exceptionally strong power of vision,' but frankly admitted that
power of vision alone would not account for it. Anyhow I plainly saw
all the rays within one ray--there were seven. The ray itself was--
or so I fancied--the octave of colour. I was little more than a
child when this 'interval' of happiness--PERFECT happiness!--was
granted to me--I felt as if a window had been opened for me to look
through it into heaven!"

"Do you believe in heaven?" asked Aloysius, suddenly.

She hesitated.

"I used to,--in those days. As I have just said I was only a child,
and heaven was a real place to me,--even the angels were real
presences--"

"And you have lost them now?"

She gave a little gesture of resignation.

"They left me"--she answered--"I did not lose them. They simply
went."

He was silent. His fine, calm features expressed a certain grave
patience, but nothing more.

She resumed--

"That was my first experience of real 'happiness.' Till then I had
lived the usual monotonous life of childhood, doing what I was told,