not believe--what do you say to this--in memory lasting. You and I love
each other here and now; when I die, I do not feel sure that I shall
have any recollection of you or Maud or my own dear husband--how
horrible that would sound to many men and nearly all women--but I have
learned how to love, and you have learned how to love, and we shall
find other souls to draw near to as the ages go on; and so I look
forward to death calmly enough, because whatever I am I shall have
souls to love, and I shall find souls to love me."

"No," said Howard, "I can't believe that! I can't believe in any life
here or hereafter apart from Maud. It is strange that I should be the
sentimentalist now, and you the stern sceptic. The thought to me is
infinitely dreary--even atrocious."

"I am not surprised," said Mrs. Graves, "but that's the last sacrifice.
That is what losing oneself means; to believe in love itself, and not
in the particular souls we love; to believe in beauty, not in beautiful
things. I have learned that! I do not say it in any complacency or
superiority--you must believe me; but it is the last and hardest thing
that I have learned. I do not say that it does not hurt--one suffers
terribly in losing one's dear self, in parting from other selves that
are even more dear. But would one send away the souls one loves best
into a loveless paradise? Can one bear to think of them as hankering
for oneself, and lost in regret? No, not for a moment! They pass on to
new life and love; we cannot ourselves always do it in this life--the
flesh is weak and dear; and age passes over us, and takes away the
close embrace and the sweet desire. But it is the awakening of the soul
to love that matters; and it has been to me one of the sweetest
experiences of my life to see you and Maud awaken to love. But you will
not stay there--nothing is ultimate, not the dearest and largest
relations of life. One climbs from selfishness to liking, and from
liking to passion, and from passion to love itself."

"No," said Howard, "I cannot rise to that yet; I see, I dimly feel,
that you are far above me in this; but I cannot let Maud go. She is
mine, and I am hers."

Mrs. Graves smiled and said, "Well, we will leave it at that. Kiss me,
dearest boy; I don't love you less because I feel as I do--perhaps even
more, indeed."

XXXVI

THE TRUTH

It was a sunny day of winter with a sharp breeze blowing, just after
the birth of the New Year, that How