and
applause. Then again the hush settled down like wool.

She had begun to understand now. The darkness and the sounds were not
for all eyes and ears. The nurse had seen and heard nothing
extraordinary, and the rest of the world of men saw and heard nothing.
To them it was no more than the hint of a coming storm.

Mabel did not attempt to distinguish between the subjective and the
objective. It was nothing to her as to whether the sights and sounds
were generated by her own brain or perceived by some faculty hitherto
unknown. She seemed to herself to be standing already apart from the
world which she had known; it was receding from her, or, rather, while
standing where it had always done, it was melting, transforming itself,
passing to some other mode of existence. The strangeness seemed no more
strange than anything else than that ... that little painted box upon
the table.

Then, hardly knowing what she said, looking steadily upon that appalling
sky, she began to speak....

"O God!" she said. "If You are really there really there---"

Her voice faltered, and she gripped the sill to steady herself. She
wondered vaguely why she spoke so; it was neither intellect nor emotion
that inspired her. Yet she continued....

"O God, I know You are not there--of course You are not. But if You were
there, I know what I would say to You. I would tell You how puzzled and
tired I am. No--No--I need not tell You: You would know it. But I would
say that I was very sorry for all this. Oh! You would know that too. I
need not say anything at all. O God! I don't know what I want to say. I
would like You to look after Oliver, of course, and all Your poor
Christians. Oh! they will have such a hard time.... God. God--You would
understand, wouldn't You?" ...

* * * * *

Again came the heavy rumble and the solemn bass of a myriad voices; it
seemed a shade nearer, she thought.... She never liked thunderstorms or
shouting crowds. They always gave her a headache ...

"Well, well," she said. "Good-bye, everything---"

Then she was in the chair. The mouthpiece--yes; that was it....

She was furious at the trembling of her hands; twice the spring slipped
from her polished coils of hair.... Then it was fixed ... and as if a
breeze fanned her, her sense came back....

She found she could breathe quite easily; there was no resistance--that
was a comfort; there would be no suffocation about it.... She put out
her left hand and touched the