ould get one and drove
across London towards Regent's Park.

Here the pleasure that he took in watching the movements of the
animals was so great that it seemed impossible but that he was
visiting the Zoo for the first time. I remembered, however, that he
had told me in the morning how frequently he went to these gardens.

But his interest in the animals was unlike my own, and I should
suppose unlike the interest of any other man. He had no knowledge
whatever of zoology, and appeared to wish for none. His pleasure
consisted in watching the curious expressions and movements of the
animals and in dramatising them.

On leaving the Zoo, I said, 'The cross you were just now looking at
is as remarkable for its history as for its beauty. It was stolen
from the tomb of a near relative of mine. I was under a solemn
promise to the person upon whose breast it lay to see that it should
never be disturbed. But, now that it has been disturbed, to replace
it in the tomb would, I fear, be to insure another sacrilege. I
wonder what you would do in such a case?'

He looked at me and said, 'As it is evident that we are going to be
intimate friends, I may as well confess to you at once that I am a
mystic.'

'When did you become so?'

'When? Ask any man who has passionately loved a woman and lost her;
ask him at what moment mysticism was forced upon him--at what moment
he felt that he must either accept a spiritualistic theory of the
universe or go mad; ask him this, and he will tell you that it was at
that moment when he first looked upon her as she lay dead, with
Corruption's foul fingers waiting to soil and stain. What are you
going to do with the cross?'

'Lock it up as safely as I can,' I said; 'what else is there to do
with it?'

He looked into my face and said, 'You are a rationalist.'

'I am.'

'You do not believe in a supernatural world?'

'My disbelief of it,' I said, 'is something more than an exercise of
the reason. It is a passion, an angry passion. But what should you do
with the cross if you were in my place?'

'Put it back in the tomb.'

I had great difficulty in suppressing my ridicule, but I merely said,
'That would be, as I have told you, to insure its being stolen
again.'

'There is the promise to the dead man or woman on whose breast it
lay.'

'This I intend to keep in the spirit like a reasonable man--not in
the letter like--'

'Promises to the dead must be kept to the letter, or no peace can
c