had, science would find it out, because science can do anything possible in its own line. But it’s always the steel knife—always, always. You can’t tell why things exist, by taking them to pieces, can you?”

“No—no—that’s it.” The old man turned his head slowly from side to side. Then it trembled a little and lay still again. “And the short cut is to say there is no reason for things—that they’re all accidents, by selection.”

“Yes; that’s the short cut, as you say,” answered Katharine. “The trouble is that when we’ve taken it, if we don’t want to go back, we ought to want to go on to the end. Nobody will do that. They meet you with a moral right and wrong, after denying that there’s a ground for morality. I know—I’ve talked with a great many people this winter. It’s very funny, if you listen to them from any one point of view, no matter which. Then they all seem to be mad. But if one listens inside,—with one’s self, I mean,—it’s different. It hurts, then. It would break my heart to believe that I had no soul, as some people do. Better believe that one has one’s own to begin with, and the fragments of a dozen others clinging to it besides, than to have none at all.”

“What’s that?” asked the old man, opening his eyes with a look of interest. “What’s that about fragments of other people’s souls?”

“Oh—it’s what some people say. I got it from Mr. Griggs. Of course it’s nonsense—at least—I don’t know. It’s the one idea that appeals to one—that we go on living over and over again. And he says that in that theory there’s an original self, sometimes dormant, sometimes dominant, but which goes on forever—or indefinitely, at least; and then that fragments of the other personalities, of the people we have lived with in a former state, better or worse than the original self, fasten themselves on our own self, and influence its doings, and may put it to sleep, and may eat it up altogether—and that’s why we don’t always seem to ourselves to be the same person. But I can’t begin to remember it all. You should get Mr. Griggs to talk about it. He’s very interesting.”

“It’s a curious theory,” said old Lauderdale, evidently disappointed. “It’s an ingenious explanation, but it isn’t a reason. Explanations aren’t reasons—I mean, they’re not causes.”

“No,” answered Katharine, “of course they’re not. The belief is the cause, I suppose.”

The sick man glanced at her keenly and then closed his eyes once more. Katharine rose quietly and went to the windows to draw down the shades a little.

“Don’t!” cried Lauderdale, sharply, in his hoarse voice. “I like the light. It’s all the light I have.”

Katharine came back and sat down beside him again.

“I wasn’t going to sleep,” he said, presently. “I was thinking of what you had said, that belief was the cause. Well—if I believe in God, I must ask, ‘Domine quo vadis?’—mustn’t I? You know enough Latin to understand that. What do you answer?”

“Tendit ad astra.”

It was one of those quick replies which any girl who knew a few Latin phrases might easily make. But it struck the ears of the man whose strength was far spent. He raised his hands a little, and brought them together with a strangely devout gesture.

“To the stars,” he said in a whisper, and his eyes looked upwards.

Katharine rested her chin upon her hand, leaning forwards and watching him. An expression passed over his face which she had never seen, though she had read of the mysterious brightness which sometimes illuminates the features of dying persons. She thought it must be that, and she was suddenly afraid, yet fascinated. But she was mistaken. It was only a gleam of hope. Words can mean so much more than the things they name.

And a dream-like interpretation of the two Latin phrases suggested itself to her. It was as though, looking at the venerable and just man who was departing, she had asked of him, ‘Sir, whither goest thou?’ And as though a voice had answered her, ‘Starwards’—and as though her own eyes might be those stars—the stars of youth and life—from which he had come long ago and to which he was even now returning, to take new childish strength and to live again through the years. Then he spoke, and the dream vanished.

“I believe in Something,” he said. “Call it God, child, and let me pray to It, and die in peace.”