‘Oh! You must not think about that,’ she said with a laugh; ‘you have a lot to do first, a lot more aventures to go through!’
As she spoke the light slid nearer again and settled upon the foot of the bed. His thoughts were evidently the same as spoken words to her. She knew all that passed in his mind, the very feelings of his heart as well. This was indeed companionship and intimacy. He remembered how she had told him all about it in the Crack weeks ago, before he realised who she was, and before he knew her face to face. And at the same moment he noticed another curious detail of her presence, namely, that the little torch—for so he now called it to himself—in passing before the mirror produced no reflection in the glass. Yet, if his eyes could perceive it, there ought to have been a refraction from the mirror as well—a reflection! Did he then only perceive it with his interior vision? Was his spiritual sight already partially opened?
‘That’s your ’terpretation of me—inside yourself,’ he caught her swift whisper in reply, for again she heard his thought; and he almost laughed out aloud with pleasure to notice the long word decapitated as her habit always was on earth. ‘In your thoughts I’m a sort of light, you see.’
The explanation was delightful. He understood perfectly. The thought of Nixie had always come to him, even in earthly life, in the terms of brightness. And his love marvelled to notice, too, that she still had the old piercing vision into the heart of things, and the characteristically graphic way of expressing her meaning.
The purring of the cats made itself audible. They were both ‘kneading’ the bed-clothes by his feet, as happy as though being stroked.
‘No, they don’t see,’ she explained the moment the thought entered his mind; ‘they only feel that I’m here. Lots of animals are like that. It’s the way dogs know ’sti’ctively if a person’s good or bad.’
Oh, how the animals after this would knit him to her presence! No wonder he had already found comfort with them that no human being could give.... The thought of his sister flashed next into his brain—the difficulty of helping her——
‘I tried to get at her before I came here to you,’ he heard, ‘but her room was all dark. It was like trying to get inside a cloud. She’s cold and shadowy—and ever such a long way off. It’s difficult to explain.’
‘I think I understand,’ he whispered.
‘You can get closer than I can.’