He paid her, went to his hotel, and thence to his train for home. Never
did he so seem to move through a world of dream-stuff: for he knew that
he was not more credulous than other men, and, if he could believe what
he had believed, though he had believed it for no longer than a moment
or two, what hold had he or any other human being on reality?

His credulity vanished (or so he thought) with his recollection that it
was he, and not the alleged "Lopa," who had suggested the word "amber."
Going over the mortifying, plain facts of his experience, he found that
Mrs. Horner, or the subdivision of Mrs. Horner known as "Lopa," had told
him to think of a bell and of a colour, and that being furnished with
these scientific data, he had leaped to the conclusion that he spoke
with Isabel Amberson!

For a moment he had believed that Isabel was there, believed that she
was close to him, entreating him--entreating him "to be kind." But with
this recollection a strange agitation came upon him. After all, had
she not spoken to him? If his own unknown consciousness had told the
"psychic's" unknown consciousness how to make the picture of the pretty
brown-haired, brown-eyed lady, hadn't the picture been a true one? And
hadn't the true Isabel--oh, indeed her very soul!--called to him out of
his own true memory of her?

And as the train roared through the darkened evening he looked out
beyond his window, and saw her as he had seen her on his journey, a few
days ago--an ethereal figure flying beside the train, but now it
seemed to him that she kept her face toward his window with an infinite
wistfulness.

"To be kind!" If it had been Isabel, was that what she would have said?
If she were anywhere, and could come to him through the invisible wall,
what would be the first thing she would say to him?

Ah, well enough, and perhaps bitterly enough, he knew the answer to that
question! "To be kind"--to Georgie!

A red-cap at the station, when he arrived, leaped for his bag,
abandoning another which the Pullman porter had handed him. "Yessuh,
Mist' Morgan. Yessuh. You' car waitin' front the station fer you, Mist'
Morgan, suh!"

And people in the crowd about the gates turned to stare, as he passed
through, whispering, "That's Morgan."

Outside, the neat chauffeur stood at the door of the touring-car like a
soldier in whip-cord.

"I'll not go home now, Harry," said Eugene, when he had got in. "Drive
to the City Hospital."

"Yes, sir