I can't count up my gains; but if you had
come back, leaving your heart elsewhere, how could I have borne
that?"
XXXV
THE POWER OF LOVE
It was a few days later that Howard found himself sitting alone one
evening after dinner, with his aunt.
"There is something that I want to talk to you about," he said. "No
doubt Maud has told you all about her strange experience? She has
described it to me, and I don't know what to say or think. She was
wonderfully fine about it. She said she would not mention it again,
and she did not desire me to talk about it--or even believe it! And
I don't know what to do. It isn't the sort of thing that I believe
in, though I think it beautiful, just because it was Maud who felt
it. But I can't say what I really believe about it, without seeming
unsympathetic and even rough; and yet I don't like there being
anything which means so much to her, which doesn't mean much to
me."
"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "I foresaw that difficulty, but I think
Maud did right to tell you."
"Of course, of course," said Howard, "but I mean much more than
that. Is there something really THERE, open to all, possible to
all, from which I am shut out by what the Bible calls my hardness
of heart? Do you really think yourself that a living spirit drew
near and made itself known to Maud thus? or is it a beautiful
dream, a sort of subjective attempt at finding comfort, an
instinctive effort of the mind towards saving itself from sorrow?"
"Ah," said Mrs.
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