e
god-ward impulse strengthened in him. Not by conscious or convincing
argument from within, but by all-powerful compulsion from without, was
his thought borne onward and upward to increasing confidence. So that he
asked himself--as so many another, still unwearied, still enamoured of
attainment, has asked in like case--whether impending divorce of soul and
body may not confer freedom of a wider range and nobler quality, powers
more varied and august than the mind, circumscribed by conditions of time
and sense, has yet conception of?

To him such development seemed possible--certainly. Probable?--Ah, well,
perhaps--perhaps. Which brought him back to his former contention, that
its inherent loneliness constitutes the bitterest sting of death.
Smiling, he quoted the ancient, divinely tender saying: "There is a child
in each one of us which cries at the dark."

While, in swift reaction, he yearned towards battle where amid the
fierce and bloody glory of the fight, souls of heroes troop forth
together, shouting, into everlasting day or--sceptical reason shaking a
sadly sage head once again--into everlasting night.

He stretched out his hand instinctively for the bell on the little table
at his elbow. Hordle answered his summons, grey of countenance from
alarm, anxiety, and broken rest.

"Let Miss Damaris know I shall be glad to see her when she is free to
come to me," he said.

And here, although our damsel's reputation for courage and resource may,
thereby, sustain some damage, I am constrained to state that while in the
sick-room Miss Felicia shone, Damaris gave off but a vacillating and
ineffective light.

Imagination is by no means invariably beneficent. The very liveliness of
the perceptions which it engenders may intimidate and incapacitate. Upon
Damaris imagination practised this mischief. Becoming, for the time, that
upon which she looked, sharing every pang and even embroidering the
context, she weakened, in some sort, to the level of the actual sufferer,
helpless almost as he through the drench of overwhelming sympathy. She
had been taken, poor child, at so villainous a disadvantage. Without
preparation or warning--save of the most casual and inadequate--her
humour wayward, she a trifle piqued, fancying her pretty clothes, her
pretty looks, excited, both by the brilliant prospect presented by the
Indian appointment and by her delicate passage of arms with Carteret, she
was compelled of a sudden to witness t