sometimes by day, but always it rises and sets, as in that other
life.

I left the lawn and moved in the white light and silence along the
road, aimless and sorrowing. Suddenly I heard the voice of my poor
husband in exclamations of astonishment, with that of my son in
reassurance and dissuasion; and there by the shadow of a group of
trees they stood--near, so near! Their faces were toward me, the
eyes of the elder man fixed upon mine. He saw me--at last, at last,
he saw me! In the consciousness of that, my terror fled as a cruel
dream. The death-spell was broken: Love had conquered Law! Mad
with exultation I shouted--I MUST have shouted, "He sees, he sees:
he will understand!" Then, controlling myself, I moved forward,
smiling and consciously beautiful, to offer myself to his arms, to
comfort him with endearments, and, with my son's hand in mine, to
speak words that should restore the broken bonds between the living
and the dead.

Alas! alas! his face went white with fear, his eyes were as those of
a hunted animal. He backed away from me, as I advanced, and at last
turned and fled into the wood--whither, it is not given to me to
know.

To my poor boy, left doubly desolate, I have never been able to
impart a sense of my presence. Soon he, too, must pass to this Life
Invisible and be lost to me forever.



A DIAGNOSIS OF DEATH