ur hand, and it obeys. Muscular action? Oh yes; but
that is but another label." He turned his eyes, suddenly somber, upon
the staring, listening young man, and his voice rose a little. "Go
right behind all that, Mr. Baxter, down to the mysteries. What is that
link between soul and body? You do not know! Nor does the wisest
scientist in the world. Nor ever will. Yet there the link is!"

Again he paused.

Laurie was aware of a rising half-excited interest far beyond the
power of the words he heard. Yet the manner of these too was striking.
It was not the sham mysticism he had expected. There was a certain
reverence in them, an admitting of mysteries, that seemed hard to
reconcile with the ideas he had formed of the dogmatism of these folk.

"Now begin again," continued the quiet, virile voice. "You believe, as
a Christian, in the immortality of the soul, in the survival of
personality after death. Thank God for that! All do not, in these
days. Then I need not labor at that.

"Now, Mr. Baxter, imagine to yourself some soul that you have loved
passionately, who has crossed over to the other side." Laurie drew a
long, noiseless breath, steadying himself with clenched hands. "She
has come to the unimaginable glories, according to her measure; she is
at an end of doubts and fears and suspicions. She knows because she
sees.... But do you think that she is absorbed in these things? You
know nothing of human love, Mr. Baxter" (the voice trembled with
genuine emotion) ... "if you can think that...! If you can think that
her thought turns only to herself and her joys. Why, her life has been
lived in your love by our hypothesis--you were at her bedside when she
died, perhaps; and she clung to you as to God Himself, when the shadow
deepened. Do you think that her first thought, or at least her second,
will not be of you...? In all that she sees, she will desire you to
see it also. She will strive, crave, hunger for you--not that she may
possess you, but that you may be one with her in her own possession;
she will send out vibration after vibration of sympathy and longing;
and you, on this side, will be tuned to her as none other can be--you,
on this side, will be empty for her love, for the sight and sound of
her.... Is death then so strong?--stronger than love? Can a Christian
believe that?"

The change in the man was extraordinary. His heavy beard and brows hid
half his face, but his whole being glowed passionately in his voic