It was a few days later that Howard found himself sitting alone one evening after dinner, with his aunt.
"There is something that I want to talk to you about," he said. "No doubt Maud has told you all about her strange experience? She has described it to me, and I don't know what to say or think. She was wonderfully fine about it. She said she would not mention it again, and she did not desire me to talk about it—or even believe it! And I don't know what to do. It isn't the sort of thing that I believe in, though I think it beautiful, just because it was Maud who felt it. But I can't say what I really believe about it, without seeming unsympathetic and even rough; and yet I don't like there being anything which means so much to her, which doesn't mean much to me."
"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "I foresaw that difficulty, but I think Maud did right to tell you."
"Of course, of course," said Howard, "but I mean much more than that. Is there something really THERE, open to all, possible to all, from which I am shut out by what the Bible calls my hardness of heart? Do you really think yourself that a living spirit drew near and made itself known to Maud thus? or is it a beautiful dream, a sort of subjective attempt at finding comfort, an instinctive effort of the mind towards saving itself from sorrow?"
"Ah," said Mrs. Graves, "who shall say? Of course I do not see any real objection to the former, when I think of all the love and the emotion that went to the calling of the little spirit from the deeps of life; but then I am a woman, and an old woman. If I were a man of your age who had lived an intellectual life, I should feel very much as you do."
"But if you believe it," said Howard, "can you give me reasons why you believe it? I am not unreasonable at all. I hate the attitude of mind of denying the truth of the experience of others, just because one has not felt it oneself. Here, it seems to me, there are two explanations, and my scepticism inclines to what is, I suppose, the materialistic one. I am very suspicious of experiences which one is told to take on trust, and which can't be intellectually expressed. It's the sort of theory that the clergy fall back upon, what they call spiritual truth, which seems to me merely unchecked, unverifiable experience. I don't, to take a crude instance, believe in statues that wink; and yet the tendency of the priest is to say that it is a matter of childlike faith; yet to me credulity appears to be one of the worst of sins. It is incredulity which has disposed of superstition."
"Yes," said Mrs. Graves. "I fully agree with you about that; and there is a great deal of very objectionable nonsense which goes by the name of mysticism, which is merely emotion divorced from commonsense."
"Yes," said Howard, "and if I may speak quite frankly, I do very much respect your own judgment and your convictions. It seems to me that you have a very sceptical turn of mind, which has acted as a solvent upon a whole host of stupid and conventional beliefs. I don't think you take things for granted, and it always seems to me that you have got rid of a great many foolish traditions which ordinary people accept—and it's a fine attitude."
"I'm not too old to be insensible to a compliment," said Mrs. Graves, smiling. "What you are surprised at is to find that I have any beliefs left, I suppose? And I expect you are inclined to think that I have done the feminine thing ultimately, and compromised, so as to retain just the comfortable part of the affair."
"No," said Howard, "I don't. I am much more inclined to think that there is something which is hidden from me; and I want you to explain it, if you can and will."