You are surprised at me and my curiosity, she said, and indeed you have good reason; but it is astonishing, when one is shut up in ones self and knows nobody, how excited one gets over the sudden apparition of a person one has known in the other world. Some people die two or three times in a lifetime, Mr. Vincent. There is a real transmigration of souls, or bodies, or both if you please. This is my third life I am going through at present. I knew that man, as I was saying, in the other world.
The world does change strangely, said Vincent, who could not tell what to say; but you put it very strongly more strongly than I
More strongly than you can understand; I know that very well, said Mrs. Hilyard; but you perceive you are speaking to a woman who has died twice. Coming to life is a bitter process, but one gets over it. If you ever should have such a thing to go through with and survive it, she added, giving him a wistful glance, I should like to tell you my experiences. However, I hope better things. You are very well looked after at Salem Chapel, Mr. Vincent. I think of you sometimes when I look out of my window and see your tabernacle. It is not so pretty as Mr. Wentworths at St. Roques, but you have the advantage of the curate otherwise. So far as I can see, he never occupies himself with anything higher than his prayer-book and his poor people. I doubt much whether he would ever dream of replying to what you told us to-night.
Probably he holds a Dissenting minister in too much contempt, said Vincent, with an uncomfortable smile on his lips.
Dont sneer never sneer no gentleman does, said his companion. I like you, though you are only a Dissenting minister. You know me to be very poor, and you have seen me in very odd circumstances to-night; yet you walk home with me I perceive you are steering towards Back Grove Street, Mr. Vincent without an illusion which could make me feel myself an equivocal person, and just as if this was the most reasonable thing in the world which I have been doing to-night. Thank you. You are a paladin in some things, though in others only a Dissenting minister. If I were a fairy, the gift I would endow you with would be just that same unconsciousness of your own disadvantages, which courtesy makes you show of mine.
Indeed, said Vincent, with natural gratification, it required no discrimination on my part to recognise at once that I was addressing
Hush! you have never even insinuated that an explanation was necessary, which
of that January night, it was not on the threshold of his mothers house.
CHAPTER X
the arrangements. In short, Mr. Raffles applauded everybody, and everybody applauded Mr. Raffles. After the chairman had concluded his speech, the hero of the evening gathered himself up dreamily, and rose from Phœbe Tozers side. He told them he had been gazing at them this hour past, studying the scene before him; how strangely they appeared to him, standing on this little bright gaslighted perch amid the dark sea of life that surged round them; that now he and they were face to face with each other, it was not their social pleasure he was thinking of, but that dark unknown existence that throbbed and echoed around: he bade them remember the dark night which enclosed that town of Carlingford, without betraying the secret of its existence even to the nearest village; of those dark streets and houses which hid so many lives and hearts and tragic histories; he enlarged upon Mrs. Hilyards idea of the sentiment of such a night, till timid people threw glances behind them, and some sensitive mothers paused to wonder whether the minister could have heard that Tommy had fallen into the fire, or Mary scalded herself, and took this way to break the news. The speech was the strangest that ever was listened to at a tea-party. It was the wayward capricious pouring forth of a fanciful young mind under an unquiet influence, having no connection whatever with the object, the place, or the listeners. The consequence was, that it was listened to with breathless interest that the faces grew pale and the eyes bright, and shivers of restrained emotion ran through the astonished audience. Mr. Vincent perceived the effect of his eloquence, as a nursery story-teller perceives the rising sob of her little hearers. When he saw it, he awoke, as the same nursery minstrel does sometimes, to feel how unreal was the sentiment in his own breast which had produced this genuine feeling in others, and with a sudden amusement proceeded to deepen his colours and make bolder strokes of effect. His success was perfect; before he concluded, he had in imagination dismissed the harmless Salem people out of their very innocent recreation to the dark streets which thrilled round them to the world of unknown life, of which each man for himself had some knowledge to the tragedies that might be going on side by side with them, for aught they knew. His hearers drew a long breath when it was over. They were startled, frightened, enchanted. If they had been witnessing a melodrama, they scarcely could have been more excited. He had put the most dreadful suggestions in their mind of all sorts of possible trouble; he sat down with the consciousness of having done his duty by Salem for this night at least.