She spoke satirically, yet Doctor Isaacson felt as if he heard, far off,
faintly behind the satire, the despair of the materialist, against whom,
in certain moments, all avenues of hope seem inexorably closed. He
looked at Mrs. Chepstow, and there was a dawning of pity in his eyes as
he answered:

"How can I advise you?"

"How indeed? And yet--and that's a curious thing--you look as if you
could."

"If you are really a convinced materialist, an honest atheist--"

"I am."

"Well, then it would be useless to advise you to seek priests or to go
to Christian Science temples. I can only tell you that your complaint is
not a complaint of the body."

"Then is it a complaint of the soul? That's a bore, because I don't
happen to believe in the soul, and I do believe very much in the body."

"I wonder what exactly you mean when you say you don't believe in the
soul."

"I mean that I don't believe there is in human beings anything
mysterious which can live unless the body is living, anything that
doesn't die simultaneously with the body. Of course there is something
that we call mental, that likes and dislikes, loves and hates, and so