poken: "Are you here to take me to the better world?"

I waited. Nothing that I could feel touched me.

I was conscious of thinking once more. I would have said, if I could
have spoken: "Are you here to protect me?"

I felt myself held in a gentle embrace, as my husband's arms used to
hold me when he pressed me to his breast. And that was my answer.

The touch that was like the touch of his lips, lingered and was lost;
the clasp that was like the clasp of his arms, pressed me and fell away.
The garden-scene resumed its natural aspect. I saw a human creature
near, a lovely little girl looking at me.

At that moment, when I was my own lonely self again, the sight of the
child soothed and attracted me. I advanced, intending to speak to her.
To my horror I suddenly ceased to see her. She disappeared as if I had
been stricken blind.

And yet I could see the landscape round me; I could see the heaven
above me. A time passed--only a few minutes, as I thought--and the child
became visible to me again; walking hand-in-hand with her father. I
approached them; I was close enough to see that they were looking at
me with pity and surprise. My impulse was to ask if they saw anything
strange in my face or my manner. Before I could speak, the horrible
wonder happened again. They vanished from my view.

Was the Invisible Presence still near? Was it passing between me and
my fellow-mortals; forbidding communication, in that place and at that
time?

It must have been so. When I turned away in my ignorance, with a heavy
heart, the dreadful blankness which had twice shut out from me the
beings of my own race, was not between me and my dog. The poor little
creature filled me with pity; I called him to me. He moved at the sound
of my voice, and followed me languidly; not quite awakened yet from the
trance of terror that had possessed him.

Before I had retired by more than a few steps, I thought I was conscious
of the Presence again. I held out my longing arms to it. I waited in the
hope of a touch to tell me that I might return. Perhaps I was answered
by indirect means? I only know that a resolution to return to the same
place, at the same hour, came to me, and quieted my mind.

The morning of the next day was dull and cloudy; but the rain held off.
I set forth again to the Gardens.

My dog ran on before me into the street--and stopped: waiting to see in
which direction I might lead the way. When I turned toward the Gardens,
he