“But,” Traherne said sadly, “his true self was hopelessly out of gear. The chain is broken, the machine lies out there—scrapped. Do you think that he was just that machine, and nothing else? I tell you, No!”
“But I don’t know,” she said drearily. “Anyway, Basil—if Antony leaves his—failings, you must leave behind your work. Do you want another life in which there is no work for you to do—no disease to be rooted out? Don’t tell me you don’t long to take your microscope with you wherever you may be going.”
“Perhaps there are microscopes waiting me there,” Traherne said slowly.
“Spirit microscopes for spirit microbes? You don’t believe that, Basil.”
“I neither believe nor disbelieve,” he told her. “In all we can say of another life we are like children blind from birth, trying to picture the form and colors of the rainbow.”
“If,” she persisted sadly, “we are freed from all human selfishness, shall I love my children more than any other woman’s? Can I love a child I cannot kiss, that cannot look into my eyes, and kiss me back again?”
“Oh,” he cried roughly, springing up as he spoke, “Lucilla, don’t! Don’t remind me of all we are losing! I meant to leave it all unspoken—the thought of him lying out there seemed to tie my tongue. But we have only one moment on this side of eternity. Lucilla, shall I go on?”
CHAPTER XLIII
“Shall I go on?”
He waited for her to say.