"Never."
"Then," said Edward, "you have crossed the ocean to some purpose! I have known such an instance here in this house. The person is still here! You know me, my friend, and you do not know me. To you I was a rich young American, with a turn for science and speculation. You made me your friend and God bless you for it, but you did not know all of that mystery which hangs over my life never to be revealed perhaps until the millennium of science you have outlined dawns upon us. The man who educated me, who enriched me, was not my parent or relative; he was my guardian. He has made me the guardian of a frail, sickly lad whose mystery is, or was, as complete as mine. Teach us to remember." The words burst from him. They held the pent-up flood that had almost wrecked his brain.
Rapidly he recounted the situation, leaving out the woman's story as to himself. Not to his Savior would he confess that.
And then he told how, following his preceptor's hints about vibration, he had accidentally thrown Gerald into a trance; its results, the second experiment, the drawing and the woman's story of Gerald's birth.
During this recital the professor never moved his eyes from the speaker's face.
"You wish to know what I think of it? This: I have but recently ventured the proposition publicly that all ideal faces on the artist's canvas are mind memories. Prove to me anew your results and if I establish the reasonableness of my theory I shall have accomplished enough to die on."
"In your opinion, then, this picture that Gerald drew is a mind memory?"
"Undoubtedly. But you will perceive that the more distant, the older the experience, we may say, the less likelihood of accuracy."
"It would depend, then, you think, upon the clearness of the original impression?"
"That is true! The vividness of an old impression may also outshine a new one."