there
is a great deal of very objectionable nonsense which goes by the name
of mysticism, which is merely emotion divorced from commonsense."

"Yes," said Howard, "and if I may speak quite frankly, I do very much
respect your own judgment and your convictions. It seems to me that you
have a very sceptical turn of mind, which has acted as a solvent upon a
whole host of stupid and conventional beliefs. I don't think you take
things for granted, and it always seems to me that you have got rid of
a great many foolish traditions which ordinary people accept--and it's
a fine attitude."

"I'm not too old to be insensible to a compliment," said Mrs. Graves,
smiling. "What you are surprised at is to find that I have any beliefs
left, I suppose? And I expect you are inclined to think that I have
done the feminine thing ultimately, and compromised, so as to retain
just the comfortable part of the affair."

"No," said Howard, "I don't. I am much more inclined to think that
there is something which is hidden from me; and I want you to explain
it, if you can and will."

"Well, I will try," said Mrs. Graves. "Let me think." She sate silent
for a little, and then she said: "I think that as I get older, I
recognise more and more the division between the rational part of the
mind and the instinctive part of the mind. I find more and more that my
deepest convictions are not rational--at least not arrived at by
reason--only formulated by it. I think that reason ought to be able to
formulate convictions; but they are there, whether expressed or not.
Most women don't bring the reason to bear at all, and the result is
that they hold a mass of beliefs, some simply inherited, some mere
phrases which they don't understand, and some real convictions. A great
deal of the muddle comes from the feminine weariness of logic, and a
great deal, too, from the fact that they never learn how to use
words--words are the things that divide people! But I believe more and
more, by experience, in the SOUL. I do not believe that the soul begins
with birth or ends with death. Now I have no sort of doubt in my own
mind that the soul of your child was a living thing, a spirit which has
lived before, and will live again. Souls, I believe, come to the brink
of life, out of some unknown place, and by choice or impelled by some
need for experience, take shape. I don't know how or why this is--I
only believe that it is so. If your child had lived, you would have
be