Now there are two sorts of superstition, each of which is the very antithesis of the other.  The victim of one believes all kinds of absurdities blindfold, oblivious of evidence or causality.  The upsetting of a salt-cellar or the fall of a mirror is to him a harbinger of disaster, entirely irrespective of any possible connection between the cause and the effect.  A bit of stalk floating on his tea presages an unlooked-for visitor, and the guttering of a candle is a sign of impending death.  All this he believes firmly, and acts upon, although he would candidly acknowledge his inability to explain the principle supposed to underlie the sequence between the omen and its fulfilment.  It is the irrationality of the belief that constitutes its superstitious character, the contented acquiescence in some inconceivable and impossible law, whether physical or metaphysical, in virtue of which the predicted event is expected to follow the wholly unrelated augury.  The other sort of superstition is that of which, as we have seen, Aunt Charlotte was an exemplification.  Here, again, there is a splendid disregard of evidence, testimony, and causal laws.  But it takes the form of scepticism, and a scepticism so blindly partial as to sink into the most abject credulity.  The wildest sophistries are dragged in to account for an unfamiliar happening, and scientific students are accused, now of idiocy, now of fraud, rather than the fact should be confessed that our knowledge of the universe is limited.  If Aunt Charlotte, for instance, had seen a table rise into the air of itself in broad daylight she would have said, “I certainly saw it happen, and as an honest woman I can’t deny it; but I don’t believe it for all that.”  The succession of abnormal occurrences, however, of which Austin had been the subject, had begun to undermine her dogmatism; and this last event, the interposition of something, she knew not what, to save her from a horrible accident, appealed to her very strongly.  There was a pathos, too, about the part played in it by Austin which touched her to the quick, and she reproached herself keenly for the injustice with which she had treated him in her unreasoning anger.

She felt a great lump come in her throat as he ceased speaking, and for a moment or two found it impossible to answer.  “A voice!” she uttered at last.  “What sort of a voice, Austin?”

“It sounded like a woman’s,” he replied.

Chapter the Ninth

From this time forward Austin seemed to live a double life.  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he inhabited two worlds.  Around him the flowers bloomed in the garden, Lubin worked and whistled, Aunt Charlotte bustled about her duties, and everything went on as usual.  But beyond and behind all this there was something else.  The dreams and reveries that had hitherto invaded him became felt realities; he no longer had any doubt that he was encircled by