come and consult you yes, and tell you everything, as I could do to no one else. But let me wait till I am quite certain of my own inmost self or at least as certain as I can be without consult- ing you. When that time comes I will write to you, and we will arrange a meeting, and if we should meet before then please not to speak about this. I want to say nothing until I feel that I am quite ready with you. In matters like these you are my best you are indeed my only friend. Yours, N. V." " P.S. Since we met that night at Lord Cotswold's, when we neither of us, I think, were very well, I have had nothing in the way of health to trouble me but tiresome dreams, which leave one rather unrefreshed in the morning. But I get up early, and am refreshed in other ways. I hope your headache is gone." Mr. Barton, on reading this letter, experienced the un- fathomable relief which the sea-sick passenger experi- ences when his ship is at last in harbor. Then relief was transfigured and took the form of rapture. The heav- ens were opened and poured benediction down on him. He sank on his knees to receive the divine influx. He hid himself from the common daylight in the darkness of his clasped hands, and there in the darkness God and the human soul he loved seemed to have drawn so close to him that he knew not which was closest. Presently, as a means of regaining his contact with common life, and assuring himself that he was not dream- ing, he took up the letter which he had thus far neglected. The envelope bore the post-mark of Belfast, his native place. Except for an uncle, a banker, he had had, since his father's death, no correspondent in the town; the uncle wrote but rarely, and the size and look of the envelope, no less than the direction, showed that this 408 AN IMMORTAL SOUL missive could hardly have come from him. Mr. Barton broke the seal and extracted a quarto sheet. It was headed by the name of a firm quite strange to his mem- ory; nor did he even realize what was the nature of its business till he had read the communication through. When he had done this he found himself in possession of the fact that his uncle had died intestate a few days ago, that his fortune amounted to something like four hundred thousand pounds, that the heir of this was his sole surviving relative, and that his sole surviving rela- tive was the Reverend T. Barton, his nephew. Mr. Barton's indifference to money as a means of self-indulgence was absolute. Except as a power which enabled him to serve the Church, he had hardly been conscious of possessing it till the prospect of marriage dawned on him. Then his comparative affluence had acquired a further meaning for him, since it enabled him to offer a home to a delicately nurtured wife; but, apart from the confidence which it gave him in the character of a suitor, the idea of personal affluence formed no part of his consciousness. This condition of mind, how- ever, had for the moment, at all events, ceased to be any longer possible. Affluence had suddenly assumed the undreamed-of form of wealth, and a sense that his whole position had somehow been greatly changed was forced on him no less sharply than it would have been if, in- stead of a fortune, what had come to him had been a pair of wings. Even now he could have said, with ab- solute truth, that of worldly pomps and vanities no single image had arisen to play any part in his agitation ; but, nevertheless, the heir to very nearly half a million was vaguely aware of a strength which had not been his before. But a strength of what kind, and available for what purpose? In accordance with its ruling passions, his nature soon gave an answer. Allying itself with the new hopes produced by Miss Vivian's letter, and also by his recent sight of her, this sense of strength, which was suggested to him by the possession of a great income, 409 AN IMMORTAL SOUL lost its primary form before a few minutes were over, and, transmuted by a process which was human if not logical, reappeared as an augmented confidence in that whole intellectual position which he now was impatient to vindicate in a pitched battle with Dr. Thistlewood. Materialism no longer daunted him. He defied it with a renewed contempt. In this mood he proceeded to write two letters. Any one who had watched him with eyes sufficiently keen might have detected in his attitude at his writing-table, and in the manner in which he held his pen, an air of mastery which had not been his before. One of his letters was to Miss Vivian a letter tenderly reticent, in which he contented himself with saying that he would obey her wishes in everything. The other was to Dr. Thistlewood, and was couched in the following terms: " DEAR DR. THISTLEWOOD, I have acted on your advice, and for two days I have been away. I thank you for your books and for Dr. Gonteau's notes, all of which I have read. I am sending them back by bearer; and if you will be in this morning I should derive much satisfaction from rediscussing the whole matter with you. The bearer will wait for answer. Yours, "THEOPHILUS BARTON." Mr. Barton, who was rarely at a loss for messengers, found no difficulty in despatching these letters simul- taneously. Dr. Thistlewood's answer reached him with- out delay. It said: " By all means come. I will expect you by twelve o'clock." CHAPTER VII MV dear Mr. Barton," said Dr. Thistlewood, when his visitor entered, "I know that all this which you forced me to reveal must have been a shock to you, but allow me to congratulate you on the fortitude with which, as I can see, you are bearing it. You have read the notes and the books, you say. I shall be interested to learn in what light you regard the situation now.'* Mr. Barton had, when Dr. Thistlewood saw him last, been a man cowed and broken, trying vainly to hide from himself the spectacle of his own dismay. Now his manner, though not free from anxiety, had in it some- thing incisive, self-assured, and challenging. "It would be idle to pretend," he said, with a magis- terial coldness, "that in respect of its personal bearings Miss Vivian's case gives me less pain than you thought it would. It probably gives me more. So far, Dr. Thistlewood, I do not think I shall have disappointed you. This fact I admit, but I haven't come here to dwell on it. What I want to discuss with you is not Miss Vivian's case individually, but the class of case of which it forms an example. I believe I shall be able to show you, from the facts which you have yourself sub- mitted to me, that, though there is much in them which may surprise any of us, there is nothing which need dis- turb a Christian. The inferences, in short, which you and your friends draw from them seem to me, if you will pardon me for saying so, a huge intellectual mare's nest." Dr. Thistlewood looked at him with an odd but a not unkindly smile. "Well," he said, "pray go on. Let 27 411 AN IMMORTAL SOUL me hear the whole of your criticisms. When you have finished I will reply, if any reply is possible. Perhaps it won't be." Mr. Barton pressed the finger-tips of his two hands together, and began to speak in a measured tone of authority. "It would be arrogance on my part," he said, slightly raising his eyebrows, "to attempt a complete discussion of complicated physical happenings. I shall confine myself to broad facts, as to which the common-sense of one man is, I submit, as good as that of another. You shall have my points in order. There are three of them. In the first place, then," he proceeded, "you have your- self insisted, for my benefit, on the curious forms of hallu- cination produced by very ordinary fevers. Further, we are all familiar with the fact of madness and idiocy. The Church has been familiar with both these kinds of phenomena for nineteen hundred years. But the faith of the Church has not been thereby affected. I should be much surprised to find that you or your friends, if you were put to it, could draw any essential distinc- tion between these changes, so-called, of personality and those mental disorders of which any day in the week you can find any number of examples in any one of our county asylums. You nod. I suppose that, in part at least, you agree with me. Now for my second point. And here I must thank you for your candor, for you yourself, in giving me Father M.'s book, drew my at- tention to the facts I am about to mention. Felida, I gather, is one of the classical examples on which you and your friends rely, when you try to explain away the oneness of the human soul. You know, I assume, since the passage was among those marked by you, what Father M. says about this. Father M. conclusively shows from the very facts which his opponents give him that in Felida's case the so-called separation of lives was a pure invention on the part of those by whom the case was recorded. These men," said Mr. Barton, snapping 412 AN IMMORTAL SOUL his fingers, "were in such a hurry to grind their own materialistic axe that they had no time to see what was under their own eyes. Felida's fundamental memories, and the whole substratum of her personality, were as undisturbed and undivided as are yours and mine this morning. Well, you nod again. It seems that we are getting on. I suppose that you follow me thus far." "Perfectly," said Dr. Thistlewood "perfectly. I am waiting to hear more." "The point," said Mr. Barton, "to which I am coming now I won't call it more conclusive than those I have just touched upon, but it's conclusive how shall I put it? conclusive in a wider and more practical way. In those two elaborate monographs on the cases of Mr. Hanna and Miss B. I discovered yes, in both of them one curious feature which, since you did not mention it to me, must have escaped your own attention. For me it was far more significant than anything in those pas- sages to which you advised me to confine myself. In both these books, with their endless weary pages which chronicle minute differences between one so-called self and another, I find constant references made by the respective doctor-authors to the "real or true Mr. Hanna" and the "real or true Miss B.," and in each case the doctor's aim was to find this self and to fix it. So even these men, it seems, the moment they forget their theories, come back to the view which the hum- blest Christian holds in common with those who have hitherto been regarded as the profoundest thinkers. It therefore appears to me that, in spite of all your science, the Church is not so helpless as some of her opponents fancy." "I am not quite certain," said Dr. Thistlewood, when Mr. Barton came to a conclusion, "as to what is your immediate object in urging your present arguments. If you want, as a philosopher, to start a general discussion of the relation of certain facts to your own philosophy as a Christian, or to the future fate of Christian philoso- AN IMMORTAL SOUL phy as a whole, I shall be delighted to meet you as soon as we can find the time which a task like this will require of us. But if, as I gather, your object is more precise if your wish is to provide yourself with some conclusions which will justify the continuance of your intentions in connection with Miss Wynn Vivian, I don't mind saying something at once about these isolated arguments as you give them to me. Only, before I do this, let me once more put the plain question to you? Do you, in the face of all that you have lately learned, persist in your desire to make this young lady your wife?" "I most certainly do," said Mr. Barton. "I am also aware that I have no claim on your valuable time other than that which some wish to interfere with such a mar- riage gives me. For this reason I accept your question as a legitimate one. Well, Dr. Thistlewood, you may rest assured of this: that my intentions in the matter in question are utterly undisturbed by anything you have been able to tell me, and were never more resolute than they are at the present moment." "In that case, then," said Dr. Thistlewood, "I will do the best I can for you. One of your arguments, at all events, I can accept as having some truth in it. I mean that which relates to the fact that the doctors from whom you have just quoted have committed them- selves to the theory of some one self in their subjects which was more real than their other selves. This self they have sought to identify by various tests such as its superior stability, the physical well-being associated with it, or its power of absorbing the memories of the other selves, its competitors. Thus, in the case of Mr. Hanna, the two selves were ultimately fused, and if he is still alive they may remain so to the present day. Now if you like to consult me about this practical aspect of the question, and the chances that what was done for Mr. Hanna may be done for Miss Vivian likewise, I will admit at once that you are on the track of possibili- ties, and it will do you good to realize what the nature 414 AN IMMORTAL SOUL of these possibilities is. But as to your other argu- ments, I would sooner not pull them to pieces, but leave you to draw from them what satisfaction you can." "I, on the contrary," said Mr. Barton, "should be very much more satisfied by learning here and now what you can urge against them." Mr. Barton, as he spoke, had almost closed his eyes, while his lips were compressed into a thin, sarcastic smile. Dr. Thistlewood's temper was, as a rule, imper- turbable, but Mr. Barton's expression provoked him into giving an answer more to the point than he would have given willingly otherwise. "Well," he said, "since you will have it so, let me take your arguments as you stated them. It will not take me long. You began by urging that these divided lives, or selves, are nothing more than a peculiar form of madness. Have you taken the trouble to ask yourself what madness means ? What we all of us mean by mad- ness, as opposed to sanity, is a state in which reason, to a greater or less extent, loses its grasp of facts, and of the actual relations that subsist between the individual and the surrounding world. But in the cases with which we are now dealing such symptoms are entirely absent. If Danton, Voiron, Fourrier, Louise Desmoulins were sane when they were in a state of grace and they most un- doubtedly were so they were no less sane in their states of vice and crime. Louise, as a woman of the streets, was mentally far superior to Sister Martha of the Five Wounds. Miss Wynn is in all ways as sane, and, in some, more acute than Miss Vivian. So much for madness. And now, Mr. Barton, for the famous case of Felida, and those facts those undoubted facts on which you and Father M. build. These cases of divided lives differ in their details from one another, just as cases do of an injured leg or arm. Sometimes the limb is dis- located or almost severed from the trunk. At other times we have merely a simple fracture. Divided lives exhibit the same variety. In Felida's case it is quite 4i5 AN IMMORTAL SOUL true, as you say, that the different selves had a stock of acquirements in common. It was not necessary for each of them to teach itself to walk and read. But if you turn to the case of Mr. Hanna, the records of which had not been published when Father M. was con- cocting his famous argument I'm afraid that you can't have read very many of those pages which I marked for you you will find that Mr. Hanna exhibited those pre- cise conditions over the absence of which in Felida's case Father M. rejoices. Mr. Hanna's conscious self had, in its two phases, no common memories, no common stock of acquirements. The mind of Mr. Hanna the second began as an absolute blank. Like a baby, he could not speak. Like a baby, he could not feed him- self. What is still more remarkable, he had no idea of space. He thought the bedclothes were part of his own body. He only learned what self, as opposed to the not-self, meant by discovering gradually where his powers of movement ended, and when he had learned to speak, and intellect had reconstructed itself, his chief intellectual difficulty was understanding what was meant by God." Mr. Barton was silent for a few moments. His face, as he listened, had betrayed an austere impatience. "We look at these matters," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "from such different points of view that dis- cussion seems almost hopeless. A soul may lose its memories as a balloon may lose its ballast. But the balloon is a balloon still. It is not the sand that soars." "Then in that case," said Dr. Thistlewood, "what be- comes of your argument? Just now you were urging, in agreement with Father M., that Felida's so-called many souls were shown to have been really one, because some of the same sand was used as ballast by all of them." Mr. Barton bit his lip. "It's idle to talk," he said, "if we are to canter off on a metaphor. I should also, 416 AN IMMORTAL SOUL before I can discuss what you can say, require you to give me details." "Precisely," said Dr. Thistlewood. "That's what I set out with telling you. I told you that these things couldn't be discussed in a hurry. Had I time I should ask you to consider, before we went any further, what, in a moral sense, the idea of self means for you. I should point out to you that self means for a Christian, not the mere sense of an ego 'bombinans in vacuo.' It means character a disposition of the heart. Otherwise it means nothing. I should point out to you also that, as M. Ribot very trenchantly says, the distinctive thing which changes in these changes of personality is pre- cisely this moral disposition, without which, from a Christian point of view, a soul or a self is no more than a soap-bubble. But I can't do this in five minutes. If we must quarrel, let us quarrel at leisure. Meanwhile, if your arguments still seem to you satisfactory, stick to them. Let them give you comfort, and let us you and me for the moment, instead of quarrelling, con- fine ourselves to an aspect of the matter with regard to which we are in some agreement. I mean the possibility in the present case Miss Vivian's of so strengthening and developing one of the two selves that it shall ab- sorb, dispossess, or in any case permanently abolish the other." "Very well then," said Mr. Barton, not sorry to change his ground, "for the moment we will waive theory and just keep to this practical point. It is the point on which, rather than on those quoted by yourself, I fixed my attention when I looked through those books you lent me. In the case of Mr. Hanna there was admitted- ly a complete recovery. In the book about Miss B. I noticed that there were two chapters, of which one had for its title, 'The Search for Miss B.'s Real Self,' the other, 'How the Real Miss B. was Found.'" "I suppose," said Dr. Thistlewood, "you had not time to examine into the means employed by the doc- AN IMMORTAL SOUL tors to bring about these results, such as hypnotism sometimes induced with the aid of ether. You might perhaps not approve of them. Of this we can talk hereafter. You will be better pleased by learning that reunification has been sometimes obtained spontaneously -by an improvement in the patient's health, by a fa- vorable modification of circumstances, and the develop- ment of stable and appropriately stimulating interests. The girl Barnes, who split up into ten different lives, each with its own memories, finally settled down into that which was sixth in the order of appearance. She married, became a useful young woman, and followed the profession of a type- writer, her cure having worked itself out altogether unaided by any artificial treat- ment." "Well," said Mr. Barton, "this I do believe of you that you are no less anxious for Miss Vivian's welfare than I am. If you can help by your advice to further the result you speak of, I shall ask for nothing better. Let us get the result, and you may trust me to put my own interpretation on it." Dr. Thistlewood leaned back in his chair and looked contemplatively at his boots. "We are talking," he said, "of Miss Vivian's health and the kind of mental result we may look for from its continued improvement. I have had better opportunities than you have had for forming an opinion about that. Since the evening on which she realized that a certain romance was hopeless, and exchanged the agitation of suspense for the com- parative calm of disappointment, her general condition has, I think, much improved. Nothing troubles her but the persistence of vivid dreams which tease her because they seem so meaningless dreams of inanimate objects, such as a railway station, which seem to force themselves meaningless on her eyes, and which sometimes make her sleep a worry rather than a rest. At her aunt's sugges- tion she came to me about an hour before your own arrival. I'm sure you won't regard a trouble like this as 418 AN IMMORTAL SOUL serious ; and otherwise I thought her better than I have done since my first acquaintance with her. Still this morning she seemed tired I gather that she had been at church so I gave her something that would put her to sleep for an hour or so. She is in the house at this moment. In another five minutes she will be awake. Her aunt will be here for luncheon, and is going to take her home aftenvard. I should suggest that you stay and make your own observations for yourself." A rapid flush spread itself over Mr. Barton's face. The image of Miss Vivian as she knelt in church came back to him, and the look of her sacred letter, against which his heart was at that moment beating. He as- sented to Dr. Thistlewood's suggestion with a coldness which was pleasure under a thin disguise. He began to consider whether his own letter would have reached her before she started for the Turkish Castle. He felt convinced that it would, so that when they met they would understand each other. Little did Dr. Thistle- wood dream of the kind of knowledge on which Mr. Barton based his belief in the human soul. Lord Cotswold, as usual, received him with gracious friendliness, and he, too, like Dr. Thistlewood, detected in the priest's demeanor, subdued and grave as it was, some subtle and elusive self-confidence which had not been there before. When Lady Sus"annah arrived she looked at Mr. Barton with a glance, so Lord Cotswold noticed, of half-shy, questioning curiosity, and Mr. Bar- ton, by a slight stiffness in his greeting to her, seemed to be withdrawing himself from the reach of any confiden- tial catechising. Then the door opened again, and at last Miss Vivian entered. She was the same as ever, and yet not the same. The soft and equable self-possession which had distinguished her at Lord Cotswold's dinner- party, and had then given place to an artificial frivolity, had developed itself. It shone in the quiet of her eyes and expressed itself in the character of her dress. She was usually addicted to striking though always delicate 419 AN IMMORTAL SOUL colors. This morning, from her hat to her shoes, every- thing was a dove-like gray. Perfect as this toilet was from a dressmaker's point of view, it seemed to Mr. Barton to be a sanctification rather than an adornment. Dr. Thistlewood watched to see how she and Mr. Bar- ton met each other. They bowed and just touched each other's hand. Then they moved apart. Dr. Thistle- wood noted their distant demeanor with satisfaction, till he saw that it was followed by a glance of mutual understanding, which caused him to reflect impatiently on the incalculable ways of women. At luncheon the two sat opposite to each other. Dr. Thistlewood watched them still. The result of his ob- servation became, as time went on, less and less satis- factory and more and more perplexing to him. As for Mr. Barton, his continued reserve was remarkable. Of that glance which Dr. Thistlewood had intercepted he attempted no repetition. He rarely even looked at the girl, nor did he often address her. Miss Vivian's eyes, on the contrary so Dr. Thistlewood perceived rested on Mr. Barton, not indeed in a way which would have attracted ordinary observation, but nevertheless with a curiously systematic frequency, and their expression was one which, to the best of his recollection, he had never noticed in a woman's eyes before. It betokened a sense of hope mixed with some profound repose. To Dr. Thistlewood himself, however, as well as to her aunt and Lord Cotswold, her manner had a suave com- posure which was always ready on occasion to take the form of a fugitive but wholly unforced cheerfulness. "Here is something going on," thought Dr. Thistle- wood to himself, "much more serious than I had antici- pated. This man has bewitched her. If I don't look out the fat will be in the fire in no time. I'm glad to see," he said, turning to the girl rather sharply, "that your nap has done you good. I hope that what you call your morning dreams did not presume to molest you on the sofa after mid-day." 420 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Miss Vivian laughed. "No," she said; "I suppose they respected the witching hour of noon." "May I ask," said Mr. Barton, for the first time starting a subject, and speaking as though the mat- ter was one of purely impersonal interest, " how dreams in the morning differ from dreams at any other time?" "Yes," said Lord Cotswold, "let us hear about this. I've just been reading a book in which the writer at- tempts to divide dreams into classes. What do you say ? Who's there?" This was addressed to a servant. "Cer- tainly. Lay another place. Yes, my dear young lady, you were saying or, rather, you weren't saying, but we all want you to say what distinction you would draw between dreams yourself. Ah this is an unexpected pleasure. We were just talking about dreams. I hope this is a reality." Lord Cotswold had risen from his seat, and was grasp- ing the hand of a lady whose clear, incisive voice would have cut any dream in two. "Whatever else I may be," said Lady Conway, for the new-comer was she, "I was always a model mother, and I've come back to see my child. At this moment she is lunching on a patent preparation of gruel, and I've fled from a dish of mutton-chops which was pre- pared for my own consumption. My dear," she went on, turning to Miss Vivian, "what's happened to you? One would have thought you'd come from heaven if your clothes hadn't come from Paris. Ah, Mr. Barton, I saw your name last night in a paper which is not, as a rule, much occupied with clerical news. I hope that what I read may be true, and that the World may be allowed to offer its very humble congratulations to the Church. What! Has nobody heard? Mr. Barton, I must reintroduce you as the deserving successor to one of the largest fortunes in Ireland. We shall be having you for a bishop soon." "I did hear," said Lady Susannah, "though I didn't 421 AN IMMORTAL SOUL hear any details, a sort of rumor about something of the kind last night." Dr. Thistlewood looked at her. Her eyes, in their own way, were an object of study not less curious than Miss Vivian's, but they were much easier to read. Dr. Thistlewood read them like a book. They were turned toward Mr. Barton with a light of intimate yet shy con- gratulation in them, and Dr. Thistlewood knew that in the mind of this simplest and most unworldly of women Mr. Barton had, as a suitor for Miss Vivian's hand, ac- quired a desirability and importance which he hitherto had not possessed. Dr. Thistlewood smiled a little grim- ly. Then he frowned. "This will never do," he mut- tered. "Things are growing worse and worse." Mr. Barton somewhat relieved him by courageously changing the conversation. "We were talking just now," he said, "about a subject very much more inter- esting. Miss Vivian was telling us that her morning dreams were more tiring than any others, and Lord Cotswold was asking her how the two kinds differed." Miss Vivian, being accordingly pressed to go on with her explanations, did so with perfect simplicity, though the matter in question was not, she said, worth making a fuss about. The morning dreams, she continued, the peculiar dreams that annoyed her, differed from other dreams because they were so much more vivid and at the same time so much more stupid. "For instance," she said, "I dream sometimes of a row of bottles, rather like Mr. Hugo's, only they are cleaner, and I can't get rid of the sight of them. They stay before me like a bright picture. And sometimes I see, in the same tire- some way, an odd kind of stone hut, like a dwarf's hut in a fairy story, or a church-yard, very ill-kept and full of absurd monuments; and, worse still, I am constantly seeing railway stations, or rather bits of them, and they have absurd names. I have often seen one called Pog and another one called Kethar. Dr. Thistlewood was so flattering as to take my reminiscences down. But 422 AN IMMORTAL SOUL there's nothing in these dreams except their extraordi- nary clearness and a sort of perverse commonness to make them anything out of the way. They make me feel, when I am asleep, as if a lamp was being waved to and fro before my eyes." "My dear," said Lady Conway, "you have given us a most brilliant description. If you could only teach me to see railway stations not Pog and Kethar, but Euston as clearly and pertinaciously as you do, I might, perhaps, beat the police and discover who stole my jewel-case. Well, and how is our Rawlin?" Dr. Thistlewood glanced at Miss Vivian, and adroitly upset his wineglass with a view to checking the intro- duction of this indiscreet topic; but Lord Cotswold hav- ing risen at that moment, a general movement followed which rendered this step superfluous. "Nest," said Lady Susannah, "I ordered the carriage early. I hear that it's just come. No, Lord Cotswold, no we really mustn't wait for coffee. I have an en- gagement, and shall be rather late as it is. Nest, my dear, what's become of you?" What had become of her was this : With a placid di- rectness of movement, as soon as the party rose, she had approached Mr. Barton; she had drawn him a little aside, and, looking up at him with an expression of earnest confidence, she was saying to him some- thing or other which was evidently of deep impor- tance. Mr. Barton bent his head to listen. Then he inclined it farther. Otherwise he gave no sign. Miss Vivian and he then parted without the semblance of an ordi- nary leave-taking. " My dear Mr. Barton," said Lady Conway, when Miss Vivian and her aunt had departed, "I hope I did not do wrong in congratulating you on your good-fortune. I was certainly betraying no secrets, for I saw the news in an article called 'Social Doings in Ireland.' What the English Church wants is consistent men like your- 423 AN IMMORTAL SOUL self, who have the material means for giving effect to their convictions." Mr. Barton bowed. The thought expressed by Lady Conway had already mixed itself with his own special hopes and troubles. "Well," Lady Conway continued, as she turned round to Lord Cotswold, "I'm glad that dear Susie has got her Miss Nest back again. If half that I've heard lately of the other young lady is true, she had made even Nice a good deal too hot to hold her." Dr. Thistlewood looked again at Mr. Barton. He was biting his lip, and for a moment, but for a moment only, his features contracted into an expression of sharp pain. Then he recovered his equanimity, and, observing that his engagements would prevent his remaining longer, made his adieus with a courtesy almost stately in its grave reserve. "I may shortly," he said to Dr. Thistlewood, "be able to renew our conversation with a fuller knowledge of the circumstances than that which I possess at pres- ent." "What," Dr. Thistlewood asked himself, "could Miss Vivian have just now said to him?" What Miss Vivian had said was this: "I am sure of myself now, as I was not when I wrote that note. I now know what you meant all along when you used to talk to me. Try to come and see me to-morrow. To- night I will write again. All I want now is to tell you everything everything. ' ' "Mr. Barton," Lady Conway said to Lord Cotswold, as soon as the priest had gone, "takes his good-fortune very much like a saint and a gentleman. I'm sure he would like, if he could, to spend his thousands on fag- ots to burn the people who are wicked enough to dis- agree with him. As for the young lady Dr. Gustav, did you observe her? I always told Rawlin that the young lady would go far. She seems to have discovered in advance on which side her bread is buttered." 424 CHAPTER VIII DR. THISTLEWOOD, ever since the beginning of his confidential relations with Mr. Barton, had made notes of the priest's demeanor under the stress of his own discoveries and the revelations which it had been necessary to inflict on him. That afternoon Dr. Thistlewood made a further note, which was as follows: "This man interests me more and more, though he will end by driving me to do something which I would, if possible, avoid. "He is a typical specimen of human nature as submitted to two influences which rarely affect the same subject simultane- ously in such close connection namely, those of religious faith and intense personal affection, both reacting on facts calculated to destroy both. " The heart of all living faith is, and has always been, an emo- tional and indefinite perception of some profound truth, but this is a kind of truth which, for the great mass of mankind, can be operative only when invested with some form which is defi- nite, and it can be invested with such a form by means of symbols only. Hence all believers (as we call them) in propor- tion to the practical efficiency with which the truth is perceived by them, identify the truth itself with the symbols namely, the cosmic, the moral, and the quasi-historical myths through which alone for them it achieves definiteness. Accordingly, if external facts which conflict with these myths are obtruded on them, they feel that a certainty which is external is being pitted against a deeper certainty which is internal, and this latter cer- tainty so far prevails with them that any theory is accepted by them, no matter how untenable, by which admitted facts may be deprived of their hostile significance, or else may be so ob- scured that they cease to signify anything. Such is the case when faith alone is at issue. In the case of Mr. B., we have a vehement personal affection of a curiously exalted kind, adding 425 AN IMMORTAL SOUL to the obstinacy of faith another which is even more vivacious. What precisely has been happening during this last day or two I cannot very well guess. Is it possible that the girl has re- covered her memory of the love-scene when she took him for Sir R., and has transferred to him the good- will of Sir R.'s busi- ness ? To-morrow or next day I am prepared to hear anything of mutual passion and rapture in which all facts are forgotten. If that prove to be the case, then the eyes of the blind must be opened once again. And then I shall be sorry for her perhaps even for him, too." If Dr. Thistlewood could have looked into Mr. Bar- ton's heart he would have exchanged his state of con- jecture for one of moral certainty. That supreme bless- edness, the prospect of which, when first held out to him, Mr. Barton had found to be a delusion, and which, having raised him so high, and having made a new man of him, had vanished, abasing him in the depths of amazed sorrow, revealed itself to him now and sooner than he had dared to hope as being at last on the point of turning into an ineffable, an overwhelming reality. Compared with his present expectations, those which brought him such beatitude on his journey home from Nice seemed puerile. Late that same evening the expected summons reached him to present himself at Cliff's End. It came not from Miss Vivian herself, but from her aunt writing on her behalf. Here was solid evidence that there was no more delusion now. Lady Susannah wrote: " DEAR MR. BARTON, Nest tells me that, at her own request, you are coming again to talk to her. She wants it to be to- morrow. This is a great relief to me. If there was anything wrong, I do hope that your coming will make things right for both of you. I am glad for your own sake to hear about your great inheritance. No one could know better than a person so nobly disinterested as yourself how to use great wealth wisely. I hope that we, as a family, may have the right to be very proud of you. Will you come about five o'clock? When you come I will arrange that you shall go to Nest's sitting-room, for in my own little nook near the door there has been a fall of soot, and everything will be covered up with sheets, as a prepara- 426 AN IMMORTAL SOUL tion for the chimney-sweeps. Don't trouble to write if the time which I have named suits you. Unless we hear to the contrary before twelve to-morrow, you will find Nest waiting for you." Mr. Barton, at the hour appointed, entered the sacred chamber. His heart beat tumultuously. A lump rose in his throat. When Miss Vivian greeted him the words which he tried to form were no more than a hoarse whisper. Neither of them made any show of extending a hand to the other, but looks and signs were exchanged in accordance with which they seated themselves, a table being interposed between them. "I thank you so much for coming," Miss Vivian said, at last. "Will you let me begin and put things in my own way?" Her voice was charged with feeling, but, unlike Mr. Barton's, it was under her complete control, and her manner was strangely equable, giving no hint of nervous- ness. Mr. Barton, by a movement of his head, signified his desire that she should proceed. "I want you, then," she began, "to see me with a good light on me, as photographers say, so as to assure yourself that I am looking well. I do look well, don't you think so? I look, don't I, and I am talking like a person who is healthy and wide awake and has all her wits about her ? I never in my life felt more matter of fact or less of a dreamer than I do at this moment. Wait a second. Let me take away that bowl of flowers. It prevents my seeing you properly. Well, I should like you to tell me that I make a proper, healthy impression on you. I'm not saying this for talking's sake. I want a genuine, candid answer." Mr. Barton had no difficulty in giving her the assur- ance for which she asked. No one who saw and listened to her could possibly have done otherwise. "That's right," she said, with a smile of half-playful relief. "Now I can speak with confidence. I am now going to speak to you about things to which my eyes a s 427 AN IMMORTAL SOUL have been opened partly by your aid things in relation to which, as you yourself once said to me it was that day, after luncheon, when we walked together along the cliffs nothing can come between us." Her face, with its setting of delicately arranged hair, though it could not divest itself of the magic of its lurk- ing piquancies, was so transfigured as to suggest to Mr. Barton's mind a memorable line of Byron's "All youth, but with an aspect beyond time." "I want you," Miss Vivian proceeded, in a low but unhesitating tone, "to know me as I know myself. Let me tell you something about my childhood. I believe I used often to be ill, but there's much that I am con- fused about and can't very well remember. But some things stand out as clearly as if they had happened yes- terday. I mean things which happened, or which seem- ed to happen, sometimes in church and sometimes in my own room. When I had said my prayers, or was thinking about them afterward, I used sometimes to fancy that I saw our Lord standing before me, and once or twice the Blessed Virgin. They never spoke, but they would smile at me in a way that gave me con- fidence, and if I was in trouble because I had lost some- thing, they would by a look or a movement show me where to find it. Now I don't think any longer, what- ever I may have thought once, that these figures were what one would call realities. I now have special rea- sons for knowing that they were not. In one sense they were fancies. But would you say they were fancies which were merely morbid which came to me because I was not well? Or would you think it possible that they were signs which meant that I was near, or was getting nearer, to what I seemed to see so clearly?" Mr. Barton changed his position. He turned his face away from her, and before he pronounced an answer he pondered with contracted brows. "No doubt," he said, at last, "visions of the kind 428 AN IMMORTAL SOUL you speak of all sound theologians are, I think, of this opinion have been due again and again to the operation of evil spirits, who have sought to betray the humble by filling them with a false pride. I feel convinced, however, from the way in which you speak of the matter, that this could not have been so with you." "I'm sure," said Miss Vivian, "that these things pro- duced no pride in myself. But I'll tell you what they did do. They made prayer and religion too little of a self-denial and too much of a self-indulgence." Mr. Barton smiled. "Who has been frightening you," he replied, "with such ideas as these? When our Lord said, 'Suffer the little children to come to me,' do you think he meant their coming to be painful? Do you ask me about this I hope that such may be the case because you are finding at the present time that the act of prayer is becoming more easy and spontaneous than it once was?" "Yes," said Miss Vivian, quietly, "that is more or less my meaning." She stopped abruptly, and both of them were for some time silent. At last Mr. Barton said : "In speaking just now of the visions seen by you in your childhood, you hinted that at one time you perhaps took them for realities, and that you have recently quite recently, I so understood from your manner had reasons for assuring yourself that they did not possess that character. What touch- stone have you found which enables you to reach an opinion of this very decided kind?" "That," said Miss Vivian, "is the point to which I have been leading up. I wanted to feel sure that you wouldn't laugh at me or think me mad. Mr. Barton, listen. I know that those early visions were not actual external things, because I have seen, since then, other visions which were so." She uttered these words slowly and very gravely, but she uttered them with the quiet of one who, troubled by 429 AN IMMORTAL SOUL no doubt, finds all emphasis superfluous. Mr. Barton drew a sharp breath. A new world of wonders, for him essentially credible, was opening its abyss before him. He did not speak, but a look from him besought her to continue. " I am telling you all this," she resumed, with the same self-possessed solemnity, "not because I want to ask you whether these things which I have lately seen were fancies. I know they were not, just as surely as I know that this room is not a fancy. I am telling you because I want you to stand over me, or by my side, and help me along that way on which you have travelled so far your- self, and which now must be mine also. And I come to you, not only because I have known your sympathy in the past, but also because you have been pointed out to me, in a way of which I will tell you presently, as the friend who will sustain and help me. Do you think, if I were not certain of my facts, that I should venture to talk like this to you?" "Tell me," said Mr. Barton, in a low, quivering voice, as though he were in the presence of some divine vision himself, "what these visions were, and when, and in what place they appeared to you?" "They appeared to me in church," she said, "not dur- ing any service, but when I was alone there, as I have been, early in the morning each of these last few days. I felt that something was coming. I was dimly con- scious of the direction in which I was being drawn and guided, and at last well, I can only say that this won- derful thing happened. But, wonderful as it was, it somehow did not surprise me. It merely seemed to com- plete something, like a rose unfolding from its bud. I had been kneeling in church for half an hour or so, not praying exactly, but thinking things over, and feeling them letting them grow into me. They were the sort of things of which your own book, The Secret Way, is full, and of which you talked to me when we walked that afternoon along the cliffs together the world beyond 430 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the world, the star beyond the star, the heart of hearts, the better country which the ships will never reach, but to which they seem to beckon us. And then I opened my eyes, and my eyes fixed themselves on the altar, and I thought of how He, who is the heart of all this in- ward world, condescends to come to us there in His actual bodily form, though its beauty is then veiled, and how He offers to those who seek Him a refuge from all loss. And as I was doing this the chancel became vague, but I still saw the lamp that hangs in it. It was a spot of extreme brightness. I remember this vividly. And then this brightness disappeared and gave place to an- other, which seemed to have come forward, so that it was like a white cloud, which I could have touched had I held my hand out ; and the next thing I knew was that our Lord Himself stood before me, and no veil hid Him now. His form, Mr. Barton, was just as clear as yours is. I could take in every detail. His dress was white and loose, and there were two lines bordering it, one gold and one red, like a piece of braid. And He stooped toward me, and He just touched my chin, so as to raise my head a little, and make me look Him full in the eyes, and He said to me, 'I know you love Me. Do you love Me well enough to become altogether Mine ? ' And I must have said 'Yes,' though I don't know how I said it. And then He opened His robe and I saw his sacred breast, and a face was painted on it so perfectly that it seemed like a real face reposing there, and it was yours. And our Lord said to me, 'Are you willing to rest where he rests?' And I said 'Yes,' as before, and He said, 'Then I will give you my guidance and show you how this may be.'" "Go on," said Mr. Barton. "You spoke of visions. Was this followed by another?" "Yes," she replied. "The second vision came next morning in the same place. You are taking me seri- ously, aren't you? You're not laughing?" "If I could laugh at all," said Mr Barton, "I should 43 i AN IMMORTAL SOUL laugh at that foolish question of yours. My face is an open book to you. Read it for yourself and see." For a certain number of seconds the priest and the girl looked at each other. When a pure man, to whom love first reveals itself in his maturity, and who, contrary to the habits of a lifetime, has felt the unbelievable pressure of a woman's lips on his, her lips can never be to him the thing that they were before. They are the rim of a vessel in which the spiritual wine is tendered to him, and the wine will not quench his thirst until he has touched those lips again. Spiritual beings, with a flut- tering of dove-like wings, were, so it seemed to Mr. Bar- ton, thickening in the air around him, and were drawing Miss Vivian and himself together in the tabernacle of their brooding plumes. But his moment was not yet come. It was coming; but he even now must wait awhile. "My child," he said, lowering his eyelids, "go on, if you think me worthy. I mustn't go on looking at you I mean not yet not yet. Well the second vision it came, and it gave you the guidance promised?" "Yes," said Miss Vivian, "and I am bringing its mes- sage to you, so as to be assured that I have understood it rightly. As I said just now, this second vision came to me in the church also. It came yesterday morning. It, too, began with a brightness which seemed to origi- nate in the neighborhood of the hanging - lamp, and which soon afterward was as near to me as the next row of chairs. And then this soft cloud went, and instead of it was the Blessed Virgin. And her dress was blue, like the deepest blueness of the sky, and her hands were white like lilies, and the hearts of all women seemed to be melting in her eyes. And she said to me : ' Nest Viv- ian, your heart has been tried by the love of what you never could have made your own. It has been tried thus, so that you might be drawn toward another object which can be made your own entirely. My Son loves you, and I know that you love my Son, and He has sent 433 AN IMMORTAL SOUL me to tell you how you may be worthy of His most close embrace. If you would be worthy of my Son you must do what by some of those nearest to you will be ac- counted foolishness, but there is one whose head reposes on my Son's breast, and he will protect and lead you, making hard things easy, and you and he shall be with my Son together.'" Mr. Barton bowed his head. One tense hand was pressed against his closed eyes. The supreme revelation was, he felt, to be made at last, and he and she would then be in each other's arms. Miss Vivian's voice, previously quite tranquil, had be- gun to tremble, not much, but perceptibly, and she had paused as though to recover her self-possession. "Well, Mr. Barton," she resumed, "the Blessed Virgin went on in this way: 'Nest Vivian,' she said, 'raise your eyes to mine. You know the title by which the Church calls me, and you know what that title means. If you would be worthy of my Son you must be and you must remain as I am, and you must join the company of those made sisters by most sweet vows who have given themselves to the Sacred Heart, and have no lover and no bride- groom except Christ.' And then she kissed me on the forehead and I was alone again in the empty church, and the words ' Sacred Heart ' were still sounding in my ears, and I knew that what she had said was the un- sealing of my inmost thought. You, who have been given to me for my guide, you must now help me. There is no need for haste," she went on, with a smile, "or for rushing things. When people are certain they can easi- ly afford to wait ; and there must be a convent which will take me, like that of which our Lady spoke. That's the sort of thing which you know, or which you will find out for me, and your judgment shall be my guide. Ah, Mr. Barton, I shall no longer make you anxious by seem- ing too fond of balls; and this, if you still care for me, will, I fancy, be a great relief to you. Why do you look like that? Your face seems as though it had turned to 433 AN IMMORTAL SOUL marble. Do you think that I have taken myself in? Do you think that I am too presumptuous? Do you think that our Lord never appears to anybody?" Mr. Barton had risen to his feet. The fashion of his countenance, as she said, had indeed undergone a change. With a hasty movement of his hand he enjoined her not to speak, and he seemed to experience a difficulty in finding his own voice. " God forbid," he said, " that such unbelief should be mine. Just now you uttered words of wisdom. There is no need for haste. Were you less dear to me than you are I might find a readier answer. Nest Vivian, you do not know what you have done. You have confronted me with a problem so profound that as yet I cannot see to the bottom of it. I must think it over in a solitude so solitary that you can hard- ly imagine the desolation of it. Before I go, give me some sign of your recognition that, if I am slow in giving you any judgment, it is for your sake it is for your sake that I am slow." He stood facing her. He made no movement with his arms, but his hands were opened toward her in a mute and forlorn appeal. It was an appeal which took her by surprise; but she divined its immediate import, and she could not resist it, though what lay behind it was a riddle to her. She approached him frankly and grave- ly, she made the gesture for which he hungered, and one hand of hers gave itself to each of his. " You don't, then, think me presumptuous ? And you won't desert me on my pilgrimage ?" She put the ques- tions submissively, and yet with a regained confidence, her hands meanwhile being still in his close grip. It was all he could do to restrain himself from throwing his arms around her. As a matter of fact, he maintained a rigid though not a forbidding aloofness, and said to her, solemnly: "When God bestows on any one any very signal favor, she or he who receives it must not expect to understand it without long and careful thought. The Blessed Vir- 434 AN IMMORTAL SOUL gin had to ponder long herself before the true nature of her own blessedness dawned on her. St. Teresa brought her visions to her confessor, and scrupulously sought his counsel, before she allowed herself any assurance as to what they really meant. Of you, then, I ask that for a time you should reverently suspend your judgment, and that meanwhile you should pray and meditate, and ex- amine calmly the very recesses of your own heart. And I, for my part, will pray and meditate likewise, and ex- amine all sides of the question. Then, but not till then, my judgment may venture to aid yours. When that time comes," he added, dropping her hand, "may God Himself judge between me and you. I, my child, I have had my visions also, and I have suffered in them things concerning you." CHAPTER IX " /\ /I ATTERS do not seem to be marching as quickly as I / V I had feared they would. Mr. Barton as yet has made no further sign. I had, however, yesterday a line from Miss N. V. Whatever has happened, she, at all events, seems to be fairly satisfied, except for those morning dreams of hers, which still give her some trouble. If they do not cease soon, she says, she would like to see me again, though she bears them now much better than she did at first." Such was the entry made by Dr. Thistlewood in his note-book three days after that intimate and furtive parting which had caught his attention in the dining- room of the Turkish Castle. When two days more had passed he had something further to record: " Yesterday afternoon, by appointment, had a visit from Miss N. V. In her general health there is a very decided improve- ment. She has been out with her aunt calling on some of Lady S.'s Southquay friends also on some poor people. This is a new practice. I mentioned Sir R.'s name to her. I did this while I had occasion to feel her pulse. The pulse distinctly quickened. Also there was a momentary blush. Otherwise she was abso- lutely tranquil. She once more described her dreams. I gave her the same treatment, and with very interesting results. These set down at length in note-book 256." Here a break occurred in Dr. Thistlewood's page. Then came the following entry, written some hours later: " Since writing the above, have had at last another visit from Mr. B. He was certainly not triumphant. On the other hand, he was not exactly dejected. He has, he told me, been im- mersed in correspondence connected with his succession to his 43 6 AN IMMORTAL SOUL late uncle's property. This may explain a good deal, but it does not explain everything. It explains an added obstinacy with which, I am sure, he sticks to his own opinions; but one thing it does not explain namely, a genuine anxiety which he displayed, very different from his first hysterical efforts to con- vince himself by the process of annihilating me, that physical science has nothing to do with souls an anxiety to learn how much or how little the vile body can, in one way or another, perturb the indivisible entity which condescends to inhabit it. Indeed, he has actually made a suggestion which I had made to him myself already, and which then he seemed to dismiss as unworthy of much attention. He suggested that he should come here when Lord Cotswold and I were at leisure he did not care how often and ascertain what science has really got to say about the matters which are now troubling him. We have arranged everything. Our gentleman is to dine here to- morrow. Lord C. knows nothing of the secret of Mr. B.'s dis- tress, except the fact that Mr. B., having begun to prepare her for confirmation, has discovered that N. V. was confirmed in childhood and had forgotten the fact through illness. With Mr. B.'s assent, so as to render discussion easier, I am to tell Lord C. that a case similar to Miss V.'s has occurred among Mr. B.'s more or less intimate acquaintances, and has caused him much perplexity." An observation is to be found in the memoirs of an obscure writer to the effect that a sorrow or anxiety, its cause being still operative, can be cured, and cured only by another different in kind and more insistent. "My financial losses," he says, "my own faulty extravagance, and my terrible inability to meet my just obligations, were a load on my back all day, and when I slept they were a nightmare; but when, having loved Margaret, and believed that she loved me, I was led to doubt whether this love continued, my debts ceased to exist for me. I lived in this new pain only. As for the others, I could hardly so much as recollect them. But when my doubts of Margaret ended, and the aching of my heart was eased, the load of my debts came back to me, and I soon found myself wondering how any one thus loaded could have any patience for so idle a thing as love- making." 437 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Mr. Barton's experiences, ever since that memorable morning when he had seen Miss Vivian in church, and afterward received her letter, had offered a parallel to the fact chronicled in this brief passage. The pressure of his intellectual perplexity was expelled altogether from his consciousness, first by the rapture, and then by the absorbing pain which he experienced successively as the adoring and the despairing lover. His new hopes had lightened this pressure. His new pain had extruded it from the circle of his conscious being. This new pain was more profound, because it was more concentrated, than that caused by his first disap- pointment and the terrifying revelations attendant on it, but it was more easily borne. His spiritual fortitude, in the present case, was not weakened. It was, on the contrary, stimulated by the call of the great sorrow which bade it, in the name of Christ, to come forth and display itself. Mr. Barton had not walked with his Lord for nothing. He had felt in his meditations the cross on his own shoulders. He was familiar with the meaning of the great word " Renuntio, " and he had often solemn- ly wondered when, if ever, the supreme summons would come to him to pronounce that word on his own account. Had that summons come now ? And was this, indeed, to be the form of it, that he should tear from his heart all hopes of making humanly his own that life which the Lord had committed to his special keeping? With an effort he placed his hopes in the hands of his divine Master, and prepared himself to face the desert across which, it might well be, all his journey would lie be- tween that hour and his last. Gradually, however, his thoughts began to take a dif- ferent turn. Thus far, so a whisper told him, he had been thinking of himself only. It might be a very fine thing for his own soul this renunciation of an earthly love; but might it not mean the abandonment of Miss Vivian to a kind of life for which she had no vocation and to which these visions of hers had not really called 438 AN IMMORTAL SOUL her? And here a thought suggested itself to Mr. Bar- ton's mind which, strangely enough, had thus far es- caped him. In desiring to enter a convent, what was the kind of convent which Miss Vivian had in contem- plation? The only book which he had lent her bear- ing on conventual aspirations namely, The Visions of the Saints was the work of a Roman Catholic. The "Sacred Heart" these words were ominously suggest- ive of Rome. Could it be that her desire was to quit the Anglican communion, she not knowing in her sim- plicity what such a step would mean ? Here, for an An- glican priest, was indeed a grave question. The Lord could, by no possibility, urge one of his children to stray from that special fold in which He had Himself placed her; and here the whole problem opened itself of what these visions of Miss Vivian's might be really meant to convey to her. Round Mr. Barton's head, as he took this problem to his pillow with him, her image hovered, beseeching him not to leave her until no doubt existed as to the things belonging to her peace. When he rose from his bed next morning his eyes had some new purpose in them, and his breakfast was no sooner despatched than he sought out certain volumes which occupied a portion of his shelves not often dis- turbed. They were volumes which dealt with the sub- ject of visions, true and false, and for many hours he was examining the treatise of a Spanish theologian on the various tests by which the true and the false might be discriminated, and more especially on the several varieties of the latter, some of which were due to the ingenuity of evil spirits, some to a perverse activity in the mind of the visionary himself, and which consti- tuted a danger from which saints even were not exempt. There was one section which he reread more than once. It's title was "De visionibus quae naturalibus causis tribuendas sunt." He had just placed a marker between the pages of this section when he started to pay that visit at the Turkish Castle which resulted, as Dr. Thistle- 439 AN IMMORTAL SOUL wood set down in his notes, in Mr. Barton's engagement to return there the following day with the strange ob- ject of learning whether science could not teach him something. Lord Cotswold at once put Mr. Barton at his ease by expressing the pleasure he felt in the prospect of some further philosophical discussion with one whose point of view was in many ways different from his own. " My interest," he added, "though I must not say my pleas- ure, is increased by learning that two curious cases, which belong to the region lying between matter and spirit, have been brought under your own notice, and have provided you with a definite reason for consider- ing what such cases mean in relation to your own phi- losophy. As to your young friend, who, it seems, has received already the sacrament for which you were pre- paring her, and has oddly enough forgotten the fact well, Mr. Barton, there you have a question of theology which I won't presume to touch upon. Taken by itself, it is merely an illustration, for you singularly vivid, of a vicissitude which is common enough in the career of human memory, and being common it escapes notice. But the other case the duplication, or it may be the triplication, of self in the person of one of your own ac- quaintances there you have something which at once arrests attention. It obliges you to puzzle over prob- lems which would otherwise have been never so much as imagined by you. Come, let us go to dinner." CHAPTER X MR. BARTON experienced a very sensible relief on perceiving how completely, on Lord Cotswold's part, any suspicion was wanting with regard to the identity of the case which was to be the text of the im- pending conversation, and the trio were accordingly no sooner seated at the dinner-table than he felt it in- cumbent on him to begin by putting the two others in their place. "In a general way," he said, addressing his host, "I am, of course, sufficiently aware of the sort of interpreta- tion put by you on cases of this kind, so I ought to tell you plainly, before we go any further, that such an in- terpretation is for me forgive me the expression an absurdity, or has an absurdity at the root of it. I am, of course, ready to listen to whatever you can say in de- fence of it, but I ought to make it clear that the only open question for myself is not what these maladies sig- nify: it is how they can be cured, and what are their precise symptoms. I mean," he continued, as Lord Cots- wold encouraged him to explain himself, "how far can the activity of the physical organism mimic the activity of the actual mind or soul? I cannot, you see, even state my case without making assumptions which you and Dr. Thistlewood will repudiate; but still there is a whole world of facts which I admit not less freely than you do. One soul in this life knows another soul through the medium of the body only. I admit also that when the soul is engaged in contemplation or meditation, the body plays a necessary part in this inward process like- wise; and just as a person who suffers from aphasia, 441 AN IMMORTAL SOUL which admittedly is a physical and not a mental afflic- tion, fails to convey his true thoughts to another, so may the soul, owing to causes equally physical, fail to present true thoughts to itself. I should incline, in fact, to represent the brain as a glass, through which, under normal conditions, the soul sees things as through a window, but which is, on occasion, so bent or tilted that it acts as certain mirrors do, used by conjurors on a stage, and, instead of showing the soul things really ex- isting, bewilder it with images which are reflections of its own ideas. Here, I should say, we have the origin to take an extreme case of those false visions which, as all theologians admit, even saints at times have been in danger of mistaking for true ones. My own view here may differ from yours in some respects, but we are both concerned with the same order of facts, and it would interest me much to learn, as a practical man, within what limits these hallucinations develop them- selves, and with what physical conditions scientific ob- servers connect them. This is what I desire far more than a controversy over first principles; but still, if you would care to spy out what you and Dr. Thistlewood would regard as the nakedness of a priest's soul, so be it. I am at your disposal. Let us take first principles first." "We did," said Lord Cotswold, "not so very long ago, have a little skirmish about these things, or at least we sounded our trumpets. But the conditions then were unequal, and thus far they are so still. We know your position ; you made it plain in your admirable ser- mon. But what do you know of ours? You seem to think that it is represented by a modern paraphrase of Lucretius. Let Dr. Gustav and me put our heads to- gether and try to do it more justice." Mr. Barton assented, the spirit of battle rising in him. "Perhaps," he said, "my words the other night may have sounded unduly crude; but, if you come to the essence of things, I am still prepared to maintain that 442 AN IMMORTAL SOUL the materialism of to-day, endlessly elaborated as it is, has not advanced, and is forever incapable of advancing, a single step beyond the old Lucretian paradox. Ex- press it as you will, you have this assumption at the bottom of it: that life can and does result from a colloca- tion of lifeless particles, the corollary being that, since matter was before mind, mind played no part in the process which was the condition of its own development. The parent process, in other words, was fortuitous. Sense came out of nonsense. Well, Lord Cotswold, till you can induce me to believe this, the first principles of materialism, whether modern or otherwise, are, I fear, outside the pale of what for me is reasonable discussion. Still, I can listen. I am willing to be a target for your own and for Dr. Thistlewood's arrows." "Mr. Barton," said Dr. Thistlewood, half laughing, "I could see that the challenge in your eyes, when you talked about fortuitous particles, was especially directed against myself. It is now your turn to be patient, and you shall have my general answer. What you say about Lucretius and his particles is no doubt true enough. I grant you also that many modern scientific specialists have, as to first principles, got no further than he. For them, as for him, the universes, living and lifeless, result from a concurrence of particles supposed to have been originally independent. But, if you consider what sci- ence really implies, you will find that these particles, which are vulgarly supposed to be its starting-point, are by it, more vehemently than by any other system of philosophy, repudiated as impossible and, indeed, un- thinkable things. For science an independent particle is a contradiction of terms. Take the law of gravitation. This, as has been well said of it, means that every grain of ground pepper in Sirius affects every grain of salt in every salt-cellar in Paris. If science teaches us any- thing, here is its universal lesson: that no particle has ever existed or can exist, can be what it is or be where it is, except in virtue of its connection with every other , 9 443 AN IMMORTAL SOUL particle in the universe. If you realize this you will see that matter, for modern science, is something very different from a chance concourse of atoms, each of which was originally a sort of hermit in space and might possibly again become so. Each one of them is the centre of an endless web of connections. Apart from that, it would not exist at all. In the dance of a mote in a sunbeam is all the movement of the stars. Every smallest activity of your brain or mine is a move- ment of the thought universal. It is continuous with and inseparable from the process which reddens on the robin's breast and shines in all the courses of the suns. I don't expect you," Dr. Thistlewood went on, "to grasp, in the interval between your soup and your cutlet, a conception which is still unfamiliar to many men of science themselves; but a practised thinker such as you are will at least gather from what I have said that modern science, if it deduces life from matter, under- stands the word ' matter ' in a sense so different from your own as not to be open to the criticisms which you have just now sought to apply to it." "I can only," said Mr. Barton, doggedly, "go by what I happen to read; and it seems to me that, not so many years ago, we had a great German scientist address- ing this allocution to the world: 'The brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile.' You, Dr. Thistle- wood, may disguise this doctrine as you will, but as soon as you wash off the paint to this favor does it come." "I agree," said Dr. Thistlewood, "that this statement as it stands is absurd, but, without painting it up, let us try the experiment of completing it. The brain secretes thought, but what has produced the brain ? It is not for science, whatever it may be for theology, a little hermit mechanism self-created and generating its own movements. It is linked by a chain of causes to the whole past of the universe, and if detached for a moment from the system of things surrounding it to 444 AN IMMORTAL SOUL make an impossible supposition it wouldn't be a brain at all." "I think," said Mr. Barton, turning from Dr. Thistle- wood to Lord Cotswold, "that my opponent is still eluding the ultimate crux of the situation. Until we consider what the nature of conscious life is, it may perhaps be possible to persuade ourselves that such life is the product of compound causes; but I don't retract one word of what I said in my sermon that the essence of our life is consciousness, and consciousness is es- sentially one and indivisible. Its centre is the ego, which is the nominative case of its verb the numeral which alone gives value to the series of ciphers follow- ing it." "When Sir Rawlin Stantor and I," said Lord Cots- wold, "were together in Persia, we were induced by the atmosphere of the East and perhaps by the fact that we had much time on our hands to study Eastern philosophy, more especially that of India. Of science, in our sense of the word, Indian thought knows nothing; and yet Buddhism, which regards the separate self not as a primary fact but as the last illusion, and Brahminism, with its Great Sentence, are far more in accord with the European science of to-day than are any of the philosophies which have developed them- selves since the beginning of the scientific epoch. If you urged your argument about the permanence of the individual soul on a Hindu, the Great Sentence, as it is called, of the Vedantic philosophy would be his answer to you. In that sentence is the heart of a philosophy which is far older than the Christian, and which is ready to burn and blossom out of the Western science of to- day. 'Thou art That.' In those three words our own science is summarized." "I confess," said Mr. Barton, slightly curling his lip, and pushing a cherry-stone about his plate as though chastising it for some ineptitude, "that I do not find this Great Sentence more than moderately illuminating. 445 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Myself, I should get more out of the two great com- mandments in the Gospels." Lord Cotswold, quite unmoved by the delicate irony of his guest, was about to answer when the course of the discussion was interrupted by a letter which was brought to Dr. Thistlewood, and which contained so he said when he had glanced at it a request to attend a friend now staying in Southquay, and suffering from a com- plaint with the nature of which Dr. Thistlewood had special acquaintance. "I shall be back," he said, "in less than an hour, and Mr. Barton will, I hope, still be here." "I," said Lord Cotswold, "will do my best to retain him. While you are away we'll suspend our present discussion, and I'll show him some of my plans and photographs of early Syrian churches." Mr. Barton had no interest in seeing how absurdities might be rendered plausible. Spirit for him was spirit, and matter, as such, was matter. Matter, through its relation to spirit, became no more alive than a mirror did because living things were reflected in it. All he wanted to discuss and he wanted to discuss it, not with an amateur mystic, but with a doctor of considerable experience was the simple question of how far the mirror on occasion might mislead the eyes which looked in it by such and such false reflections. He felt, ac- cordingly, when Dr. Thistlewood left the room, that his own concern in the conversation was for the time sus- pended, and he was presently glad to avail himself of his host's suggestion that they should, during Dr. Thistle- wood's absence, turn from the philosophies of the East to the sanctities of its Christian architecture. "We will," said Lord Cotswold, when a number of bulky portfolios had been brought forth from their hid- ing-places and deposited on a convenient table, "talk of the Great Sentence at a more convenient season. Now, what have we here? Ah, this is the Templars' chapel in the great Castellum Peregrinorum. Do you 446 AN IMMORTAL SOUL see that mountain in the background? It was there that Elijah brought confusion on the priests of Baal, and saw the rising of the cloud no bigger than a man's hand. Here we have a bit from Aleppo. This I found at Alexandretta. Do you see the broken columns doubtless from some temple of Venus which have been built, like logs, into the chancel walls ? Here we come to Famagusta. That wheel-shaped window is finer than anything of its kind in Europe." Mr. Barton took a magnifying-glass which his host offered him, and was soon absorbed in an examination of mouldings and masonry, the construction of vaulted roofs, and the style and subjects of frescos obscured by time or shadow. His interest was genuine, and he permitted himself slightly to exaggerate it in order to avoid the recrudescence of philosophical or theological contro- versy. Thus an hour and then another hour went by. Dr. Thistlewood had not returned, and Mr. Barton was be- ginning to feel that not all the chancels of the Crusaders were a substitute for the kind of information which Dr. Thistlewood alone could give him. At last, having glanced at the clock and expressed a polite surprise at the time having gone so quickly, he was about to make the declaration, inevitable in such cases, that he must not allow himself to keep his host up any longer, es- pecially as there was no knowing when Dr. Thistlewood would reappear. "I had something," he said, "of a special kind to ask him relating to the case of that friend of mine which we spoke about at the beginning of dinner. But this must keep till to-morrow. I can only hope that I haven't trespassed on your kindness already." He had hardly, however, finished his speech when Dr. Thistlewood entered. " I was," he said, " detained, and was afraid that when I got back I might find Mr. Barton gone. I don't know, Mr. Barton, if you object to sitting up late. His 447 AN IMMORTAL SOUL lordship here, who is good enough to follow my advice, generally goes to his bed an hour or so before I do, but if you will come to my room we can have a little seance there by ourselves." "I trust," said Lord Cotswold when, in accordance with this suggestion, he bade good-night to his visitor with a very stately politeness, "that you soon will give me the opportunity, not of changing your opinions for you, but of explaining certain alternatives to them which, in the face of such facts as those with which you have been yourself confronted, will, when we are dead and gone, be competing with them for the world's ac- ceptance." "Well, Mr. Barton," said Dr. Thistlewood, when Lord Cotswold had taken his departure, "shall we come and get to business?" In his tone, Mr. Barton noticed, there was something of dryness and command which had, during dinner, been wanting to it. Wondering what this could mean, Mr. Barton followed him. "Now," said Dr. Thistlewood, closing the door of his study, where a cloak just worn by him was disposed over the back of an arm-chair, "we can discuss practical ques- tions. Since I was called away from the dinner-table I have made a discovery which will perhaps save you trouble. I think that I know, without your telling me, your reason for wishing to inquire into the kinds of illusion to which the mind is liable from admittedly physical causes. Miss Vivian has been the recipient of some new mental impressions which do not, in your opinion, accord with actual fact. You wish to assure yourself that in this opinion you are correct, so that you may, without doubt or scruple, give her your ad- vice accordingly." "By what means," said Mr. Barton, "you could have formed so strange a hypothesis it passes my wit to con- jecture. I admit, however, that it is, in substance, cor- rect." 448 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "Perhaps," Dr. Thistlewood continued, "I may vent- ure to go even further, and surmise that Miss Vivian conceives herself to have received some specific intima- tion the contents of which, in your judgment, are doubt- ful, or even obviously misleading. There my guessing power ends. But tell me if I am right so far." " I admit it," said Mr. Barton. " You are certainly an adept at inferences." "You must," said Dr. Thistlewood, "not be too quick with your compliments. In the pocket of my cloak there I have a book a very pretty illustrated book. Let me take it to the reading-lamp. Will you kindly come over and examine it with me?" Completely perplexed, Mr. Barton did as he was re- quested, and the book which Dr. Thistlewood spread open before him was none other than the Visions of the Saints his own present to Miss Vivian. "You will wonder," said Dr. Thistlewood, "how I came to be possessed of this. My answer is simple. The patient whom I have just been attending was Miss Vivian herself. Don't be alarmed. It's only the old trouble. She told me again about what she calls her morning dreams. This evening she was slightly agi- tated, and longed for a good night's rest. Before doing what I could for her I naturally asked her some ques- tions, and it so happened that she spoke to me of two visions not dreams in bed, but figures which she had seen in church. To these appearances she has been at- taching some peculiar significance, but she would not tell me what. It is something, I conjecture, which ex- cites your own disapproval." "Perhaps," said Mr. Barton, "since so much has come to your knowledge, I may without impropriety add to it one further detail. Miss Vivian is inclined to under- stand these manifestations as a command to her that she should quit the Anglican and enter the Roman communion." "And such a command," said Dr. Thistlewood, "you, 449 AN IMMORTAL SOUL an Anglican priest, naturally cannot accept as emanat- ing from a divine source. You are, therefore, anxious to find for it some natural origin. I can help you. To me, as no doubt to you, Miss Vivian described both these visions in detail. The first figure seen by her was habited in a white robe, ornamented with a red braid which had threads of gold in it. The second wore a hood and mantle of very deep sky-blue. Look now at these two pictures in this book Visions of the Saints. There the two figures are exactly as Miss Vivian saw them. The first has a picture on its breast. Miss Vivian did not mention that. That detail is too grotesque, perhaps, for the modern fancy to assimilate ; but there is the braid, there is the white robe, and there is the Virgin Mary, sky-blue from head to foot. Here, in accordance with your own very excellent simile, we have a glass which is normally a window, playing the part of a mirror, and so reflecting images in the patient's memory as to make her mistake them for external and supernatural objects. I could lend you, if you like, an extremely interesting book which gives a minute history of a number of sim- ilar visions seen by Welsh non-comformists during an epidemic of religious revivalism. These visions the Saviour with His wounds bleeding, winged angels hold- ing tapers, and so forth visions so definite that the percipients never doubted the external reality of them were found, in every case which admitted of precise ex- amination, to be reproductions of pictures familiar to the person in question. In Miss Vivian's case I have discovered something more. You may possibly have heard, without giving the fact your attention, that hyp- notic conditions are producible simply by fixing the eyes on some bright object. An object of this kind played a primary part here. The bright object here was the lamp hanging in your chancel. Miss Vivian, on each occasion, before the vision appeared, had, as she prob- ably told you, fixed her eyes on this. Gradually a state supervened of which her recollection was vague, and 45 AN IMMORTAL SOUL out of this vagueness the two figures developed them- selves. I could tell you more about the details of this psychological process which is probably the same in the case of all ecstatics, from the Platonists of Alexan- dria down to St. Francis and St. Teresa if such infor- mation were necessary for your present purpose. I in- cline to suppose, however, that what I have just said will be enough for you. Miss Vivian's visions originated in certain pictures which you yourself gave her, and these her brain, under the influence of a specific stim- ulus, presented to her consciousness as symbols of the emotions which at the time dominated her. They mean, therefore, as much as the emotions mean, neither more nor less, and you may assure both yourself and her that they have no other authority." Mr. Barton listened with a feeling of profound relief which was now and then traversed by a shudder of in- dignant pain. It was evident that Dr. Thistlewood in the present case was substantially right. The call to a celibate life, and possibly to the Roman Church, which to Miss Vivian had appeared as a divine command, was manifestly nothing more than the creation of a disor- dered fancy. But when Mr. Barton heard the voice of the gross materialist degrading all visions to conjuring tricks of the human brain, he felt that, in order to pos- sess himself of the facts he sought, he had to kneel and dive for them in a cloaca of reeking falsehood. At all events, the liberating fact was now in his secure pos- session. He would now be able, with a conscience ab- solutely clear, to destroy that gateless wall which, sud- denly rising in front of him, had threatened to divide him forever from the soul and from the breast he loved. "Well," said Dr. Thistlewood, eying Mr. Barton curi- ously, " you told us at dinner to-night that you came to the Turkish Castle in search of practical facts, not of any general principles. You have had an instalment of what you wanted, and perhaps you had better go and sleep on it. But, my dear sir, before you go I AN IMMORTAL SOUL have something more to add. I have told you one fact connected with this young lady's welfare, but I have still to tell you some others, and for her sake, just as much as for your own, after what I have seen to-night, I must submit them to your close attention. You would not wish Miss Vivian to fall ill again for want of such a thing as proper sleep, would you? If you want to see that famous real self of hers established permanently on its proper throne, you wouldn't do anything to inter- fere, would you, with her restoration to sound physical health? I thought not. Well, if such a restoration is to be achieved, it is necessary, before all things, that she should, so far as is possible, be kept from anything in the nature of excitement or emotional agitation. And now, Mr. Barton, listen to something further which you doubtless know already, but which you won't object to hearing from the mouth of another person. For some reason or other I need not inquire what the disturb- ances to which Miss Vivian is liable have some intimate connection with yourself. Your own conduct may, therefore, if not very carefully controlled, be fraught for her with the gravest dangers, and I want to-morrow morning, either here or at your own house, to put cer- tain details before you of which at present you know nothing. Meanwhile," Dr. Thistlewood continued, put- ting his hand in his pocket, "I have something to give you it was better, I thought, to keep it until we had done our talk which will probably be a fresh proof to you of the truth of what I have just said. Miss Vivian this evening was, when we were left alone together, too much perturbed by something to be able to talk calmly until she got it off her mind by writing a few lines to you. I told her where you had been dining, and that I should find you here when I got back, so she begged me to act as her postman, and I now discharge my duty. You will, no doubt, prefer to open her seal in private. To-morrow, then, Mr. Barton, let us renew our conversation here." 452 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Eager to devour the letter which had thus unex- pectedly come to him, Mr. Barton was almost effusive in his promise to return next morning, and hurried home through the darkness, taking his treasure with him. CHAPTER XI WHEN Mr. Barton, some ten or twelve hours later, was ushered again into Dr. Thistlewood's study, his eyes had a hope in them which seemed so assured and high that sublunary delays and obstacles would be powerless to disturb its patience. In Miss Vivian's let- ter of last night lay the secret of this exalted mood. While he had been wearing himself out in meditation and in inquiry relating to her, she, it appeared, had been led by the divine hand to a conclusion identical with his own. She had written: "I cannot rest until I have told you this: that you were right when you urged me to examine myself very carefully before putting any final interpretation on that which I have seen and heard. No; I realize it now. I am not meant for that special life to which it at first seemed to me I was being called in so plain a way. The voice of the Sacred Heart must speak to us through our own hearts. They must be its inter- preters. You know my heart better than of late I have known it myself. I felt that I must confess this before I could get to sleep." Dr. Thistlewood contemplated his visitor with a sur- prise that had some contempt in it. "Mr. Barton," he said, "you must be very easily pleased. I've seen many lovers in my time, but I never saw one who looked as happy as you do when the object of his affections was in the gravest possible danger." "Danger!" exclaimed Mr. Barton. "Good God, what has happened? Tell me!" "Sit down," said Dr. Thistlewood. "She's in no danger of dying. Suspend both your hopes and terrors, 454 AN IMMORTAL SOUL and give me your close attention. If I had not noticed the expression of your face when you entered I might have thought it necessary to ask you my old question over again: Are you still seriously bent on making this young lady your wife ? But your face has answered me. Further, I will spare you the trouble of adding something which I am sure you are longing to impress on me I mean that the young lady, after a series of vacillations, is at last learning to reward your affection by returning it, and that her letter of last night gives you fresh grounds for confidence. Let us assume that such is the case, and that, if there were nothing to check you, you and Miss Vivian, before many months were over, would be standing in some elegant chancel full of flowers and bridesmaids, and receiving the primal blessing known to have been breathed o'er Eden. Well, you won't have forgotten what I said to you about Miss Vivian before I explained to you the secret of her connection with Miss Enid Wynn. I told you as emphatically as I could that she was not a fit wife for anybody. In spite of what you have learned since then, you do not seem to agree with me. I, on the other hand, am of the same opinion still. I will, however, for the moment, modify my original way of putting the case, and content myself with saying that she is unfit to be your wife at present." " Now," said Mr. Barton, " you are talking with per- fect reasonableness. I will engage that you find me not less reasonable than yourself." "You must, then," said Dr. Thistlewood, "make one momentary concession to me. You must allow me, without interruption, to put things from my own point of view. You, for your own part, are satisfied that the lady whom you call Miss Vivian is the real soul, or self, pertaining to a certain body, the other self being less real or not real at all. And in this view you are sup- ported by the language of the very men who have made the question of the divided self their study. But these men to whom you refer, and whose works I lent you, 455 AN IMMORTAL SOUL allow themselves to speak, and sometimes even to think, in a popular manner which is at variance with their own principles. From a scientific point of view, no one of these selves is more real or less real than any other, ex- cept in so far as it is mentally more complete, associated with a better state of health, and is, above all, more per- manent. Do you," said Dr. Thistlewood, taking from the table something which looked like a child's tin trumpet amputated at both its ends, "know what this object is ? This scientific implement is the work of Mr. Hugo Arundel. who honored me by a commission to solder one of its joints for him. It is a kaleidoscope, and a very efficient one. It will show you, each time it is shaken, some new geometrical pattern, but no one of those patterns is more real than any other. Precisely the same is the case with these divided lives. They re- sult when the organism through which they are mani- fested is unstable, and the ordinary, persistent self, such as your self or mine, differs from them because normal organisms like our own possess a stability which these others the exceptions lack. The persistent, the stable self bears to any one of these selves which alternate the same relation that a tesselated pavement bears to one of the patterns in Mr. Hugo Arundel' s kaleidoscope." Mr. Barton reflected, and at last answered with a frown: " If one puts your implications altogether aside, and takes what you say as relating to the surface of the facts only well, in that limited sense I don't know that I can disagree with you." "You at all events feel," said Dr. Thistlewood, "that stability is so essential to a healthy self that you would not wish, if you married Miss Nest Vivian, to know that at any moment she might turn into Miss Enid Wynn, and, for example, while she was standing by your side at the altar, instead of the proper response, suddenly treat you to those views of matrimony which Miss Wynn on one occasion expounded to you." "God forbid!" exclaimed Mr. Barton, sharply. "You 456 AN IMMORTAL SOUL surely don't hint that such an occurrence is pos- sible?" " You might," said Dr. Thistlewood, " very easily make it so. What I have just said I have said because I wish to warn you, not because I wish to inflict on you any speculative opinions of my own. Perhaps you will see now that, in opposing your matrimonial project, I have more to say for myself than you thought I had, and I have not finished yet by any means. Do you remember that time you came here and talked about the case of Felida, and insisted on the fact that all Felida's selves sprang, as it were, from a soil of the same general mem- ories? And do you remember how I pointed out to you that, in Mr. Hanna's case, this feature was absent ? What I said about this matter requires a little more ex- planation. For you, and for those who think with you, self is the contents of the conscious circle of which the ego is the indivisible centre. Well, in this sense, and in this sense only, the divided selves of which we are speak- ing are really separated from one another. They are different flowers of consciousness, but they sprout out of the same unconscious bulb." "Precisely." said Mr. Barton. "That's precisely the point I urged on you." "I doubt," said Dr. Thistlewood, "whether you knew precisely what you urged. At any rate, we may take it that your matured view is this: that Miss Vivian, your own soul's counterpart, is for you the one true personality associated with Miss Vivian's body, and you wish that body, with all the faculties pertaining to it, to belong to Miss Vivian's soul as your own body belongs to yours. Very well; this re-establishment of single self in a body for a time alternately tenanted by two was accom- plished in Mr. Hanna's case, as you very truly said, and it might quite possibly be accomplished in Miss Vivian's likewise. But have you ever thought of the risk by which this unifying process would be accomplished ? It never seems to have occurred to you that if one of the 457 AN IMMORTAL SOUL two personalities succeeded in suppressing the other, the one that came out victor might be not Miss Vivian but Miss Wynn. You will have seen, if you have studied Dr. Gonteau's notes carefully, that not Miss Vivian but Miss Wynn was the first personality that developed itself. In the second place, Miss Wynn's is the personality that has been most persistent. For every eight months of Miss Wynn's life, Miss Vivian has lived only five; and while Miss Vivian's health has been and is precarious, Miss Wynn's has been exceptionally sound. But that's not all. I have something else to point out to you at which I have not yet hinted. You remember the de- scription which the other day, at luncheon, Miss Vivian gave us of the odd dreams that had been troubling her ? Among them were dreams of two railway stations with grotesque and impossible names. One of these names was Pog, she told us. The other, as you may remember, was Kethar. Perhaps you will begin to see light when I tell you that Kethar is really a portion of a name very much longer, which is actually painted somewhere in large letters on a board this portion being the portion which alone, from a certain point of view, would be seen by a passing traveller between a book-stall and one of the station buildings. Kethar, Mr. Barton, is a portion of the well-known Market Harborough. In the same way Pog explains itself as a portion of another name the name of a station which you have doubtless passed yourself. Pog is neither more nor less than the first syllable of Poggibonsi Poggibonsi being a place not far from Siena. Miss Vivian's experience of England, as you know, is confined to Southquay. The very name of Market Harborough is in all probability strange to her. She told me herself that she had never set foot in Italy. But Miss Wynn has stayed near the first of these places, and has passed through the station constantly, and when I myself first set eyes on her she was not far from the second. So you see that the materials of which Miss Wynn is composed are lying not so very far below the 458 AN IMMORTAL SOUL surface of Miss Nest Vivian ; and you need but give too rude a shake to that delicate kaleidoscope of possibilities, and the pattern which you love will go, and the pattern which you hate will be shaken back again. Think of what all this means, not in its theological bearings you must settle that matter for yourself but in relation to your projected marriage when looked at on its practical side. Can you consider it fitting that you, an English clergyman, should marry, not knowing what you marry a something which may this week be devoted to your Deity and yourself, and the week after may be blasphem- ing the one and bringing ridicule or ignominy on the other ? Come, Mr. Barton, be a man. Give this foolish project up. Promise me on your word of honor that you will cease to push your suit and never utter to Miss Vivian another syllable which could tend to keep in her any affection for yourself. Such an affection would mean misery for you and her. If you won't promise me this, I must do what I had rather not do." "Dr. Thistlewood," said Mr. Barton, haughtily, "I have listened to you with great forbearance. You have told me certain things which it was doubtless right that I should know, and for having told me these I thank you. But when you demand a promise from me that I will not marry without your canonical sanction; that I will renounce the prospect of marriage a prospect which need not be immediate; that I will withdraw or like a coward shrink from renewing my avowals of that affec- tion in which she has learned to look for succor I will do nothing of the kind. Dr. Thistlewood, I have in my pocket that letter which I received last night. Miss Vivian in that letter shows that she is as sane as you are that she is capable of calmly reconsidering her own impulses, and setting them aside when she sees that they have been mistaken or unduly rash; and do you think it likely that I shall abandon her because a peculiar danger threatens her, from which, as I have reason to know, my support would be her best protection ? In all 30 459 AN IMMORTAL SOUL reasonable ways I am willing to be guided by your advice, but, instead of allowing her to suppose that I retract the devotion I have offered her, I shall do all in my power to assure her that it is hers for- ever." "You are," said Dr. Thistlewood, "a very obstinate man, but before I exchange the method of moral suasion for another I will make one further appeal addressed to your common-sense. The lady, or the body of the lady, whom you propose to marry has received already three of the Christian sacraments baptism, confirma- tion, and the eucharist. The child by whom these sacra- ments were received was a child of whose life, of whose beliefs, and even of whose existence, Miss Vivian knows nothing. If Miss Vivian became your wife, would not you, as a clergyman, feel some difficulty in determining her relation to these means of grace? I can hardly venture to hope that considerations of this kind, though they go to the root of your beliefs as to souls and sacra- ments, will deflect you from your present purpose. Still, there is no knowing, and I thought it worth while to mention them." "I confess," said Mr. Barton, calmly, "for I am not afraid of being candid, that these difficulties were felt very keenly by myself, but on reflection they have van- ished. I regard them as being solved sufficiently by a curiously pertinent analogy. The grace conferred by infant baptism is, as we all know, conferred on a being which is unable to understand or profit by it. It lies dormant, or germinates, as it were, in the child's system, its results being not apparent for a period of some years. In special cases, such as that of Miss Vivian, the grace conferred by confirmation may well operate in the same way." "Your theory," said Dr. Thistlewood, "is also, I sup- pose, a vindication of the substantial identity of the two selves in question, superficial appearances notwith- standing?" 460 AN IMMORTAL SOUL "Undoubtedly," said Mr. Barton. "That I assume in any case." "Very well then," said Dr. Thistlewood; "we shall, perhaps, come to an understanding. Your assumption shall, for argument's sake, be mine, and from this point onward I shall confine myself to bare facts. Miss Wynn Vivian or whatever we like to call her received, dur- ing that unregenerate girlhood of which Miss Vivian knows nothing, three of the sacraments of your Church. The number was three, wasn't it?" Mr. Barton assented. "Well," Dr. Thistlewood continued, "it is now my duty to tell you that her experiences in this way have been more extensive than you suppose. Miss Enid Wynn, of whose life your prospective bride knows nothing, has not been content with three sacraments. She has en- joyed the advantage of a fourth ; and that, Mr. Barton, happens to be the sacrament of marriage. Miss Enid Wynn has a husband yes, a husband who is alive, and who not so long ago was alive and kicking in Southquay." Mr. Barton, with a violent movement, pushed him- self back in his chair. His mouth gaped, and for a second or two it remained open. "Let me," said Dr. Thistlewood, "tell you the whole story. If you care, at your leisure, to examine Dr. Gon- teau's notes again, you will see how one thing fits in with another. A rough outline of the events is all that I need give you now. I first encountered Miss Wynn in the train between Florence and Siena. There was in my compartment, when I started, one other traveller only an overdressed man with large, protruding eyes. I heard him speaking Italian, but I took no particular notice of him. By-and-by, at a side station, a third traveller joined us a girl, evidently a lady, whose in- dependent demeanor and somewhat masculine dress caught my attention and made me wonder who she was. I had, however, ceased to think of her when some rearrangement of rugs, bags, and umbrellas began to 461 AN IMMORTAL SOUL be made jointly by the other traveller and herself, and I realized that the two were in the act of starting an acquaintance. They first spoke in Italian. Ultimately they took to English. The obvious good-breeding of the girl and the obvious under-breeding of the man made me wonder at the readiness with which she met his ad- vances. Two days later I came upon this same couple sauntering with a tender leisureliness in the public gar- dens of Siena. The moment I saw Miss Vivian I was struck by an odd likeness between her and this heroine of Siena; but differences of dress, voice, manner, de- portment, and facial expression rendered the likeness less remarkable than the contrast. My second encounter with Miss Wynn was at a small hotel in the Hebrides, where I stayed a night on my way to a friend's shooting- lodge. She had no recollection of having ever seen me before. She was by way of being with some people who had taken a forest in Ross-shire, but she was evi- dently quite independent of them, and had come to this place so she told me for fishing. Her name in the visitors' book was entered as Mrs. Jordan. No Mr. Jor- dan was visible that evening, but the following day he arrived arrived in the primitive wagonette which was to take me to my own destination. You may imagine my surprise when I recognized him as the gentleman who had enlivened Miss Wynn's residence at Siena. I am not much given to gossip, but the driver of my wagonette was. Mr. and Mrs. Jordan, it appeared, had been staying under different roofs for some weeks in the neighborhood, and had lately been married in ac- cordance with the requirements of the Scottish law. To this information the driver added a remark which I did not catch at the time, but I realized its purport after- ward. Returning a month or so later from my friend's remote house, and happening to stay again at the same hotel for a night or so, I learned from the local doctor, with whom I forgathered over a glass of whiskey, that a lady a stranger who had only just been married had, 462 AN IMMORTAL SOUL under his auspices, given birth to a child; that the child had been promptly committed to the care of a crofter's family, had died in a day or two, and been buried ; that the parents had attended the funeral, that the mother had been heard to remark, 'This sort of thing sha'n't happen again,' and that father and mother had disap- peared by different steamers. Well, Mr. Barton, to make a long story short, I have discovered that this man Jordan, whose father's home is in Glasgow, and whose mother was a native of Turin, had once been a courier, and I know not what besides ; but of late years he has, being a good linguist, travelled in Italy and else- where in Europe for a Glasgow firm which manufactures a cheap fuel from peat. What his relations with Miss Wynn were at Siena I must leave you to guess. Any- how, he saw reason to believe that she had or that she would have money, and his marriage to her in a country where marriage is exceptionally easy, and with whose laws he was familiar, was the result. His wife, however for she told me this herself took a very inadequate view of the validity of a Scotch marriage, regarding it merely as a means of getting herself out of an awkward scrape. It was, in any case, for the time to be kept a secret. The wife was to rejoin her friends as if nothing had happened, and when she rejoined them the process of regret began. Certain papers, which unintentionally this gentleman had left in her hands, revealed to her the fact that he had been guilty of business irregularities which would, if brought to light, consign him to penal servitude, and with this knowledge at her disposal she was confident that she could keep him at a distance. He, for his part, was not too anxious to obtrude himself till some doubts which had arisen in his mind with re- gard to her fortune had been elucidated ; and meanwhile, as you will see from Dr. Gonteau's notes, those events took place in the neighborhood of Market Harborough, or Kethar, which removed her for the time from her hus- band's ken altogether by transforming her into the angel 463 AN IMMORTAL SOUL whom you propose to marry yourself. Mr. Jordan, who was not without his plausibilities, might, having thought things over, not have been inconsolable if he had not, in the course of a holiday, happened to visit Southquay. There, having improved himself into Count Giordano, he was doubtless looking out for a fortune which was not a speculation but a certainty. There, however, at a ball, he happened to catch sight of Miss Vivian. Her likeness to his wife struck him at once so forcibly that he made, through Colonel O'Brian, such inquiries as he could as to her family. What he heard convinced him at first that the likeness which had struck him was ac- cidental. He gathered, however, that Miss Vivian had large means or large expectations; and then, when Miss Vivian disappeared, and when, first on the golf-course and subsequently in a motor-car, a figure began to be vis- ible to him which at a distance was indistinguishable from his wife's when he gathered, moreover, as he did from Colonel O'Brian, that this new apparition was Miss Viv- ian's near relation well, you can guess what followed. He lay in wait for his wife, who first doubted his identity, and was then determined to elude him. At last she grasped her nettle. She met him by appointment at a spot outside the town. She took him to a place about ten or twelve miles from here, and there they fought out their battle. As to the idea that their marriage was legally valid, she laughed at it. Count Giordano con- vinced her of her error. Count Giordano's wife, on the other hand, convinced the Count that if their marriage were known to her parents every penny of her fortune would disappear; and she capped this announcement with another, still more efficacious, and relating to the proofs possessed by her of the Count's business delin- quencies. Here, Mr. Barton, is a letter which, during that curious time intervening between Miss Wynn's accident and the transformation into Miss Vivian which followed it, Miss Wynn confided to my keeping. It is a letter from her to her husband, in which she informs him that 464 AN IMMORTAL SOUL if he wishes to make any claim on her his claim must be referred to me, I having been placed in possession by her of all the necessary documents relating to his career and character. But perhaps it will be needless to trouble you with this characteristic epistle. It will be enough to remind you of something which occurred when you yourself were present. You will remember that Miss Vivian, when describing to us her troublesome dreams, mentioned, in addition to the railway stations, a church- yard and a curious cottage. That cottage is the cot- tage in which her inconvenient child lived. That church- yard is the church-yard in which her inconvenient child lies buried. I need add no more. I regret your ob- stinacy which has forced me to draw the veil from cer- tain facts unknown even to Miss Vivian's parents. I regret your obstinacy, but, believe me, I respect your pain." For some minutes there was silence between the two men, tragic for both, and for Dr. Thistlew T ood embarrass- ing. It was suddenly broken by the entrance of Lord Cotswold. Then, for all the surprises which Dr. Thistle- wood had inflicted on Mr. Barton, Mr. Barton, rising from his chair, paid him back in kind. CHAPTER XII I HEARD," said Lord Cotswold, "that Mr. Barton was here, and left him till luncheon - time to talk over medical secrets. I have come now to say that I hope he will not desert us, for he owes me the oppor- tunity of finishing a certain discourse which I left the other night unfinished somewhat to my own discredit. The text of it, Mr. Barton, was the condition of one of your own friends." Mr. Barton greeted his host with an almost ghastly calm. He had suppressed every sign of agitation. He had even forced his lips to smile. " Dr. Thistlewood and I," he said, " have been discuss- ing that friend's condition. Painful, of course painful from a personal point of view, but interesting to me, as a priest, in respect to the problems suggested by it. Yes, Lord Cotswold, I shall look on it as a high privilege to hear something more about the interpreta- tion that you and Dr. Thistlewood put on it. If, as I understand and our friend here has repeated it to me during the last hour how many times was it, Dr. This- tlewood ? was it seven or only six ? that in your opin- ion and his, and in that of the scientific world generally, what we used to call the soul, and all the things we value in it, are merely so many patterns formed by a kaleido- scope called the brain if a woman's character is not her character at all, but merely the successive gleamings of a shot-silk dress worn by her it will be interesting to me to learn how, when we are all convinced of this, the business of life will be reasonably carried on. What will become of our efforts, our duties, our principles, our I 466 AN IMMORTAL SOUL won't speak of morbid emotions such as love but our friendly likings for one another, without which we shall be rather dull ? You began, I think, on this subject the other night, but I was occupied then with some poor matters of my own, and I fear I was not equal to grap- pling with what you were about to tell me. I am quite a new man this morning. I am ready to attend to any- thing. You were talking about the Great Sentence a sentence superior to anything extant in the Gospels. I am anxious, Lord Cotswold most anxious to know what that sentence means." Lord Cotswold, somewhat surprised by Mr. Barton's unwonted volubility, and a note in his voice which did not seem wholly natural, was nevertheless delighted to find him in this receptive mood, and as soon as they were settled in the dining-room he took up his parable and began. "I agree with you," he said, "that these views as to the nature of individual life but suggest to all of us those difficulties which your language hardly carica- tures. A view almost as strange was forced on the hu- man consciousness when it was shown that this solid earth, previously supposed by all men to be the immov- able centre of the universe, was really one globule out of many, all spinning round a central sun. But the human race has at last become accustomed to this conception of things, and with other changed conceptions even with those of which we are now speaking it will one day come to terms, and my own belief is, if I may say so to a Christian priest, that the East will show the West the way. Not, Mr. Barton, that I despise the ancient wisdom of the West. I will not only Brahminize to you in connection with the Great Sentence, but I will Pla- tonize a little, too. You are a student, I am sure, of Plato." " Yes," said Mr. Barton, " I may claim for myself that character." "Let me, then," said Lord Cotswold, "make a start 467 AN IMMORTAL SOUL with my Platonizing. For you the main foundation of what you call the philosophy of spirit is the impossibility of getting out of a complex mechanism like the brain that unit, that pin-point, of consciousness which is what we mean by self, and through which alone the world has for us any existence. Now, a large part of the difficulties urged in this connection by you and by all assailants of what is commonly called materialism, was in my opinion, answered by Dr. Gustav when he dwelt upon that obvious fact, to which many scientific men are still so strangely blind, that none of the phenomena which they study are of any private interpretation that no one of them is intelligible except in connection with the All. The steam in the cylinder of the steam-engine is impossible without the boiler. The vitality which mani- fests itself in your brain and mine is equally impossible apart from the vitality of the entire universe. The en- tire universe, though to the eye or to the visual imag- ination it is an aggregate of parts or particles, is for thought, as Dr. Gustav said, a web of indissoluble con- nections. If you compare personality to the gleamings of a shot-silk dress, each dress is merely one fold of the seamless garment of the All. Your own self cannot ap- pear more absolutely indivisible to you, nor mine to me, than is the oneness of the All when we think of it as the sole self-existing fact; and when we so think of it we are in the presence of God. Nothing is in you or me that is not in this divine Total. If what we experi- ence as personality exists in me and you, it exists in the Total also but there in so large a measure that it baffles our understanding. You remember Plato's al- legory of the cave?" Mr. Barton nodded. "Plato," Lord Cotswold continued, "represented the mass of mankind as dwelling in a dark cave and unable to see the sun. Let me alter his allegory a little, and suppose that, though not shut up in a cave, they have their backs so bent that they are able to look downward 468 AN IMMORTAL SOUL only. They can, therefore, never see the blinding glory in heaven, but every morning they see an image of it in every dew-drop. The individual drops evaporate; the sun-image that was in each ceases; but next morning, and the next, there are new drops in the place of them, and the same unit of light is alive and divine in each. What the dew-drop is to the sun's image the brain is to the human self." Instead of offering any objection to this way of put- ting the case, Mr. Barton smiled, somewhat vaguely, but still tolerantly. "Yes," he said "yes. That's a very pretty piece of symbolism." "And now," said Lord Cotswold, "I will, if I'm not wearying you, pass from my Platonizing to my Brah- minizing, and come back to the Great Sentence ' Thou art That.' I agree with you, Mr. Barton, that it is to the Western mind not very illuminating when enunci- ated without commentary; but, with the aid of what I have just been saying, I can now make it more intelligi- ble to you. When the Eastern philosopher says to the individual seeker for truth, meditating on his own nature, 'Thou art That,' he means by his 'That' the sum total of things from which in ordinary life the 'Thou' is accustomed to distinguish itself. There is a story told of a great Eastern saint which will bring the idea home to your sympathies as well as to your under- standing. The aim of this man's life poor heathen as he was, he did not enjoy even the privileges of a Chris- tian dissenter was the achievement, as it was with the heroes of your own Acta Sanctorum, of union with the divine nature; and the story represents him as coming again and again to the door of the Lord's heart, and standing without and knocking. On each occasion the Lord asks, 'Who is there?' And again and again the saint answers, ' It is I.' But so long as he answers in this way he is told that he cannot enter. At last a day comes when the question, ' Who knocks ?' being repeated, the saint answers not, ' It is I,' but, ' Lord, it is Thou 469 AN IMMORTAL SOUL Thyself.' Then the door opens, and the saint and the Lord are one." "Yes," said Mr. Barton, "the saint and his Lord were one. Precisely. Such a union is the object of all sanc- tity." "I mention this story," Lord Cotswold continued, " not because it solves for you or for me all the practical problems which, as you rightly say, will arise if the world at large ever realizes that conception of the individual which the division in the personality of that friend of yours has at least presented to your imagination. It does not solve these problems, but it shows that this conception, to us novel, has been familiar to the mind of a civilization far older than our own, and that it is ca- pable of being invested with a profound religious signifi- cance. I will say more. How does the Christian religion profess to reveal God to us ? Through a" man through the Word made Flesh. It is only through being trans- lated for us into terms of our own nature that the In- finite and the Ineffable has assumed for us any definite meaning. What the Word made Flesh is for all of us, according to your own theology, that are we all for one another, according to these revelations which science is now forcing on such of us as have eyes to see. In so far as we each of us experience what we know as our own selves, we experience and we embody the working of forces which are part of the divine Infinite. In our affections, whether friendship or love, we are parts of that desire and will in virtue of which the worlds endure. A part of our actions results from what we know as conscious motive, and aims at a known object. Another part of our actions and possibly a part much larger results from impulses which lie beyond our ken, and which, though they carry us on their current, we have not learned the art of translating into terms of reason. Into what terms of reason, motive, and emotion men will translate their new knowledge of themselves as parts of the universe, growing out of it and then disappearing 470 AN IMMORTAL SOUL into it; how they will view such cases as that of Mr. Barton's friend cases in which some personality, per- haps loved by some one, dies the most indubitable of deaths by being changed before our eyes into another of this I know no more than Cato knew of the religion that produced St. Francis. But this I do know: that faith must follow knowledge not in the beginning, but in the end. The conquest of new knowledge may be rapid. The assimilation of it will be comparatively slow, and faith will be bruised and molested by it long before it submits itself to any confessed change. Mean- while," said Lord Cotswold But a sharp sound inter- rupted him. He had not observed that during the last few minutes Mr. Barton, in an aimless way, had taken up his knife and had been playing with it, very much as a child might, and this knife had by accident dropped ringing upon his plate. At the same moment a servant announced a visitor. Lord Cotswold turned to Mr. Barton with a rapid change of manner. "When you lunched with me last," he said, "we were honored by the unexpected advent of a very delightful lady who was escaping from her own cook. The cook has not improved, and the delightful lady, on occasion, still finds refuge in mine. I'm sorry that our conversation should be interrupted. I was very anxious to tell you my candid view of the faith which will not yield to the first onslaughts of evidence." "My dear Lord Cotswold," said Lady Conway, "don't get up, don't order anything back not even the tepid- est cutlet. Let me have a chair next yours. That will be feast enough for me. My dear man, I've lunched already, so allow me to have my own way. Or, no you've not yet had your coffee. You shall give me a cup when the time comes, and, meanwhile, may I make a suggestion ? I see here a person no, Dr. Gustav, it's not you to whom I have something to say of a very particular kind. Mr. Barton, I was on the point of writing to you, but to talk will be much better. Lord. AN IMMORTAL SOUL Cotswold, may I take him into the drawing-room, and we'll come back to you for our coffee afterward?" In response to a look from Lady Conway, Mr. Barton had risen. "Certainly," he said; "I shall be delighted." With a gesture of dignified amity she laid a hand on his arm, and the two passed slowly together down the long room toward the door. Before they reached it her communications to the priest had begun. "I suppose," she said, "that a man with your means and talents does not intend to bury them in the napkin of a semi-fashionable watering-place?" "You refer, I presume, to Southquay?" said Mr. Bar- ton, with his hand on the door-handle. "Certainly not certainly not. I've determined to leave already." "What can be afoot now?" said Dr. Thistlewood, when this strangely assorted couple had disappeared. "Do you know that all the time you were talking to that man at luncheon he was not aware of a single word you said? Nothing would have surprised me less than to have seen him drop down fainting." "Good God," exclaimed Lord Cotswold, "you don't say so! I thought that, for a clergyman, he was listen- ing to me with unusual patience. What has happened to him? Is he ill? Or has that case of his friend, which you and he were discussing together, disturbed him?" "You say," replied Dr. Thistlewood, "that he lis- tened to you patiently. That case has so disturbed him that he is beyond the reach of impatience. Facts con- flicting with faith, which, if the reason of the believer views them from a distance, and as a spectator only, are passed by and forgotten like the death of a distant soldier, have entered this man through his own personal sympathies and have torn him like an explosive bullet. There is in his creed no poppy or mandragora which will medicine him to his old repose." "Indeed! " said Lord Cotswold. "What you tell me is interesting. If his faith is mortally wounded I should 472 AN IMMORTAL SOUL mourn for it as for a lost friend. But, my dear Gustav, I believe that your fears are needless. In the case of men like Mr. Barton faith is beyond the reach of wounds. It may be stunned, but it will not die; and its life after every blow will be yet more obstinate than before. Obstinacy like this may to us seem the obstinacy of folly. In part it may be so, but it is something else be- sides. If logic, if reason, if evidence were the sole sup- ports of faith, the old faiths by which men have lived would decompose far more rapidly than any new faiths could construct themselves. In times like these in which our own lot has been cast the whole continuity of the world's higher life would be broken if the churches and men like Mr. Barton, who represent their spirit, were not ready, in defiance of reason and evidence, to protect the existing bottles while the new are being slowly fabricated: and what the new bottles will be that can hold your hopes and mine, or of what material they will be made, neither you nor I can conjecture. What, Lady Conway! Is the interview over already? And where is your spiritual director? I hope you have not frightened him away!" "No," said Lady Conway, "but he's gone, and he sent you any number of apologies. This fortune of his has for the moment turned his head not with pride I don't mean that at all but by worry over business; and about business, as I know to my cost, most clergy- men know nothing. But Mr. Barton will very soon be equal to all occasions. He had thought everything out. I was surprised by the clearness of his ideas and the promptness with which he expressed them. This was flattering to my own vanity. I have long had an eye on Mr. Barton as fitted for something more important than preaching to old women at Southquay and drink- ing tea with them afterward, and now, with this money of his, his equipment as an apostle is complete. I have just been able to offer him the living of St. Stephen's; the place is on our property, just outside Manningham. 473 AN IMMORTAL SOUL There are thirty thousand people in the parish, a mag- nificent church to be decorated, mission halls to be var- nished, and ten thousand Radicals to be humanized by the ministrations of an ascetic Conservative. Mr. Bar- ton leaped at the proposal. There was something al- most uncanny in his eagerness. The bishop is delighted. I wrote to him a week ago about it, and I sent him a copy, cut out of a Southquay paper, of a sermon which Mr. Barton preached here. I think it was on the sub- ject of confirmation. The bishop thinks that Mr. Bar- ton will be an admirable man for refuting some of the professors at the new Manningham University, who at- tack the doctrines of the Church, he says, simply because they do not understand them." THE END JfiSOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000137886 8