“I remember; and the evening, I asked you to call and leave the magazine.  Little did I think of such a result, which I should regret, perhaps, did I not fully believe that all things are ordered and arranged for our best good.  Long and prayerfully I have studied this question, so vital and so closely allied to our best interests.  I could not gleam even a ray of truth did I not live above the crowd and fearlessly pursue my own way.  I see no escape from our thraldom, but through soul expanse, and this is produced only through soul liberty.  I loved my Alice most when I was learning her through others; I am still learning and loving her each day, through my child and our friend Miss Vernon.  With all our laws, we have and ever have had haunts of vice.  Will the emancipation of soul increase their number?  I think not.  If men and women can be brought together on loftier planes we shall not have these excresences.  The sexes need to be purely blended; they will approach each other, and it is for society to say how.  Block up harmless social avenues and we shall have broad roads to destruction.  I know husbands and wives who are consuming, instead of refreshing each other’s lives.  Yes, Howard, this is your great opportunity to take your position and draw your wife up to it.  Life will be a new thing to you, and all of us who can accept these truths.  Our present forms and ceremonies hold us apart, and there is scarcely a ripple of spontaneity upon life’s surface.  The highest hours, and those most productive of good, are when two souls converse and reflect each other’s innermost states.”

CHAPTER XI.

It was not by words that they knew each other, but when their eyes met each felt that the other had passed some ordeal which made their souls akin.

The stranger to whom Miss Vernon had been so drawn, met her on the beach the next morning, and asked her to walk with her.

“I would like to tell you,” she said, “of my strange experience last night; perhaps these things are not new to you,” and she went on in a confiding tone at Miss Vernon’s visible look of deep interest;—­

“I was weeping, as you may have noticed, when your strange and lovely pupil came to me,—­weeping for the loss of one to whom I was betrothed.  No mortal save myself knew the name which he gave me on the day of our engagement.  It was ‘Pearl.’  My own name is Edith Weston.  Judge of my emotion and surprise, when that child-a total stranger-came and spake my name in his exact tones.  I have had other tests of spirit presences as clear and as positive, but none that ever thrilled me like this.  Do you wonder that I already love that child with a strange, deep yearning?”

“I do not.  I have myself had proof through her that our dear departed linger around, and are cognizant of our sorrows as well as our joys.”

“Perhaps you too have loved.”

“Yes; but not like yourself.  My mother’s love is the only love I have known.”