"Harold!" she exclaimed, smiling outright this time, "you will be
trying to analyze the cobwebs of heaven before long."

"No," he said, "they are too dense."




VI.


It was eleven o'clock when they parted for the night. Dartmouth went
up to his room and sat down at his desk to write a letter to his
father. In a moment he threw down the pen; he was not in a humor
for writing. He picked up a book (he never went to bed until he felt
sleepy), and crossed the room and sat down before the fire. But he
had not read two pages when he dropped it with an exclamation of
impatience: the story Weir had told him was written between every
line. She had told it so vividly and realistically that she had
carried him with her and almost curdled his blood. He had answered her
with a joke, because, in spite of the fact that he had been strongly
affected, he was angry as well. He hated melodrama, and the idea of
Weir having had an experience which read like a sensational column in
a newspaper was extremely distasteful to him. He sympathized with her
with all his heart, but he had a strong distaste for anything
which savored of the supernatural. Nevertheless, he was obliged to
acknowledge that this horrible, if commonplace experience of Weir's
had taken possession of his mind, and refused to be evicted. The scene
kept presenting itself in all its details again and again, and finally