Oh! happy was her life with Anthony, for there, though now sex as we
know it had ceased to be, spirit grew ever closer to spirit, and as
below they dreamed and hoped, their union had indeed become an altar on
which Love's perfect fire flamed an offering to Heaven. Happy, too, was
her communion with those other souls that had been mingled in her lot,
and with many more whom she had known aforetime and elsewhere and long
forgotten. For Barbara learned that life is an ancient story of which we
spell out the chapters one by one.



Yet amidst all this joy and all the blessed labours of a hallowed world
in which idleness was not known, nor any weariness in well-doing, a
certain shadow met Barbara whichever way she turned.

"What is it?" asked Anthony, who felt her trouble.

"Our son," she answered, and showed him all the tale, or so much of it
as he did not know, ending, "And I chose to leave him that I might take
my chance of finding you. I died when I might have lived on if I had so
willed. That is my sin and it haunts me."

"We are not the parents of his soul, which is as ancient as our own,
Barbara."

"No, but for a while it was given into my hand and I deserted it, and
now I am afraid. How can I tell what has chanced to the soul of this
son of ours? Here there is no time. I know not if I bade it farewell
yesterday or ten thousand years ago. Long, long since it may have passed