and I perceived too behind it that which it conceals from us--the real
Life, illimitable, unfathomable, the element of our true being, with its
eternal possibilities of misery or joy."

"And all this came to you through something of an evil nature?"

"Yes; it was like the effect of lightning oh a pitch-dark night--the
same vivid and lurid illumination of things unperceived before. It must
be like the revelation of death, I should think, without, thank God,
that fearful sense of the irrevocable which death must bring with it.
Will you not rest here?"

For we had reached Beggar's Stile. But I was not tired for once, so
keen, so life-giving was the air, sparkling with that fine elixir
whereby morning braces us for the day's conflict. Below, through
slowly-dissolving mists, the village showed as if it smiled, each little
cottage hearth lifting its soft spiral of smoke to a zenith immeasurably
deep, immaculately blue.

"But the ghost itself?" I said, looking up at him as we both rested our
arms upon the gate. "What do you think of that?"

"I am afraid there is no possible doubt what that was. Its face, as I
tell you, was a revelation of evil--evil and its punishment. It was a
lost soul."

"Do you mean by a lost soul, a soul that is in never-ending torment?"

"Not in physical torment, certainly; that would be a very material
interpretation of the doctrine. Besides, the Church has always