o her any more. She had gone
somewhere for a moment. And he turned to greet the pilot as he swung
aboard.

"She will come back," he thought.... But she never came back. Once or
twice or maybe three times, a month, six months, and ten months later,
he felt her warm lover-like presence near him. "Claire-Anne! Is it you,
Claire-Anne?" And she was gone again. Something that had hovered,
fluttered, kissed, and flown away. Never again!

She had become to him in death much more real than she had ever been in
life. In life she had been dynamic, a warm, multicolored, perfumed
cloud. In death she was static. All the tumult of material things gone,
he had a vision of her clear as a line drawing. And he had come to
depend on her so much. In difficulty of thought he would say: "Is this
right, Claire-Anne?" And her answer would come: "Yes, Shane!" Or
possibly when some matter of trade or conduct seemed dubious, not
quite--whatever it was, her voice would come clear as a bell. "You
mustn't, Shane. It isn't right. It isn't like you to be small." It might
have been conscience, but it sounded like Claire-Anne. And oftentimes in
problems, she would say: "I don't know, Shane. I don't quite know." And
he would say, "We must do our best, Claire-Anne."

Well, she was gone. And he thought to himself: What do we know of the
destiny of the dead? They, too, must have work, missions to perform. The
God he believed in--the wise, firm, and kindly God--might have said:
"Claire-Anne, he'll be all right now. At any rate he'll have to work out
the rest for himself. Leave that. I want you to--" And she had gone.

That was one majestic explanation, but at times it seemed to him that no
matter what happened in the world, or superworld, yet she must be in
touch with him. "Set me, as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine
arm," cried the prince's daughter, "for love is strong as death." If she
loved him she must love him still.

It suddenly occurred to him that the fault was not occult, but a matter
of spiritual deterioration in himself. To be in harmony with the lonely
dead there must be no dross about the mind. The preoccupations of
routine, the occasional dislikes of some stupid ship's officer, or
boatswain, the troubles about cargo--this, that, the other pettinesses
might cloud his eye as a mist clouds a lens. There came to him the
memory of a translation from some Chinese poet he had heard somewhere,
in some connection:

How am I fallen fr