possible the courage of Coeur de Lion--I had
almost said made possible the sinfulness of Christ--I inquired whether
she had seen him in Paradise.

"As yet," she answered, "I know only one of the many circles into which
the spirit-world seems naturally to resolve it. But I suspect that if
you and I could see where he is, we should find him infinitely nearer to
the Father-heart of the universe than I at least can for countless ages
hope to attain!"

"What do you mean by 'circles'?" I said. "Is each human soul on its
arrival here assigned a fitting place and level among his or her
spiritual fellows?"

"There is some such gathering of like to like as that of which you
speak," she answered. "The majority begin in a lower circle, and remain
there until they are fitted to move onward to a higher sphere. Others
take a place in that higher sphere immediately, and some few are led
into the Holy Presence straightway."

And then her voice seemed to sound to me like the voice of one in the
far distance; I felt the darkness closing in upon me on every side, and
knew that my hour of punishment was again at hand.

_III.--DEAD SOULS_

Of all the faces which I saw in hell, there was one which had for me a
fascination. It was that of a beautiful woman, queenly of manner, fair
of figure as a fullblown lily, and with those dark eyes that seem to
shine out from soul-depths, deep as the distant heaven, and yet may mean
no more than the shallow facing of quicksilver behind a milliner's
mirror.

On earth she had deliberately set herself to win and to break the heart
of a trusting lad, and the punishment of her sin was that she should now
love him with the same intense but hopeless passion with which he had
loved her. "My heart is broken," I heard her sob, "and in hell one
cannot die of a broken heart. If I had loved him, and he me, and he had
died, I could have borne it, knowing that I should meet him hereafter;
but to live loveless through eternity, that is the thought which kills
me."

Another sight which I saw was that of a desolate plain, low-lying and
unlighted, in the centre of which there roamed one who called out as if
in search of a companion, but to whom there came no answer save the echo
of his own voice. A more lonely and lifeless spot I have never seen. The
silence seemed sometimes to oppress him like a presence, for, with a
half-affrighted and despairing cry, he set off at a panic-stricken run,
as if seeking to esca