They turn their attention rather to the development of their own higher natures, which enables them to understand and enjoy these beautiful truths."

"Do you believe that the spirits of our dear ones ever reveal themselves to us?" asked Percy, growing more and more interested. "Have you ever been blessed by such a vision?"

"Never, though I have longed for it. Yet I believe others have been so blessed. You know the Bible overflows with such occurrences. We have, there, the inspired record of the re-appearance upon earth after death--of Samuel, Moses, Elijah, and Christ himself. If we believe the Bible, we must believe these things occurred. And I think G.o.d loves his people now as dearly as He loved them then. But I have no belief in, and no patience with, the miserable artifice and wicked pretense of the so-called materializing mediums. I do not believe the lovely spirit of my dear mother could be shown to me through any cabinet--like a jack-in-a-box. The idea that the spirits of the intellectual dead have nothing better to do than move furniture or rap on ceilings and floors, is disgusting and nonsensical in my view. I am a good deal of a Swedenborgian: I think with him, that the body--the eye--is merely a telescope, through which the soul gazes. What the soul sees, and how far it sees, depends upon many conditions, just as a clear or a murky atmosphere, and the mechanism of his instrument, influences the observations of the astronomer. When the soul, and the body, and the spiritual atmosphere are all in perfect condition, I believe we can _see_ the spirit forms about us. You know St. Paul says: 'Run your race in patience, _for you are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses_.' But in our gross material lives, these conditions seldom occur. As for myself, I am satisfied with the comfort and strength I receive through unseen presences. I do not ask, or seek anything more."

A spiteful-voiced clock on the mantel counted off eleven strokes.

Percy arose in sudden confusion.

"How inexcusably late I have remained," he said, "how can I ever obtain pardon--"

"No excuse is necessary!" interposed Mrs. Griffith. "We all thank you for causing Miss Maxon to talk so freely. It is seldom she does, and we love to hear her conversation as well as her singing. Be sure and come again, Mr. Durand."

As he walked back to his hotel, in upon his strangely enlarged and enlightened vision, a sudden thought of Dolores darted. He stopped in the street and put his hand to his brow. "My G.o.d!" he cried, "how can I go back to her?"

CHAPTER XVII.

A MAN, A WOMAN, AND SPIRITS.

He did not go near her for three days. During all that time he was battling with his own soul.

So strange and powerful was the impression made by the conversation of Helena, that the whole current of his life seemed changed.

All his former independent course of action, which he had justified with a thousand arguments, all his selfish years of pleasure, all his Arcadian existence with Dolores, loomed up before him now as lawless and wicked.

"No wonder my mother's pure spirit fled from me to the most distant borders of the spirit world," he said. "How unworthy her sweet companionship I am--and yet I might become worthy."

But how could he go to Dolores, and tell her that their life together was a terrible mistake: that they must part at once, and forever?

And if he did not, how could he ever hope to attain that ideal of high, n.o.ble manhood, which would alone fit him for the companionship of his mother's spirit, here or hereafter?

He suffered the agonies of the d.a.m.ned, all those days. He shunned the streets for fear of meeting Dolores: the Club seemed hateful to him, and he remained shut in his own apartments, a prey to gloomy thoughts.

And then one of those curious caprices of Fate occurred, which again compelled him to stifle the voice of his conscience.

It often seems in this life, when a soul is floundering in a net-work of Sin's weaving, striving to extricate itself, that the Devil, like a great spider, comes along and spins new meshes about it.

A messenger brought Percy a note from Dolores one day. He opened it hastily and read:

"MY DARLING:

"I am ill: threatened with a fever. No one but Lorette is with me. I am longing for you, and I am alarmed about you. You never remained so long away from me before, without sending me some message. The thought that you may be ill, and that I am not near you to minister to your needs, is maddening. Write to me, dear, and if you can, come to your sick and lonely

"DOLORES."

He was by her side within an hour. She reached out her arms, and pillowed her flushed face on his breast, weeping softly.

"Oh, Love!" she murmured. "I have felt so lonely, so _deserted_ these last days. I think I have realized just what life would be without you: it would be an agony of desolation. I could not live."

Percy's heart writhed within him, as he stroked the beautiful head and soothed her with kind words. How could he ever stab that loving heart by telling her the change that had come over him--a change as thorough as it was sudden; a change that was the dawn of a possible new life for him.

"I cannot. It is too late; it would be more cruel than murder," he said to himself, and he drew Dolores into his arms, and comforted her as he would have comforted a sick child. She asked no explanation of his absence, and he made none.

Within a week he had carried her away to a quiet country resort, where she soon regained her health. But during her illness, there came to her, through the clairvoyant power of a loving heart, the knowledge that some mysterious change had taken place in Percy. He was kind, oh, very kind; so careful of her bodily comfort, so solicitous for her welfare.

And yet--what was it?

"Is any thing troubling you?" she asked him one day. "You do not seem like yourself."

"There are some business matters which annoy me," he said, evading her eyes. "My South American ventures are a failure--that is all, my dear, save a miserable la.s.situde and sideache, which Dr. Sydney says is due to a touch of malaria."

But she knew better.

They returned to New York, and then Percy was guilty of an act of rash folly, for a man who desired to escape a complication of troubles.

He sent Dolores a message, saying he was called out of town suddenly.

Then he took the train for Centerville. It was Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and he told himself, that he would merely attend divine service in the morning, listen to Helena's voice once more, and come away without being seen by any one.

But in his heart, he knew that this was impossible. And when Mrs.

Griffith approached him after service, and urged him to accompany them home, and dine with them, he went, without offering one objection.

Helena greeted him with simple cordiality, and entertained him with the easy grace so natural to her. He was at peace with himself, in her presence, for the first time since he last saw her.

"How strange it is!" he mused, "I have seen the most beautiful women in the world, I have listened to the most famous singers; and yet, I am moved by the presence and voice of a simple village maiden as I have never been moved in my life before."

A sudden impulse came over him to tell her his story, to ask her advice, as they sat alone in the afternoon. Then he hesitated: what if she turned from him, shocked, angry, horrified?--so he only said:

"I wish you would call some of your wise spirits, Miss Helena, and ask them to read me my future. I am in trouble--a trouble out of which I can see no pathway. I wish good angels would tell me how it is to end."

"But that is not the province of spirits," Helena answered. "People often make the great mistake of supposing that the departed know all that is to happen to us while we remain upon earth. The fact is, they know very little about it, and are too busily employed to give their time to finding out the future for us."

"But if their lives are so exalted and their vision so broad, I see no reason why they should not know."

"You will see when you come to think of it sensibly," Helena continued, with a smile. "Their lives are, compared to our own just as much broader, more useful and more important, as the lives of great thinkers and philosophers and reformers, are greater than the lives of little children. Shakespeare, Carlyle, Lincoln, George Eliot, all were wonderful people who grasped almost the whole of the universe with their minds. Yet not one of them, were they all alive to-day, could foretell the future life of Mrs. Griffith's little child, yonder. Not one could say what was to occur to him in the next ten years. They could help him by their example, and strengthen him by their philosophy, but no more, great as they were. Well, now, the spirits of the dead regard us as children at school. They are far beyond us, in knowledge and usefulness; they are ever ready to strengthen and encourage us, but they cannot predict events for us. There are some, no doubt, who were gifted with clairvoyance here, who keep the power there. But such spirits are often too busy to come at our call. And they know, too, that it is better for us to depend upon ourselves in a great measure. It is through self-dependence that we develope our individuality, and become fitted for the labors of this world and the next."

"Then you think the future life is one of labor?" Percy asked.

"It is one of usefulness and progression, certainly, or it is not worth living," she answered. "Who would want to live at all, if we never advanced in any way? And the beauty of that new life is, that every particle of progress we have made here, even if it has brought us no reward, will enable us to take an advanced place there. So soon as we are out of the body, we shall realize this in all its satisfying truth.

Every hard struggle on earth, every conquered temptation, every sorrow, every trial endured, every labor well performed, we shall see has its splendid reward in fitting us for the most exalted position in that new life. Every particle of love and affection we have bestowed on objects which seemed to make a poor return or no return here, will be given to us in ten-fold strength and sweetness there. The more we love humanity--the more we shall be loved and the wider will be our capabilities of wonderful labors in the spirit world. The two most G.o.d-like emotions given to mortals to experience, are love and sympathy.

If we give our love with prodigality, and sympathize with every human being who crosses our pathway in life, it really matters very little whether we are loved in return, or whether the world thanks us for our sympathy, or not. It is the _act_ of loving and sympathizing which shapes the soul. And when the body falls away, the spirit that has given its affections and sympathies freely on earth will stand forth, a mighty and beautiful Power in the New Life, no matter what its creed or belief in the earth life has been."

Percy drew a long deep breath. Again the delicate curtain was drawn over her dark eyes, softening and half concealing their sombre splendor.

Again he felt that subtle warmth and fragrance emanating from her person, and was thrilled and magnetized by it.

"It is no earthly odor," he said. "It is the perfume of her soul."