, and as life
goes on, see if your experience confirms it, and until it does, do not
pretend that it does. I don't claim to be omniscient. Something quite
definite, of course, lies behind the mystery of life, and whatever it
is, is not affected by what you or I believe about it. I may be wholly
and entirely mistaken, and it may be that life is only a chemical
phenomenon; but I have kept my eyes open, and my heart open; and I am
as sure as I can be that there is something very much bigger behind it
than that. I myself believe that each being is an immortal spirit,
hampered by contact with mortal laws, and I believe that consciousness
and emotion are something superior even to chemistry. But to use
emotion to silence people would be entirely repugnant to me, and
equally to Maud. She isn't the sort of woman who would be content if
you only just said you believed her. She would hate that!"

"Well," said Howard, smiling, "you are two very wonderful women, and
that's the truth. I am not surprised at YOUR wisdom--it IS
wisdom--because you have lived very bravely and loved many people; but
it's amazing to me to find such courage and understanding in a girl. Of
course you have helped her--but I don't think you could have produced
such thoughts in her unless they had been there to start with."

"That's exactly what I have tried to say," said Mrs. Graves. "Where did
Maud's fine mixture of feeling and commonsense come from? Her mother
was a woman of some perception, but after all she married Frank, and
Frank with all his virtue isn't a very mature spirit!"

"Ah," said Howard, "my marriage has done everything for me! What a
blind, complacent, petty ass I was--and am too, though I at least
perceive it! I see myself as an elderly donkey, braying and capering
about in a paddock--and someone leans over the fence, and all is
changed. I ought not to think lightly of mysteries, when all this
astonishing conspiracy has taken place round me, to give me a home and
a wife and a whole range of new emotions--how Maud came to care for me
is still the deepest wonder of all--a loveless prig like me!"

"I won't be understood to subscribe to all that," said Mrs. Graves,
laughing, "though I see your point of view; but there's something
deeper even than that, dear Howard. You care for me, you care for Maud;
but it's the power of caring that matters more than the power of caring
for particular people. Does that seem a very hard saying? You see I do