r; and even now it seems
difficult to suppose that other men can feel as I do about THEIR wives."

"Like the boy in Punch," said Maud, "who couldn't believe that the two
earwigs could care about each other."

A faint music of bells came to them on the wind. "Hark!" said Howard;
"the Sherborne chime! Do you remember when we first heard that? It gave
me a delightful sense of other people being busy when I was unoccupied.
To-day it seems as if it was warning me that I have got to be busy."

They turned at last and retraced their steps. Presently Howard said,
"There's just one more thing, child, I want to say. I haven't ever
spoken to you since about the vision--whatever it was--which you
described to me--the child and you. But I took you at your word!"

"Yes," said Maud, "I have always been glad that you did that!"

"But I have wanted to speak," said Howard, "simply because I did not
want you to think that it wasn't in my mind--that I had cast it all
lightly away. I haven't tried to force myself into any belief about
it--it's a mystery--but it has grown into my mind somehow, and become
real; and I do feel more and more that there is something very true and
great about it, linking us with a life beyond. It does seem to me life,
and not silence; love, and not emptiness. It has not come in between
us, as I feared it might--or rather it HAS come in between us, and
seems to be holding both our hands. I don't say that my reason tells me
this--but something has outrun my reason, and something stronger and
better than reason. It is near and dear: and, dearest, you will believe
me when I say that this isn't said to please you or to woo you--I
wouldn't do that! I am not in sight of the reality yet, as you have
been; but it IS a reality, and not a sweet dream."

Maud looked at him, her eyes brimming with sudden tears. "Ah, my
beloved," she said, "that is all and more than I had hoped. Let it just
stay there! I am not foolish about it, and indeed the further away that
it gets, the less I am sure what happened. I shall not want you to
speak of it: it isn't that it is too sacred--nothing is too sacred--but
it is just a fact I can't reckon with, like the fact of one's own birth
and death. All I just hoped was that you might not think it only a
girl's fancy; but indeed I should not have cared if you HAD thought
that. The TRUTH--that is what matters; and nothing that you or I or
anyone, in any passion of love or sorrow, can believe ab