ome might call the soul, of the sitter. He
stared at it for a while in his short-sighted way, then said: "Do you
know, Arbuthnot, it has sometimes occurred to me, and never more than
at this moment, that although they were different in height and so on,
there was a really curious physical resemblance between your late wife
and the Lady Yva."

"Yes," I answered. "I think so too."

Bickley also examined the portrait very carefully, and as he did so I
saw him start. Then he turned away, saying nothing.

Such is the summary of all that has been important in my life. It is, I
admit, an odd story and one which suggests problems that I cannot solve.
Bastin deals with such things by that acceptance which is the privilege
and hall-mark of faith; Bickley disposes, or used to dispose, of them by
a blank denial which carries no conviction, and least of all to himself.

What is life to most of us who, like Bickley, think ourselves learned?
A round, short but still with time and to spare wherein to be dull and
lonesome; a fateful treadmill to which we were condemned we know not
how, but apparently through the casual passions of those who went before
us and are now forgotten, causing us, as the Bible says, to be born in
sin; up which we walk wearily we know not why, seeming never to make
progress; off which we fall outworn we know not when or whither.

Such upon the surface it appears to be, nor in fact does our ascertained
knowledge, as Bickley would sum it up, take us much further. No prophet
has yet arisen who attempted to define either the origin or the reasons
of life. Even the very Greatest of them Himself is quite silent on this
matter. We are tempted to wonder why. Is it because life as expressed in
the higher of human beings, is, or will be too vast, too multiform and
too glorious for any definition which we could understand? Is it
because in the end it will involve for some, if not for all, majesty on
unfathomed majesty, and glory upon unimaginable glory such as at present
far outpass the limits of our thought?

The experiences which I have recorded in these pages awake in my heart a
hope that this may be so. Bastin is wont, like many others, to talk in
a light fashion of Eternity without in the least comprehending what he
means by that gigantic term. It is not too much to say that Eternity,
something without beginning and without end, and involving, it
would appear, an everlasting changelessness, is a state beyond
hum