two
strange experiences and now a hope--I might say a faith--has settled
upon me of an undying element in our personality. I feel that we shall
meet again those we have loved here--some time or another."

"What a sting that would take from the agony of parting," cried Hadria.

"And, after all, is it less rational to suppose that there is some
survival of the Self, and that the wild, confused earthly experience is
an element of a spiritual evolutionary process, than to suppose that the
whole universe is chaotic and meaningless? For what we call mind exists,
and it must be contained in the sum-total of existence, or how could it
arise out of it? Therefore, some reasonable scheme appears more likely
than a reasonless one. And then there is that other big fact that stares
us in the face and puts one's fears to shame: human goodness."

Hadria's rebellious memory recalled the fact of human cruelty and
wickedness to set against the goodness, but she was silent.

"What earthly business has such a thing as goodness or pity to appear in
a fortuitous, mindless, soulless universe? Where does it come from? What
is its origin? Whence sprang the laws that gave it birth?"

"It gives more argument to faith than any thing I know," she said, "even
if there had been but one good man or woman since the world began."

"Ah, yes; the pity and tenderness that lie in the heart of man, even of
the worst, if only they can be appealed to before they die, may teach us
to hope all things."

There was a long silence. Through the open window, they could hear the
soft cooing of the wood-pigeons. Among the big trees behind the house,
there was a populous rookery, noisy now with the squeaky voices of the
young birds, and the deeper cawing of the parent rooks.

"I have been for many years without one gleam of hope," said the
Professor slowly. "It is only lately that some of my obstinate
preconceptions have begun to yield to other suggestions and other
thoughts, which have opened up a thousand possibilities and a thousand
hopes. And I have not been false to my reason in this change; I have but
followed it more fearlessly and more faithfully."

"I have sometimes thought," said Hadria, "that when we seem to cling
most desperately to our reason, we are really refusing to accept its
guidance into unfamiliar regions. We confuse the familiar with the
reasonable."

"Exactly. And I want you to be on your guard against that intellectual
foible, which I be