tminster Bridge,
and as she looked down the swirling muddy current, her mother's face
seemed to appear to her. In some strange way her mother had always
seemed more real than her father. Her father lived on the surface of
things, in this life, whereas her mother seemed independent of time and
circumstance, a sort of principle, an eternal essence, a spirit which
she could often hear speaking to her far down in her heart. Since she
had seen her mother's portrait, this sensation had come closer; and
Evelyn drew back as if she felt the breath of the dead on her face, as
if a dead hand had been laid upon hers. The face she saw was grey,
shadowy, unreal, like a ghost; the eyes were especially distinct, her
mother seemed aware of her; but though Evelyn sought for it, she could
not detect any sign of disapproval in her face. She looked always like a
grey shadow; she moved like a shadow. Evelyn was often tempted to ask
her mother to speak. Her prayer had always been a doubting, hesitating
prayer, perhaps that was why it had not been granted. But now, sitting
in her carriage in a busy thoroughfare, she seemed to see over the brink
of life, she seemed to see her mother in a grey land lit with stars. She
recalled Ulick's tales of evocation, and wondered if it were possible to
communicate with her mother. But even if she could speak with her, she
thought that she would shrink from doing so. She thought of what Ulick
had said regarding the gain and loss of soul, how we can allow our soul
to dwindle, and how we can increase it until communion with the
invisible world is possible. She felt that it were a presumption to
limit life to what we see, and Owen's argument that ignorance was the
cause of belief in ghosts and spirits seemed to her poor indeed. Man
would not have entertained such beliefs for thousands of years if they
had been wholly false.

Ulick was coming to-morrow. But he was going to read through Isolde's
music with her, and she could hardly fail to learn something, to pick up
a hint which she might turn to account.... Her conduct had been
indiscreet; she had encouraged him to make love to her. But in this case
it did not matter; he was a man who did not care about women, and she
recalled all he had said to convince herself on this point. However this
might be, the idea of her falling in love with him was out of the
question. A second lover stripped a woman of every atom of self-esteem,
and she glanced into her soul, convin