“Doesn’t he agree with you?”

“Well—­it’s difficult to say, difficult to say.  Shall we go by Wilton Place, or—?”

“Certainly.”

“Professor Stepton has talked to me about you from time to time, Mr. Malling.”

“He’s a remarkable man,” said Malling almost with enthusiasm.

“Yes.  He’s finding his way to the truth rather by the pathway of science than by the pathway of faith.  But he’s a man I respect.  And I believe he’ll get out into the light.  You’ve done a great deal of work for him, I understand, in—­in occult directions.”

“I have made a good many careful investigations at his suggestion.”

“Exactly.  Now”—­Mr. Harding paused, seemed to make an effort, and continued—­“we know very little even now, with all that has been done, as to—­to the possibilities—­I scarcely know how to put it—­the possibilities of the soul.”

“Very little indeed,” rejoined Malling.

He was considerably surprised by his companion’s manner, but was quite resolved not to help him out.

“The possibilities of one soul, let us say, in connection with another,” continued the rector, almost in a faltering voice.  “I often feel as if the soul were a sort of mysterious fluid, and that when we what is called influence another person, we, as it were, submerge his soul fluid in our own, as a drop of water might be submerged in an ocean.”

“Ah!” said Malling, laconically.

Mr. Harding shot a rather sharp glance at him.

“You don’t object to my getting on this subject, I hope?” he observed.

“Certainly not.”

“Perhaps you think it rather a strange one for a clergyman to select?”

“Oh, no.  I have known many clergymen deeply interested in Stepton’s investigations.”

Mr. Harding’s face, which had been cloudy, cleared.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that we clergymen have a special reason for desiring Stepton, and all Stepton’s assistants, to make progress.  It is true, of course, that we live by faith.  And nothing can be more beautiful than a childlike faith in the Great Being who is above all worlds, in the anima mundi.  But it would be unnatural in us if we did not earnestly desire that our faith be proved, scientifically proved, to be well-founded.  I speak now of the faith we Christians hold in a life beyond the grave.  I know many people who think it very wrong in a clergyman to mix himself up in any occult experiments.  But I don’t agree with them.”

It was now Malling’s turn to look sharply at his companion.

“Have you made many experiments yourself, may I ask?” he said very bluntly.

The clergyman started, and was obviously embarrassed by the question.

“I!  Oh, I was speaking generally.  I am a very busy man, you see.  What with my church and my parish, and one thing and another, I get very little time for outside things.  Still I am greatly interested, I confess, in all that Stepton is doing.”