nthony was near his fiftieth year, there fell on him a
heaviness of spirit which daily increased upon him. He began to question
of his end and what lay beyond. He had always made pretence to mock at
religion, and had grown to believe that in death the soul was
extinguished like a burnt-out flame. He began, too, to question of his
life and what he had done. He had made a few toys, he had filled vacant
hours, and he had gained an ugly kind of fame--and this was all. Was he
so certain, he began to think, after all, that death was the end? Were
there not, perhaps, in the vast house of God, rooms and chambers beyond
that in which he was set for awhile to pace to and fro? About this time
he began to read in a Bible that had lain dusty and unopened on a shelf.
It was his mother's book, and he found therein many little tokens of her
presence. Here was a verse underlined; at some gracious passages the
page was much fingered and worn; in one place there were stains that
looked like the mark of tears; then again, in one page, there was a
small tress of hair, golden hair, tied in a paper with a name across it,
that seemed to be the name of a little sister of his mother's that died
a child; and again there were a few withered flowers, like little sad
ghosts, stuck through a paper on which was written his father's
name--the name of the sad, harsh, silent man whom Anthony had feared
with all his heart. Had those two, indeed, on some day of summer, walked
to and fro, or sate in some woodland corner, whispering sweet words of
love together? Anthony felt a sudden hunger of the heart for a woman's
love, for tender words to soothe his sadness, for the laughter and
kisses of children--and he began to ransack his mind for memories of his
mother; he could remember being pressed to her heart one morning when
she lay abed, with her fragrant hair falling about him. The worst was
that he must bear his sorrow alone, for there were none to whom he could
talk of such things. The doctor was as dry as an old bunch of herbs, and
as for the priest, Anthony was ashamed to show anything but contempt and
pride in his presence.

For relief he began to turn to a branch of his studies that he had long
disused; this was a fearful commerce with the unseen spirits. Anthony
could remember having practised some experiments of this kind with the
old Italian doctor; but he remembered them with a kind of disgust, for
they seemed to him but a sort of deadly juggling; a