have been
suddenly opened, and one of the familiar band bidden to enter, and that
the loving heart that had left them should be unable to communicate the
slightest hint of its presence to those who desired her in vain, seemed
to him a horrible and desperate thing. For the first time in his life
the terrible secrets of identity opened before his eyes. He could not
bring himself to believe in the extinction of so vital, so individual a
force, but he recognised with a mournful terror that, so far as
scientific evidence went, the whole preponderating force of facts
tended to prove that the individuality was, if not extinguished, at
least merged in some central tide of life, and that the only rebutting
evidence was the cry of the burdened heart that dared not believe a
possibility so stern, so appalling. He wrestled dumbly and darkly
against these sad convictions, and how many times, in miserable
solitude, did he send out a wistful prayer that, if it were possible,
some hint, some slender vision might be granted him as a proof that one
so dear, so desired, so momently missed, was still near him in spirit.
But no answer came back from the dark threshold, and, leaning in, he
could but discern a landscape of shapeless horror, in which no live
thing moved by the shore of a grey and weltering sea. Little by little
a dim hint came to comfort him; he thought of all the unnumbered
generations of men who had lived their brief lives in sun and shade,
full of hopes and schemes and affections. One by one they had lain
down in the dust. In the face of so immutable, so absolute a law, it
seemed that rebellion and questioning was fruitless. God gives, God
takes away, He makes and mars, He creates, He dissolves; and if we
cannot trust the Will that bids us be and not be, what else in this
shifting world, full of dark secrets, can we trust? It cannot be said
that this thought comforted Hugh, but it sustained him. He learnt
again to suspend his hopes and fears, and to leave all confidently in
the hands of God; and time, too, had its healing balm; the bitter loss,
by soft gradations, became a sweet and loving memory, and a memory that
sweetened the thought of the dark world whither too he must sometime
turn his steps. For if indeed our individuality endures, he could
realise that one who loved so purely, so loyally, so intensely, would
not fail him on the other side of the silent river, but would welcome
him with unabated love, perhap