tell me," he said.

"I believe you are going to get better, and I shall take you back to
Windyridge and the moors."

He sighed then, and laid a hand fondly upon mine. "Grace, my child, I
will say now what it may be more difficult to say later. You have
caught me in a good hour, and my weary spirits have been refreshed by
the sight of your face and the sound of your voice; but you must be
prepared for darker experiences. Sometimes I suffer; often I am
terribly weak and depressed. Gottlieb, I know, does not expect me to
recover, and my Inner Self (that is your expression, child, and I often
think of it) tells me he is right. You are too sensible to be unduly
distressed before the time comes, and I want to tell you what I have
planned, and to tell you quite calmly and without emotion. Death to me
is only a curtain between one room and the next, so that it does not
disturb me to explain to you what I wish to be done when it is raised
for me to pass through.

"Midway in the village you will find some gardens opposite the Mont
Cervin Hotel. Pass through them and you will reach a little English
church, surrounded by a tiny graveyard. There lie the bones of men who
have been killed on the mountains, and of others who have found death
instead of life in these health-giving heights. There is one sunny
spot where I want my body to rest, and the chaplain knows it. You can
bear to hear me speak of these things, can you?"

Yes, I could bear it. He spoke so naturally and with such ease that I
hardly realised what it meant: it was unreal, far-off, fallacious.

"At first," he continued, "the idea was repugnant. I longed to be laid
side by side with my wife in the homeland, but that feeling passed. It
was nothing more than sentiment, though it was a sentiment that nearly
took me home, in spite of the doctors. But the more I have thought of
it the more childish it has seemed. I am conscious of her presence
here, always. Metaphysicians would explain that easily enough, no
doubt, but to me it is an experience, and what can one want more? Why,
then, should I run away to Windyridge and Fawkshill in order to find
her, or be carried there for that purpose after death? No, no. Heaven
is about me here, and our spirits will meet at once when the silver
thread is loosed which binds me to earth. Am I right, Grace?"

I was crying a little now, but I could not contradict him.

"Gottlieb shakes his head, but Grey says I may